My moment of joy was all too brief thanks to a sudden realisation that I was lacking a PC and on top of that, I had just accepted an extra shift. what followed was an extremely frantic series of phone calls to friends in hope of gaining a PC for a couple of hours. After passing that barrier I was confronted with a larger one "hang on a minute, I have no idea how to use Maya.." I spent a good 4-5 hours learning the very basics of where things were in Maya. By this point it was in the early hours of the morning and having a shift the following afternoon I left it for the night (in hind sight, this is where I probably went wrong). Getting up as early as I could I headed back to my friends house once more to plug away and to my surprise, under the pressure of a looming deadline I found myself enjoying myself. I had but 5 hours to do the best I could and actually managed to have a good time. After almost falling flat on my face once more at the prospect of rendering this cobbled animation I overcome the final obstacle and sent away my attempt.
By the end of my shift I had received a reply which left criticisms and areas they wished me to improve upon and re-send. Which I did once again with the time constraints caused by my current employment.
The end result, I was beaten by a competitor, not surprising really, given that they were able to complete the task using a full week and most likely their own facilities.
Despite my defeat, I enjoyed looking back on the last few days and just absorbed what was left of a well needed adrenaline rush. They offered to keep me on file in the event they needed more staff, but unfortunately they never responded to another email after that point. Thinking back though and the whole point of this post is that I missed out on a really good opportunity, because I didn't go all in on it. So I wasn't comfortable pulling a sicky and to be honest I doubt I ever would but at least now I have my priorities straight.
When I look at the last 12-18 months I realise that I have only applied to 3 jobs really. Which isn't particularly aspirational. I remember after my last defeat thinking that I wouldn't apply until I had my showreel shining. But I haven't actually gotten that far since have I?
The time for sitting on my hands has past, hopefully this half decade of mental block has lifted and this coming year will see me in worthy employment... No i'll go one further, I will sooner quit than continue my current post and free up more time to persue that dream job.
To round of this post with a bit more nostalgia (for me at least) heres last years lip sync test:
and heres the revised version:
As you can see, they asked me to remove the moustache, it was daft of me to leave it on to Begin with, but to be honest I didn't no how to shave the rig, nor did I have the time to find out how. But find out I did. They also had me remove all head motion, they literally wanted it down to the motion motions or "phoenemes".
End review, considering the little time I had on this and how much I enjoyed it. I think lip sync, could be my thing, or my way in. I suck right now but this felt relatively easy and it can only get better!
-Paul Out
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