This past October we were delighted to have Andrea Goh, Technical Director and one of last summers TD Interns at Pixar. She shared thoughts from preparation to her experience as an intern.
Since it's applying season, we thought we'd pass along some of her wisdom.
Keep Learning & Improving
- Have a positive mindset and attitude
- Take Control of choosing your classes — Don’t just take what your advisor tells you too
- Challenge yourself to improve your skills — try something new!
- Don’t give up on solving problems — Do everything you can before going to someone else for help.
- ** Scripting in any CG position makes you more valuable
Be Active in the Industry.
- Attend conventions, Tea Time, workshops and share your work
- Educate yourself with the latest industry news
- Talk to people in the industry
- Always make sure your Linked and Resume are up to date
Be Genuine, Be Nice.
- Be true to yourself
- Collaboration is greater than competition
- Be a team player
- BE NICE!
- Drop your ego, nobody’s better than anyone, we’re just trying to make films!
Apply With Personality.
- Plan your pieces in your reel. Do every project with the intention of it being on your reel
- Work on collaborative projects! - Doing different roles.
- Have experience and projects on your resume
- Interest/Additional info on you're resume. Pixar is a place with very active people that is different then work, what are your hobbies!
- Show your personality in your coverlet
- Have a clean and straightforward website.
- ** Plan enough time for yourself to prepare and apply with full satisfaction
Final Words.
- Always present a problem with a possible solution
- never bash your own work during a presentation
- nobody wins until all your teammates reach the finish line
- Share and bring out the best in people
- Never stop learning cool stuff.
The Pixar Undergraduate Program (PUPs) is a 10 week long internship where, each week you do a different part of the pipeline. Modelling, Shading, Lighting, Rigging, Camera, Set Dressing, FX. With 1 Group Project & 1 Final Project. Not only is the PUPs program a great way to learn the technical side of being a TD, but it is 10 weeks of non stop learning, and a great bonding experience. The PUPs created their final project from start to finish in one week. They had to come up with different concepts and narrow it down until they had a collective idea and were able to present and get approval from their mentors.
You can find some of the past PUP's reels here:
