HOW BAD DO I WANT TO BE HERE? - THE
SEQUEL
By Shannon Muir
Currently
exclusive to this site
***
No sooner did I
share my earlier thoughts, I received an e-mail from one of my readers. This person thanked me for sharing my
"priceless and free advice," but also lamented that more horror
stories were what had been expected from the lead-in.
In the months
I've been looking for work that took place before I decided to write about
this, several such experiences have occurred.
So in the interest of letting people know what to look out for, I'll
share them.
Early on, I
tried for a development assistant position at an animation studio. At that point I had not done much direct
assistant work, though I had a lot of office skills (I've since been able to
spend a few days temping on agent's desks at talent agencies). Things felt very encouraging, especially at
the first round interview. My drive and determination, coupled with
wanting to learn more about development, seemed to make me a perfect fit. In the end, the people decided they wanted
someone fresh out of school and deemed me overqualified. This broke my heart as frankly I did not,
and still do not, understand it. I knew
a lot about animation, but had no prior experience as an assistant to an
executive.
Another
promising position came my way for another development assistant position, this
one with a small company that actually was doing a co-production with another
entity in the San Fernando Valley.
Actually, the Valley office would do most of the actual production, but
an executive in the office where I interviewed also had involvement in the
approval process. My job would have
been to help facilitate those approvals plus regular assistant duties, an
interesting hybrid between production and administrative duties. The interview felt great and I left excited;
it didn't hurt that I'd met this executive before during a career seminar and
he remembered me. In the end, though,
after weeks of waiting, this company promoted from within.
These, of
course, were in addition to the other experience that sparked this topic.
I suppose,
though, there's a part of me that's always for seeing the silver lining in the
clouds. When I went to Comic-Con
International: San Diego 2002, I'd been unemployed for six months with one
slim possibility in the wings (one of the ones above that later didn't
materialize, by the way). Not spending
day in and day out around animation, and more focused on just getting a job to
survive, I feared losing touch. Then I
came across a table where someone from Invader Zim was being featured,
mainly to promote his comic work. Not
only had this fellow worked in the show's color department, he's far better
known as the voice of GIR, Zim's silly sidekick robot (and my personal favorite
character). There was a fair-size line
for him, with many people holding little plush GIR dolls and other Zim memorabilia.
I tell you the
truth, it made me cry. Happy cry. Cathartic cry. It was the first time I saw just the average person -- not just
someone in the industry, and the industry has a lot of Invader Zim fans
-- care about what all of us had worked on.
I may never be one that they line up for years from now, but that's OK;
my happiness come from knowing I got to work with other great people to make
the final product happen.
That's how bad I want to be here. And if it means I have to suffer through
the might-have-beens, or do other entertainment industry-related things until
something direct in animation opens up again, I'm willing to do it.
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