How To Find Jobs In Computer Graphics

In spring and early summer, college students are graduating across the United States. Coincidentally, studios are busy posting new job opportunities. Graduating nearly a year ago and still exploring full-time employment, I have grown accustomed to discovering new leads for landing that critical job. I want to share a number of familiar and unfamiliar websites that provide computer graphics artist the ability to find a robust volume of career opportunities.

As a side note, for those who are graduating these upcoming months, please make an honest judgement of your work. If the projects provided in your portfolio do not measure up to professional standards, be patient and build upon the skills and knowledge necessary to land that coveted first-job. As an example, view my progression from just over the past year.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great resource when compiling a resumè. It brings the old paper style resumè to the 21st century with the ability to share more information, experience, and abilities to a potential employer. On top of that, establishing connections with colleagues and personal friends boosts the effectiveness of LinkedIn. Personal endorsements and recommendations are great additions to an already stellar application.

LinkedIn  has a great "Jobs" tab; where job titles can be entered along with a preferred location. The results are not 100% accurate, but for the most part, most positions are spot-on. Many companies also have the feature that imports the LinkedIn profile of an applicant that replaces uploading a separate resumè. This saves time and stress, especially when hours are spent applying for positions. 

Headhunters are now more popular then ever on LinkedIn. Take the time to dress-up your profile. First impressions are very important!

Johnson Jobs

A simple yet effective job alert application, Johnson Jobs is an easy way to receive job alerts. To set up job alerts, supply the information for job titles, include industry skills, and location. 

The results can be hit or miss, but the daily alerts dramatically improve the probability of landing a job. These alerts are common with these platforms, but the accessibility makes Johnson Jobs great.

VFX World Map

The VFX World Map is a great resource for any artist in the computer graphics industry. This is a world map of most of the studios in gaming, commercial, film, animation, and everything in-between. Most smaller studios are not included in the VFX World Map.

Creative Cow Career Center

Creative Cow is a familiar stomping ground for those in computer graphics. Creative Cow provides high-end information on their message boards and tutorials. It only makes sense that Creative Cow also has a great job posting mechanic. The job forum includes positions that include captioning, interactive, screenwriters, and training. The depth of the system is offered by few outlets, and the function goes deeper by including career levels to the equation.

Additional Resources

Here are a few more resources that will be found helpful!

CGMeetup

Entertainment Careers

VFX Jobs

Twitter

 

Much Love From Adobe

Reports have come out outlining the new and exciting features for Adobe's platforms. Updates for Adobe's CC collection are more or less bug fixes and minor interface edits. The latest update is expected to add major performance improvements and implementation for virtual reality. Adobe is certainly attempting to stay relevant and up-to-date with their software, and steering away from criticisms of their past mistakes of not keeping pace with other software and trends.

Adobe's Products Are A Cohesive Experience

Adobe Premiere Pro

No doubt, the most impressive update is VR capability. Premiere Pro now has a "field of view" mode that allows video editors to choose between mono, stereo, and anaglyph frame options.

Editing has also been drastically modified to increase the speed of the workflow for editors. Premiere Pro now allows footage to be edited; while still being imported and read by the software. 8K footage is now supported, and can be edited more easily by switching between "proxy" and full-res footage. This saves processing time by using scaled down footage instead of uncompressed footage during editing.

The much appreciated Lumetri Color tools are also improved. HSL (hue, saturation, and lightness) color tool now adds more color references for color correcting. Personally, the color-kit already within Premiere gets the job done, but more support is always welcome.

The last update is encoder support for outputting video to Twitter. With the popularity of video on Twitter, this makes for a nice addition to Premiere.

Adobe After Effects

For many motion graphics and visual effects artist, After Effects has always been a love-hate relationship. The ability to create almost anything within After Effects receives much praise, but the slow RAM preview render and performance hiccups cause headaches. Adobe has announced GPU support via Mercury Engine. In classic After Effects fashion, this update only effects audio, gaussian blur, and the new Lumetri Color tool. The Lumetri Color tool is now in After Effects, and will most likely replace workflow tools such as the curves, hue & saturation, and exposure for most mainstream projects.With the power of the GPU accelerated addition, less time will be spent waiting for After Effects to render out a frame.

Adobe has incorporated 3D export options, and Cinema 4D Lite support has also increased in After Effects. For those who do not already know, Cinema 4D Lite comes with After Effects CC. For more information regarding Cinema 4D Lite and After Effects, check out Adobe's Cinema 4D Lite overview.

Adobe Audition

Audition now includes the "Essential Sound" panel. This new feature makes editing and adjusting levels easier for audio novices. For most individuals, this addition will provide much needed support. Editing high fidelity audio is complicated, and requires experience and education that most users, including myself, just do not have.

Adobe Character Animator

Character Animator also receives love with better animation integration. The puppet tag allows for better facial tracking. The relationships between parent and child elements are improved. 

The Facial Tracking Makes Animator Unique

Personally, my experience with Character Animator is very limited. I have heard great responses about the puppet facial tracking ability. Learn more about Character Animator on Adobe's website.

Adobe Stock

Adobe is pushing hard for their new service. Adobe Stock has incredible stock photographs and video, and they're expanding the quality by offering 4K photos and footage. Integration within After Effects and Premiere are now part of the update as well. My opinion of Adobe Stock is it is a nice idea, but too pricey. I get the impression Stock is built for commercial use and less for individual artists. Maybe tweak the pricing Adobe?

Adobe Stock Is Attractive But Too Expensive

Final Thoughts

These updates are expected to come out Summer 2016. Artists who regularly use Adobe's platform will welcome these changes. Performance has always been an issue with Adobe products. It is a breath of fresh air hearing Adobe making performance issues a priority. 

I am most excited that Premiere is getting a drastic improvement for editing footage, and receiving 4K treatment. Because of Adobe's love and support for Premiere, more production studios are embracing Premiere as their go-to application for video editing, and even color correcting.

Adobe is certainly on the path of improving the performance of all their applications, and this is a step in the right direction. Keep making it possible for artists to create with the freedom and tools necessary to move the creative world forward.