if you had a choice what special FX/Animation corporation would you wana work? ILM (jurassic park Star Wars ext.) Pixar ( Cars, Toy story, monster inc. ext) or Weta Digital ( Lord of the Rings, Narnia , Bridge to terabithia, King Kong(new version)) i would wana work at weta or ilm
I’ve heard bad things about ILM’s pipeline. Dunno about Weta’s. Other than that, work is work. I doubt either studio knows what they will be working on next. At ILM one day you could be working on Star Wars and the next Death Becomes Her (shudder) or a commercial for allergy spray with an annoying snot monster. Same deal for Weta I imagine.
I think it comes down to where you want to be and how you want to live. ILM is in San Francisco, one of the nicer places to live in the world if you like city living and you can afford it. I have heard they do not pay well (from someone who has worked there for years) and will try to have you living in poverty if they can.
Weta is in New Zealand. If you like countryside it could be a good place for you. If not, it’s probably slow as molasses out there and you could get bored quick. The cost of living is comparitively low though and, when I kept track of these things they were paying enough that they told employees not to let the locals know how well they were being paid. One guy I knew went from renting an apartment in Honolulu to renting a house in New Zealand.
But if you want to get anything out there, the shipping/import fees could be killer.
Well, for me it would be weta without a doubt…the combination of a great work ethic and gorgeous countryside would be just too much of a temptation.
ILM.
Pixar make crappy kid/family movies and I bet they have tours with kids and their dumb kid-loving families. Blech.
Australia (same as New Zealand in my book) has girls that look like Alltaken. Wait a minute, nobody ever said he was a guy. :eyebrowlift2: They have one or two pretty girls but there’s way too much open space, you’d never find them. People saying bonzer all the time and only being able to drink beer.
Actually it would be none of them. I’d go for a smaller studio that used Renderman and Shake like these guys: http://www.tweakfilms.com/. That way you get more input instead of just being a small cog in a big machine.
guess the same for me, and do notice that you might still end up colaboratively working together with big studios 
though if i really can only chose between the big studios, then it is a go with weta for sure 
Australia (same as New Zealand in my book) has girls that look like Alltaken. Wait a minute, nobody ever said he was a guy.
Hey! Watch what you’re saying. That’s very insulting to Australians. If Australia was the same as New Zealand all the Kiwis wouldn’t be living in Australia! So you best get a new book.
In fact, the only time we consider New Zealand to be part of Australia is when a kiwi becomes world famous - then they’re instant Aussies.
Shouldn’t this thread be in off topic?
well, this is a discussion, and its directly related to CG, or at least it was meant to be so i think News & Discussion should be fine?
Listen to Andy - He knows how to respect the “Land of the Long White Cloud”. That’s why he lives in the part of Australia farthest from it!
Us aussies would prefer to look to Animal Logic. The crew behind Happy Feet!
and what about Blur, Digital Domain, Square Enix, Framestore CFC ???
and many many smaller studios
Blender Institute!
I heared its first animation is gonna be just peachy…
Osxrules: Not to start a flamewar, but I have to defend Pixar. 
They never had “tours” until recently, and even then the impression I’ve got is that they weren’t cheap, and sure weren’t aimed at kids. In fact, to my knowledge, they’ve only had one official tour… ever.
Aside from that, the people at Pixar almost invented computer graphics, and they regularly develop ground-breaking solutions for each of their movies. If I remember correctly, the first time subsurf scattering was seen was in The Incredibles. We also have Catmul-Clark subdivion in Blender - partially invented by Ed Catmul (now President of Pixar).
As for Pixar’s films all being for kids, well… I don’t really consider them that way, but that’s just my opinion. I can’t make anybody like them, but I think people should at least know/respect how much they’ve contributed to the CGI industry.
Renderman… they also make Renderman.
Anyways, hopefully I haven’t offended anybody, I just had to respond when Pixar was accused of being a little-kid company.
Back on topic… Pixar, ILM, Weta? Well, I’d probably work for any of them if I could. They’ve all done fantastic things, and I imagine it’d be a lot of fun just to work for any company that had such a great reputation.
My book’s from 413 AD and written on Papyrus and I’ll be damned if I’m getting a new one.
Seriously you Aussies and Kiwis need to love each other more. Anything to stop the inbreeding. 
Haha, at least it doesn’t happen often.
To be honest I didn’t even know. I was just saying the atmosphere would be a very child-oriented one given that their entire output is family-oriented movies.
Yeah, I know that stuff but still, I feel they could branch out their creative activities more. I know their rendering engine is used for way more than they use it for but I wish they’d do cool stuff with it too. That’s why I wouldn’t want to work there. But they deserve complete respect for what they achieved.
Ok, Toy Story about kids and toys
A Bug’s Life about insects
Monsters Inc about Monsters and kids
Finding Nemo about a kid and his dad (family stuff)
The Incredibles about a family of superheroes
Cars about racing cars living the dream (completely Disney-fied)
It’s the style they use in the animation that makes it all so family friendly and Disney-like. I’m hoping with Sago on the new Blender movie we’ll finally get some grown up animation (even if it has pink bunnies in it). He should totally put short movies at the front like Pixar do too like that one with the guy inside another guy.
I mean when you go to see a film, you don’t go to watch Mary Poppins. I’m sure it has lessons for all of us but it’s a kids movie. There are hardly any adult oriented animated CG films and it’s severely limiting the genre. Final Fantasy was one of the few (yes, I know that flopped but that doesn’t make the idea bad).
Sure they’ve tried doing stylized CG like A Scanner Darkly and Renaissance but it’s not the same as a normal CG film.
I don’t know if anyone has seen Shrek 3 this year but my god it was just awful. Same as Happy Feet. It’s getting beyond a joke.
e.g take a script like Kill Bill and do it with CGI.
I have to agree that Pixar is a kiddie company. They are the cinema version of Playskool.
Kill Bill had a script?
At any of these companies, all us CG masters would start out doing scut work like match moving or rotoscoping anyway, so what’s the diff?
lol…
ILM is in San Francisco, one of the nicer places to live in the world if you like city living and you can afford it. I have heard they do not pay well (from someone who has worked there for years) and will try to have you living in poverty if they can.
Wait, ILM pays poorly? They’re part of massive movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars, and near the top of the industry… I would never think that they didn’t pay well.
Poor Blue Sky and Dreamworks SKG. They never get to join in the fun of any of the other studios. (Blue Sky is hiring right now by the way). Yay for menial labor!
the first time subsurf scattering was seen was in The Incredibles
ever seen LOTR?
and even if pixar make kids movies, i think it would be fun to be a part of – if i could get a little higher than “small cog” status
julz