Catching up and switching gears.

It's been a little while since my last post- things are getting pretty crazy over here at Pixar.. Many of the people on my team have moved on to our next show- UP, which means there is now a grand total of 5 Character TDs left on Wall-E (including myself). I'm pretty excited because there's still a great deal of work left to be done on the film, and I'll have my hand in most of it.

The bg character project I led is at its end, and I will be moving on to doing hair (something only a handful of people at the studio know, which will be a great opportunity to secure myself a permanent position here). I'm currently poking around some local schools to consider transferring to in the event that Pixar tells me that they want to keep me on, but that I have to finish school first. The potential game plan is that I could finish my degree here, and continue working part time so as to not lose my seat in the company. Ideally I would get an agreement letting me finish at NYU with a secured position waiting for me when I return, but this isn't a half-bad solution to have in your back pocket. I will be meeting with some people from the animation department at SFSU in the coming weeks to review my portfolio and determine where I fall in their program.

The summer interns are getting ready to leave, and the other night I went out to San Francisco with Victor Navone and a few other animators for some sushi to say our goodbyes to one of the animation interns. It'll be strange when they're gone- they've made coming in on weekends much more enjoyable.

Speaking of animation- I began doing a test with Helen Parr from The Incredibles. I'm hoping to have it done soon so I can include it in the materials I show to the schools around here. And I've also started doing a maquette for a project that a few of us Pixar-folk are collaborating on. Jerome Ranft and Greg Dykstra set us up with the appropriate materials. I'll post the finished sculpt and any helpful notes they gave me as they come. Till then~