Instructor Interviews
Jeremy Engleman
3D Painter, DreamWorks Feature Animation
Jeremy Engleman grew up in Denver, Colorado, and comes to Gnomon with nearly 14 years of industry experience. His knowledge is extremely beneficial while his humor makes every class memorable.
"As a kid, I couldn't make up my mind whether I liked programming my TI-99/4A or drawing my comic "Spider-man vs. Godzilla" better. Enter Lightwave 3D, the love child that I caught those Capulets and Montagues of my childhood interests making out in the back seat of my dad's '76 Toyota. Art and science have always groped and then denied knowing each other, but the field of 3D computer graphics is an undeniable union of the two. It has its mother's eyes and its father's pointy head."
- How long have you been in the business?
I started working as a 3D artist in 1993 or so as an intern doing flying logos and instructional animations for medical equipment. I didn't get my first full-time job until 1995, when I went to work for Starwave as an artist for their Sting and Peter Gabriel multimedia projects.
- What have you been doing lately?
I work in the feature animation business. Most recently I've worked for DreamWorks Animation on Flushed Away and Bee Movie. Currently I work for Starz Animation as a 3D visual development artist on an upcoming feature animation called Sheepish.
- What made you decide to teach at Gnomon?
I'd always kind of suspected that I'd like to teach, you know, impart my years of experience on fresh-faced, eager, young minds. Plus it's nice to have a 3-hour therapy session where I'm the boss after the 10-hour day I just worked as the servant. So when Alex Alvarez approached me to teach there, I was happy to give it a shot.
- What curriculums do you focus on?
I am teaching Lighting and Rendering I and II. I really try to focus on the aspects of the art and production experience that reading the manual won't tell you. I talk a lot about the stuff that really kind of surprised me when I went into production. It's the stuff I wish someone had told me.
- What is a favorite anecdote from the classroom?
I always tell my students that I'd rather them not websurf at their machines during class, they have plenty of time to do that at home. So invariably right after I tell them to put their internets down, some students are still looking at web pages. They think I can't see them because their machines face away from me. But I'm no dummy. What they don't really think about is that in every classroom there are a bunch of framed posters hanging on every wall. Framed posters with highly-reflective- glass. So this is when I start lecturing them on the practical applications of raytracing, using my ability to see the guy surfing the Shakira website as an example of how reflections work. No matter how smart you are, I think it's pretty hard to look at Shakira and listen to me at the same time. Shakira wins every time.
- What is your teaching method?
My classes are a lot of lecture, and I know that can be a long three hours. So I try to involve the students as much as I can. I give a lot of examples, I ask questions, and I encourage questions to be asked of me. We work on some examples in class, and there is a lot of homework. I try to keep it fun, so I joke around with the students, but I'm not freaking Patch Adams or anything. That'd be annoying.
- What would you tell someone who is considering a career in 3D?
Don't neglect the core principles of imagemaking. color, composition and shell scripting.
- How do you feel about the evolution of education and CG?
I think it has really gone from teaching the manual, to teaching all the stuff that isn't in the manual. I'm too old to have had computer art classes, so all that stuff was really trial and error back then. I have a permanent lump on my head from banging it on the desk and smashing it into walls. That is the kind of stuff that we can teach you to avoid, and then you won't have a head as lumpy as mine.
- Can you give an example of what you would teach to avoid a lumpy head?
I do try and teach a process of debugging. There is always some damn thing that goes wrong when you are working with this software and these machines. They never work as reliably as they should or as well as we'd like. So if you have the skillset to try and figure out what went wrong and where, you'll feel less like ripping off your shirt and Hulk-smashing everything in sight.
- What changes have you seen in the field during your career?
Fundamentally, nothing. Sure we have some newer technologies that make certain things easier. The problem is that a lot of times new technologies open new cans of worms. But the core paradigms are really all the same.
- What do you see as the future in entertainment?
That is a really tricky question right now. There is no doubt that entertainment is always in demand. But with heavy saturation in the box office and on television, new methods of distribution beginning to be viable, the future of entertainment is unclear. Big budget studio films will certainly have a place. But is there a critical mass at which projects/studios/box offices begin to crumble under their own weight and expectations, and fragment into smaller, more niche or localized entertainments? Can and should these behemoths be sustained?
- What makes a student stand out?
Hard work and good decisions.
- What special qualities are needed for a career in entertainment?
Brown nosing and contract negotiation.
- What can you suggest a student do to prepare before entering Gnomon?
The thing I see the most students struggle with is the image-making side of the art. Hey, I was grandfathered in when any old Joe who knew that the mouse wasn't a footpedal could get a job. Except now that I think about it one of the best programmers in the industry actually does use his mouse with his foot. No lie, he puts his mouse on the floor, takes off his sock and points and clicks with his foot and toes. But anyway, it ain't like that no more, it is far more competitive now and you really need to stand out. That means not only knowing how to push the buttons on the computer, but having great visual skills. So the number-one thing you can do before you enter Gnomon is to train your eye as much as you can. That generally means taking some traditional classes, painting, sculpture, and photography. Gnomon offers some of these, but visual training is not a rapid process.
- What about your production background do you try to impart to your students?
I try to impart that production is a different kind of working than they are used to. There is a whole pipeline to be concerned with and working with crews of hundreds is very different than working individually. So I try to teach things like render etiquette, efficiency and some production procedures that they might not expect. O yeah, and the core principles of lighting, which I try to teach in a way that is applicable to other renderers - not just the ones we use in class.
- What have you imparted that has resulted in a student success?
I hope I've imparted a strong work ethic, visual artistry, computational virtuosity, and technical dexterity. But I can't guarantee any of that.
- What makes a good portfolio?
Great imagery, pure and simple. In the end, the strength of the imagery is what will stick in the reviewers' minds. Now, that implies achieving both a technical and visual prowess, and demonstrable, visible skill. Knock them over with imagery, then, when you go in for the interview, you can talk shop.
Interview by Renee Dunlop
