Going to China!

Tomorrow morning I head to China for the ASIFA General Assembly. While there, we'll have the assembly and an in-person board meeting, and most of us will also give presentations to the Jilin Animation Institute. Mine will be on stop motion technologies here in Portland, with a focus on Laika's use of rapid prototyping technology in Coraline and Paranorman.
To be honest, I'm not sure what to expect, but it will be interesting, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to the trip.

I've been corresponding a bit with Malcolm Turner, of the Melbourne International Animation Festival. Apparently we've both been been asking for a while why there is so much great animation here in Portland, and the perennial answer ("because it rains so much") is highly unsatisfying. As Malcolm says, "it rains in lotsa places that produce truly dire animation".
I shared with him my pet theory, which goes a bit like this:
Basically I think that Portland has long been home to people who don't care much about conventional measures of success or status; people who are seeking wealth and fame tend to go somewhere else. Portlanders talk a lot about "quality of life", and "quality of life" seems to be code for "I don't want to work too much" - it goes with low cost of living, ease of access of public transportation, and a diversity of non-work activities. Because people don't work too much, they cultivate weird hobbies; unicycling and juggling and knitting and animation. Portlanders are expected to have side-projects; we welcome strange habits and (and this is important) are very tolerant of failure
So I think that atmosphere cultivates the culture that has become peculiarly "Portland" - we not only have an abundance of animation and film and music, but craft shows and pedicabs and artisinal beers and specialty foods and so forth. We aren't so supportive of the Arts-with-a-capital-A, but celebrate and support Crafts of all kinds, and our animators present themselves as craftspeople, as experimenters and tinkerers, as people in pursuit of the interesting.
He likes my theory, and maybe it will be more fleshed out and substantial in time for his Portland-specific feature in next years' festival.

Next week is the Best of the Northwest Animation Festival, but I won't be in town to catch it. If you are, it looks like a strong program.

And I'm working on bringing a program of the Polish School of Animation to Portland next year, partnering with the Northwest Film Center. It may be the US premiere of the program, which would be exciting.

I'm rereading if on a winter's night a traveler, by Calvino, and some Robert Frost poetry. Life is good.

Finding a creative job in Portland

I end up being asked for my insights from time to time, so here they are, in my official jobhunting in PDX post. I'll edit this post periodically as I think of new things.

Firstly, tweet tweet tweet. Portland is one of the epicenters of Twitter use, and every interactive agency, ad agency, creative company in town is on Twitter. So get yourself a twitter account and follow anyone at any company that looks remotely connected to what you want to be doing. Participate in the community: ask questions, share insights and information, and help people out. There are a bunch of good blog posts on Twitter use and etiquette, I'll edit them in here as I find them. Short answer: Get on Twitter. Lazy answer: search twitter for "jobs Portland" Better answer: Get on Twitter and participate.

Which leads me to: blog. Twitter is a great place to share your blog, so you can keep a blog about your personal and professional work/insights/challenges, and then tweet your posts. Keeping a blog creates a larger context around your resume (which you will also have on your blog) and your reel (which you will also have on your blog), and gives people some sense of you as a person. Portland is a small town, so personality matters (see participate in the community above).

I guess before you do any of these things, get interested in the kind of work that's being done here. There are a ton of interactive and advertising agencies in town, so get familiar with who's here and what they do, which means doing some research. Also, because it's a small town, sending out your reel and waiting is a poor strategy. Be proactive, be visible, be accessible.

Also: PDX mindshare is a great job posting and networking resource. LinkedIn is a great place to form and maintain professional connections.

That's all I have for now. :-)