Awesome! So let's start:
2011 - Moved to Canada.
- Animated.
2012 - Animated.
2013 - Moved to Calgary.
- Animated.
- Acted in professional theatre.
2014 - Animated.
- Acted in professional theatre.
2015 - Moved to Vancouver.
- Animated.
- Started dating the most amazing woman.
- Acted in professional theatre.
- Got the opportunity to go to Pixar.
- Met Animators that got me to animate.
- Got inspired beyond my wildest dreams.
That is a breakdown of my past 4 years. Okay, goodbye!... What?... You want to hear about my year? Sure!
The year was 2015, high school was nearing an end and my life was approaching its beginning. As I have been doing for the past three years, I spent the beginning of my summer acting at the Canadian Badlands Passion Play as a villager, roman servant, and hill yeller (I actually had a line in the play!). It is always a WONDERFUL experience being at the site and getting to learn more about and refine my skill as an actor. But you are here for animation aren't yah? and for Pixar! Well I'm getting there! After the play I did a lot of sitting around animating at home, and during one of my breaks, I was on Facebook, as you do, then I saw a post by the Animation Collaborative saying that they were having a free Demo reel review at their campus in Emeryville in August. I thought... cool! That's awesome for student in the Bay Area... I passively like the post and went on with my day. This year (2015) my brother turned 21 and I turned 18! So my parents said, hey! If you could go anywhere this year, where would you go, and my eyes widened... I quietly said, "So like... even California?" And my parents said, "Yeah! of course!" And I said, "... cool" whilst on the inside I was starting to sweat and I really was quite excited! So we commenced a process of persuasion and such and we finally got the tickets to go to California! We decided to stay in Sacramento and for those of you unaware of the of the geography of California, Sacramento is an hour and a half away from San Francisco which is RIGHT next to Emeryville. AnYwHoS... We decided to take a field trip to San Fran the day of the portfolio review. We thought we could make a day out of the whole experience and so we did! Now here is where stuff gets interesting!
So the review is at 6:00 pm that Friday evening. And we left in the morning at around 9 and we thought, "Hey! We're going to hit Emeryville before San Fran so we might as well drop by the studio and pay it a photo visit!" As we approached the studio I started to shake, I couldn't believe that I was actually about to see the gates of the studio which made my childhood! We got out of the car and we walked up to the gates, "Just like the pictures!" I said and we went up to the guard at the gate and we decided to ask if we could go in! Obviously, we knew that we wouldn't be able to get in but we thought we'd ask nonetheless. So we went up and asked, and the man just said, "Oh! Do you have your card?" and we stared blankly at him and we shook our heads. He said, "Oh I'm sorry guys we don't actually do drop in visits and stuff!" He was so very nice about it and we completely understood! We said goodbye and were walking away. As I was walking away I felt something overwhelming my insides and I spun around walked back and told the guard, "Sir, I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to work here someday!"
"Buddy! That's great! You work towards that! I work here and let me tell you, it doesn't matter whether you're a janitor or a CEO, they treat you equally! I love working here!"
I walked away feeling so... Mixed! I felt so satisfied! Of course I wanted to go in but I ACTUALLY GOT TO TALK TO A PIXAR EMPLOYEE! That was enough for me!
So! The we left and did our touristy thing in San Fran looking at sights and driving that bridge thingy and we finally got to point where we decided to start heading back to Emeryville! We left at 4:00 pm thinking we would have PLENTY time! We started driving and we hit a TINY bit of traffic...
4:00-4:15-4:30 still in traffic! No problem! We thought, we still have an hour and a half.
4:45-5:00-5:30 STILL in traffic! I started to get nervous wondering if this was even going to be a possibility anymore!
5:45 and I'm feeling N-E-R-V-O-U-S!
6:10 and we finally arrive! We dash inside and I go to the front desk and the lady says, "Are you here for animation?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Awesome!" So I write my name down on the sign up sheet and we start waiting for the reviews to happen. I walked around the Animation Collaborative campus and it was surreal! Seeing artwork on the walls and then having Michal Makarewicz walk past me saying, "Hey man!" was like... the greatest moment in my life! Then walking past a room seeing Royce Wesley, Tal Shwarzman, Aaron Hartline, Peter Kelly, Victor Navone... I almost passed out... I happened to be in the 3rd (out of three) group being critiqued and when our group was called, my throat closed up! We walked in and I sat down with the first fellow that critiqued me, introduced myself and told him a little bit and we plugged in my USB and got to the critiquing. He seemed really impressed especially with my age in comparison with my experience and it felt like 2 seconds before my time was up. I got up and he got up with me and he said, "Man, if you could stick around till the end of the night and try to show your work to one of these other guys, you really should try because you really have potential here and I think you should really get others to see your work!" That was the end of that!... Or so I thought! Later on, a lady made an announcement that since they finished a lot earlier than they expected to, everybody was going to be able to go for a second round of critiques! I got SOOOO Excited! There was a specific animator who I really truly admired and I was looking to beeline for his station when we were called! Our group was summoned and I stood at the front of the line of group 3 in order to get in first to have one of my heroes critique my presentation! I walked him and introduced myself and he asked me one question, "Why animation?" I chuckled and said, " Do you want the short answer or the long answer?"
"Um, let's for the whole thing!"
I went ahead to tell him why I loved animation and where I intended to go with it!
"Oh, okay, cool! Let's see your work!" We watched my demo reel and afterwards, he sat silent for a second, and took his headphones and said, "How old did you say you were again?" He told me that he was very impressed and that my work showed that I truly was in love with animation and then he did the unthinkable... He asked me if I'd ever been inside Pixar, like INSIDE! And I said no, and he said, "Okay... Okay... When are you going back to Canada?"
"Oh, um... On Monday"
"Okay... okay... I'm going to take you!"
My jaw dropped and I said, "E-e-excuse me sir?"
"Yeah I'm gonna take you!"
So after about 20 minutes, we left the AC and we went across the street to the studio and he made my childhood dream come true! Just setting foot in the studio was something that I had lived out in my dreams! I went home that night a happy, happy camper, and a very inspired young man!
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