On Deck: The Toughest Term Yet

Term 3 has come to a close and I have a three-day weekend to enjoy before getting back to work on what has been hyped as the new toughest term in the program, Term 4. The reason? Term 4 stacks the entire pre-production cycle for our final projects on top of a standard course load (and if you've been keeping up, a standard course load here can become hectic in a hurry).

There is much to look forward to. I will be learning how to build machinima (in-game cinematics) in the story stream while continuing to build my skills with UDK. I will get to fully test my abilities to guide my new team, and I will have my two favourite instructors—Chris Mitchell and Olivia Bogacki—back this term to improve my processes, expand my horizons, and tell me what to do if I lose my mind. 

With so much work to do it would be easy to relax a day too many and fall behind, but I keep tabs on the students who have come before; their advice usually constitutes the very practical "be proactive and work hard." I'm about as ready as I can be.

Over this break I have a list of 10 priorities that I want to take care of before I start again on Monday at 9:00AM. One of the lowest-priority items is posting what you are now reading, but when I have a lot to do I like to knock a few lighter items out of the park to build momentum for the tougher items. Here are a few of them.

1. Apply for the Associate Producer job at Irrational Games. http://irrationalgames.com/studio/careers-at-irrational/production-associate-producer/

2. Hold a LiveFire Studios meeting to discuss our priorities heading into T4.

3. Spend three hours each on making matinées and editing materials in UDK.

4. Get Pistol Reef internet-ready with the help of my Flash team.

5. Go through the business cards I collected this past term and contact the industry professionals to thank them for their time and establish connections.

You'll have noticed that some of those items are multi-parters, particularly applying for that very appealing job with Ken Levine and Co. Applying for that job involves updating a resume that will be so different from the previous iteration that I wonder if I shouldn't just start all over. Many new skills, many new featured projects, and even a new career direction. Stack a cover letter on top and you have a lot of work.

The only qualification I am missing is that I haven't shipped at least one title, but my years of experience as a manager could combine with the very targeted experience I am earning now in school to provide a strong case for equivalency. Without fooling myself, there's a possibility that I would be considered as a candidate. I don't really expect to get a call back, though. 

It might make sense to hire me on paper, but if that was all it took I would have been hired at BioWare almost 10 years ago. No, I'm doing the work to get a leg up on the job hunt. I will be actively looking for work from here until I graduate. For that I will need business cards, an updated resume, and good portfolio pieces.

I mentioned the job application to one of my peers in the program—an artist named Jay—and he asked me what I would do if they offered me the job. After some discussion I realized that the only thing I could do would be to ask them to start my contract with them after school was done. Not only do I want to finish the program here and earn my diploma (with an honors average of 90+), but my team is relying on me to work my ass off over the next six months.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Thanks for stopping by.