Digital Voices Workshop

EARL CABUHAT

February 9, 2018

Questions:

• Did your parents support your career path?

• How do you handle people that are hard to work with?

• Do you have any advices for students who are in post high or are graduating this June?

Our first DV Workshop guest is Earl Cabuhat. He is a Senior Motion Graphic Designer for CBC. Earl was born in Winnipeg. He went to Robertson College and Red River College to learn about animation and motion graphics. Today, he is thinking about transitioning again to animation since it was his dream to be an animator. His mom was very supportive about his career path, and he's very thankful about it. He also talked about how he worked at a calling centre for 3-4 years before he went to RRC, which helped improve his soft skills since he mentioned that he wasn't that great at communicating growing up. Earl Cabuhat is really inspiring. He mentioned, "test the waters that might add value to the future", which is basically to get out of your comfort zone and experiment with different types of mediums because you'll never know that these things might be useful in your future. According to Earl, it is important to us that we gain experience over time and to not compare our work to other people's work. Instead of being insecure about it, find a way to improve it and from there you will eventually find satisfaction. He mentioned that the Social Media is important for us to take on so that other people can see your work. Overall, this workshop was really inspiring and it is nice to hear his personal story and how he got to where he is today.

PHYLLIS LAING

February 21, 2018

Questions:

• How do you balance work and family time?

• How were you able to take of your kids in the beginning?

• How do you make a good story?

Our second DV Workshop guest is Phyllis Laing. She is a Film Producer and the president of her own company, Buffalo Gal Pictures. She's from Manitoba. In her early years, she lived in the countryside and her dream was to be a writer. She is really passionate about literature. Eventually, she had to move to the city for her career. Phyllis is really inspiring because she is really determined about her job and was able to balance it with her family. In the past, her company Buffalo Gal Pictures was made by a group of women. It is really inspiring to hear the story of how her company came to where it is now. It is also interesting that she gets more than 400 emails a day.

DOUG MORROW

March 1 & 2, 2018

Questions:

• How long does it take to finish sfx makeup?

• Do you talk to the actors/actress when you apply makeup to them?

• What made you go on this career path?

Our third workshop guest is Doug Morrow. He specializes in special effects make up and has done a lot of work for movies and tv shows. Growing up, he was really into sfx and he grew up in Manitoba. During our stay with us, we had an opportunity to learn and attempt to do sfx makeup. For two days, we were playing with liquid latex. On the first day, we set the liquid latex to dry on the table and then added holes, scar-like textures on it. The next day, he demonstrated how to apply it to our skin and how to make it look flesh-like by adding value to the dried latex to make it look more realistic. We also added liquid blood and thick blood to make it look gorrreeyyy. It was really nice to have him teach us these things, and was easy to understand/follow. It was the most fun I've had so far in DV since I was able to get out of my comfort zone.

KIM BURNS

March 8, 2018

Questions:

• Any advices for people who are about to graduate or post high students?

• How long have you been working on your children's book?

• What made you decide to go on this career path?

Our fourth DV Workshop guest is Kim Burns. She works as a Concept Artist and she currently works at VFS. Kim really wanted to be a storyteller, so she applied to VFS (Graduated in 2017) to learn about Concept Art. At the side, she has been working on a children's storybook for 3 months. She threw out a lot of information about making a concept. Kim said that adding silhouettes, and showing the personality of the characters to the turnaround sheet is key. Straights, Curves, and line weight also helps the viewer's eyes about its personality and mood. She said that it is important to learn about composition, "telling the viewers where they want to look". When it comes to brainstorming ideas, she is really loose and she doesn't like showing her sketchbook to other people, which spoke to me because I relate to this. She made us do some activities regarding concept art. She made us draw sceneries and characters with markers or pens only, no erasing, learning to sketch loosely at a set amount of time. Overall in this workshop, I learnt a lot more in how to improve concepts and since Concept Art is in my comfort zone, I had a lot of fun.

HESHAM HAMMOUD

March 14, 2018

Questions:

• What made you decide to go on this career path?

• How did you overcome your obstacles?

• How do you manage your schedule?

Our fifth DV Workshop guest is Hesham Hammoud. He is an actor and is a visual effects artist. He graduated in 2006 (high school), and from there, he had no idea what to do. He is very interested in Graphic Design, Programming, and animation but what stood up to him the most was visual effects. He started looking at VFS and worked 3 jobs to be able to take the course the he wanted. After he graduated in VFS (2012). He was an intern (3 week compositing work) at Rythm & Hues Studios. Life was going well until the company went bankrupt and he couldn't find a job. Desperate for money because there was no way he could pay rent and other necessities without a job, a friend told him about being an extra for the film, Halo. He forced himself to audition, got the job, and eventually found his love for acting. At one point in his life, he was confused whether he will pursue acting or visual effects. He found a way to do both, and now he has a rendering shift at night, and does auditions at daytime. He's been working with Zion Studios for 4 years now. He told us that we have to plan ahead just in case anything bad happens, and that you have to handle you way to this industry. Let everyone know that you exist and work hard for it, "I found the way to make myself valuable". No matter how many times he went down, he finds a way to get back up.

MELISSA BEST

April 23 & 24, 2018

Questions:

• Did your parents support what you wanted to do?

• What was your first project?

• Did you have a backup plan for your career?

Our sixth DV Workshop guest is Melissa Best, a VFX Artist. She worked on movies like Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Jungle Book, TRON, and many more (her work can be found on her IMDb profile). She was from Winnipeg and went to VFS to study Visual Effects. She mentioned that in her early years, Melissa went to a graphic design school, but she always wanted to be an animator. Her story is really inspiring and told our class a lot of valuable lessons. There were two quotes that she said that really motivated me and it was to "always challenge yourself, don't be comfortable", "reach out and never stop running". After the interview, she looked at our DV projects and gave us constructive criticisms.

On the second day, former Sisler High Student, Kara, showed our class the projects that she is working on in VFS and Melissa reviewed it in front of us. It was nice seeing and hearing the student-teacher conversation. After that, we did a little activity with Melissa using the program Nuke. At first I felt really intimidated with the program as there was so much things going on, but by the end of the period I learned a lot of cool stuff. Mel's demonstration was really clear and it was fun working with her.

LAWRENCE LEVY

April 26, 2018

Questions:

• Why did you continue working with Pixar if it had a bad reputation at the start?

• Do you have any advice for the students?

• How was your experience working with Steve Jobs?

Our sixth DV Workshop guest is Dr Lawrence Levy, former CFO of Pixar
(1994-2006), Co-founder of Juniper Foundation (January 2003 - present). He studied Law in Harvard Law School in the past. The workshop begins with Dr Levy telling us his story on how he met Steve Jobs, the budding of their crazy friendship, and his journey to Pixar, which was a failing graphics company. It all started when Steve Jobs called him on the phone and told him about the company. He mentioned that Pixar looked really beaten up and everything was falling apart but he still decided to invest his time on it. At first, he wasn’t excited to work for this company because it was screwed in the business aspect of it, but when he saw the film that they were working on, Toy Story, he got captivated by their creativeness. He saw that there was something good in this company no matter how many red flags there were and continued working with them, "somewhere in this building there is magic happening." This workshop made me feel really inspired and one of the things that he said that stuck to me is to “spend time studying the art of making good stories”, and it really motivates me to keep on going with what I do and to never stop learning.