Elliot Stammers - Internship diary @ Double Negative
Diary of an Intern
What an incredible year it has been! I can hardly believe that just one year ago I was at university awaiting the results of the cgCoach awards. I would never have believed that one year on I would be working as a Rigging TD for Double Negative.
First Impressions
Right from the first day of the internship I was entranced! After a morning of induction and a tour of the buildings we were each taken to our own workstations where I met with the rest of the Rigging team. It had always been my impression that anyone working in the visual effects industry must be very pressured, always working late nights to meet tight deadlines but it turns out that wasn't the only assumption I was wrong about. Everyone one of them was delighted to spend time explaining what they were working on and I immediately felt part of the team.
As the week progressed my astonishment only grew when I was invited to attend lectures. At work! They covered a range of topics from the DNeg pipeline and in-house tools to software courses and anatomy lectures! I realised then, that your education doesn't end when you start work. It quickly became apparent to me that working in this industry is an enormous privilege.
Learning the ropes!
It wasn't long before I felt pretty settled in the rhythm of the job. Taking advantage of the free kitchen I enjoyed good breakfasts and fruit juice every morning and since my workstation was mixed in with
animators and creature artists I was lucky enough to meet a lot of different people. Watching the animators act out their scenes down on 'all-fours' and giving each other feedback was very entertaining to watch. It occurred to me a real testament to the importance of communication in this job and being able to respond to constructive criticism. What further impressed me what just how friendly everyone seemed to be! Even just the range of different cultures and backgrounds from which everyone comes makes for a really diverse and pleasant atmosphere.
I was working with my three Rigging mentors who had tasked me with developing a Python tool used in the generation of muscle patches. At first, the idea of writing any such tool sounded a little overwhelming given my limited experience but once I began working on it step by step and regularly seeking feedback from my mentors, my confidence steadily grew with every small success until I was ready to attend Rigging dailies!
Dailies
Riggers it seems, have several types of dailies; one (perhaps more traditional) session for quality control, where supervisors and producers can simply review our work on projector in one of the screening rooms, another called 'show and tell' where someone is nominated (often the developer) to demonstrate a new tool and then we offer ideas for improvement, and another dailies for general catch-up and feedback. Having attended all three of these I can safely say that I have rarely learnt as much in one hour as I did in those sessions! The breadth of knowledge each person contributes is astounding. Scrutinizing every detail of the work presented, everyone is asking questions and offering suggestions on everything from the creative judgments right down to the underlying mathematics. It is an amazing buzz just to witness their experience in action!
I'd always wanted to ask...
By the end of the second week things were really taking off. With every day I would pick up a new Maya hotkey or custom deformer, the vast array of DNeg tools were becoming more familiar and a lot of questions were being answered. Things like how multiple artists are able to work on the same assets simultaneously thanks to well regulated file referencing, and how we can bug fix rigs by tweaking the MEL and Python scripts that are used to generate them rather than manually modifying the rigs themselves. This way they can be rebuilt from scratch in a matter of seconds and any tweaks made to the rig at the start of the build process won't affect the deformers and constraints that are applied on top.
Another thing that had grabbed my attention was the chain of command - who's in control of all our work?
Well each department has a member of production who will liaise with supervisors to ensure that work is on track and everyone has work to do. The supervisors will in turn support the artists and review their work in dailies. Where comments are made for improvement, the notes are communicated to the artist to make changes and developments but if no further comments are required then the work may be given the 'approved' status. At this point every department will be able to pick it up from the asset library. This could be literally anything from animation curves and rigs to match-move cameras and renders! It's the consistent organization of this process that ensures everyone has access to the latest materials and that the quality of those assets remains high across all departments.
Monthlies
I was very excited to find on the first Friday of every month DNeg host what's called 'monthlies'. Which is a very special day for two key reasons:
Everyone is invited to the DNeg monthly screening! This is a reel of all DNeg's best work that month. Often featuring clips from films near release as well as any submissions to film festivals such as the VES and Academy Awards. And secondly, the day culminates in the partaking of free beer and pizza for everyone across all the buildings! The perfect chance to catch up with friends from other floors and meet new faces at the end of the week, a great deal of fun!
I am extremely grateful to cgCoach for this life changing experience and the great people I have met through it!
Patience pays off!
If there's one thing that I learnt from working the first six weeks on my muscle tool, it's that even a very small task can take a very long time to complete if you want it done thoroughly! So it came as little surprise to me when after a final demonstration of my now fully functioning muscle tool my mentor suggested it would next need optimization! Before I knew it I was being taught all kinds of techniques to speed up evaluation, bypassing unneeded shape nodes and enabling caching to speed up heavier calculations. But the real surprise came at the end of that week, when the Rigging lead came in for a talk.
"A job offer?!" It took the whole weekend to fully sink-in! What an incredible opportunity this internship had been, that the following Monday I would return to work as a Junior Rigger for Double Negative! And what a journey it has been since! From Costume Rigging to a Creature Effects Artist, I doubt many could say they look forward to Monday's as much as I have every day this year. From the wealth of talent to the overwhelming kindness of every person I have met here at DNeg, I am extremely grateful to cgCoach for this life changing experience and the great people I have met through it.
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