Garrick: Hi there so we are the three winners of The Rookie for the past three years, and we work at Weta Digital now and I’m number one, Garrick Rawlingson and I won 3 years ago.
Rafael: Hi there my name is Rafael Gonzalez Quinones, I came in through the internship in 2015, so I’ve been here for about a year and a half now.
Kyle: I’m Kyle Davis I won last year, about four months ago I think and I’m a junior animator.
Entering The Rookies is really easy it’s a very simple process, you basically just submit your showreel.
How is life at Weta Digital?
Garrick: How’s life at Weta Digital it’s pretty good, I do feel like it’s a big family, I don’t know how you feel guys?
Rafael: It’s definitely a really good time, and for the most part you’ll be with your friends the whole day, and you’re getting to a work on a whole lot of cool work, so you end up spending all the time with good people, and it’s good fun.
Kylie: Yeah, it’s definitely the best place I’ve ever worked, so coming in here everyone’s so friendly so nice that it really eases you into the process of working on things at a scale that like I’ve never dream of really. So entering The Rookies is really easy it’s a simple process, you basically just submit your show reel you don’t have to do any extra leg work, that’s what makes it really great I think.
Don’t hesitate to go out there and show off your work, and The Rookies is the best way to do it.
Rafael: Yeah, you’re exactly right, for the most part you come out of school like a University, and you pretty much have a show reel made and you’re trying to get into places so we have to do is enter into the competition and see how you stack up against all your students. It’s worth taking a chance of doing it because the easy process you just go and if you win you can end up at where digital is an intern and it was a great opportunity for us yes for sure and if you don’t when you still get to see all the other work that people do and a lot of people get to see your work so you get to see a little the idea that are out there and just how you’re stacking up against we tell them that.
Garrick: It’s worth taking a chance of doing it because it’s an easy process, you just go and if you win you can end up at Weta Digital is an intern and it’s a great opportunity for us.
Rafael: Yes for sure and if you don’t when you still get to see all the other work that people do and a lot of people get to see your work so you get to see a little the ideas that are out there and just how you’re stacking up against we tell them that you’re competing with and be a small industry that it is.
Garrick: So if we had any advice for entering The Rookies do have something to say a Raf?
Rafael: Oh yeah for sure my main point would be to be really receptive to feedback because the industry is all about working in collaboration with a whole lot of other artists and having your work reviewed by not only your lead and your supervisor but the director as well, and most of all keeping a humble make sure that you never carry an ego into this sort of big companies because it’s differently teamwork more than anything.
Kyle: I think it’s all about the effort you put in no matter what you’re studying really what you put in is what you get out and that will show through your reel, and that’s how The Rookies can really help you,
Garrick: And you shouldn’t be about showing your reel for example and especially to someone a bit more experienced, you’ll get feedback and they may help a lot, so don’t hesitate to go out there and show it and The Rookies is the best way of doing it because they’ll basically be in front of everyone and they can be judged, and you’ll have feedback, that is a good thing.
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