Third or in some cases Four Time's a Charm

Hey guys,

I sent my reel and paperwork off to Disney and Pixar today. I was going to wait untill later in April but I can see now that I'm not going to have anything from my short finished enough to put on my reel by then. Everything's good though, I'm on schedule and am doing a little over 1-00 a day. It feels awesome to track my progress/improvement.

I would like to get some really nice shots from my short though. I watched my reel today after burning it to a dvd and everything feels really old. Even my Scare Tactics shot doesn't look nearly as good as it did back in the summer. I'd like to create enough quality work to completely redo my reel by this time next year. At that point my short will be finished and I would have taken 3d character animation, which should give me some nice new 3d work. If I'm able to get an internship, I hope to be able to put some of the work I do from that on my new reel as well.

Speaking of which, after getting a bunch of awesome advice from my fellow AM alumni, I've decided that I wont be able to apply for unpaid internships. Since I'm a full time student I dont have a job which would have allowed me to save money that I could have used to pay for my stay in Cali. I dont have any relatives in the LA area, so I'd have to live on my own, which without money is impossible. I asked about working a second job but that wouldn't do. I'd want to put 120% into the internship and wouldn't be able to do that if I have to go off and work another 40 hours a week. Plus whatever job I'd have wouldn't be very good anyway and wouldn't pay enough to live off of. Lol, I doubt working a cash register for a few hours a day pays enough to afford rent, transportation and food.

As the result, many if not all of the smaller studios I've applied to/were going to apply to will no longer work. It's back to hoping on Pixar, Disney and Sony. I certainly dont have a problem with that, but this will be my third and in some cases fourth time applying there for the same position. I don't mind being persistent, but this is the last year I can do internships and I doubt my work will be good enough to get a job there this time next year, especially if I can't even intern there now. On the other hand, I'll be able to apply to the studios I had to skip because of the unpaid internships, since I'll be looking for a job instead...