I had another Pixar interview dream last night -- a job had posted at Pixar, and I was asked to come in and meet people and advertise myself for the job. As is usually the case, it wasn't a weird sort of dream -- no flying or talking animals or... Continue reading

Today, the claim was made by a coworker that British children do not have accents; that they only develop upon reaching adolescence, Queenish vowels sprouting like timid mustaches and breasts. Continue reading

From childhood, I was raised to always prepare an agenda prior to a departmental meeting. But the other folks here have different backgrounds, and so our meetings always eventually go the same way: We start by talking about something. The boss loses interest in or respect for whoever's speaking, and... Continue reading

Why oh why oh why do some people feel compelled to make decisions about things that they know nothing about? Why do they insist on pretending that they have all the data they need, when in reality they have none? We have decided to videotape the voice talent who are... Continue reading

On his way into the office today, the head of development heard Billy West on the radio doing some voices, and thought, "hey, that guy sounds pretty good; maybe we can hire him to voice some characters." Billy's one of the most important voice actors in the industry. He is... Continue reading

At the beginning of a meeting, he said, "I don't want to quote any figures that are fellacious." In discussing a business arrangement that has never been attempted before, my heart sank when he said, "I just can't think of a downside." We are preparing for a board meeting next... Continue reading

Today I was asked, "can you think of any modern-day contemporary guitar-playing troubadours?" Somewhat at a loss, I called up a video of Conor Oberst on YouTube. He was met with approval for his modernity: "ah, the kind of guy who's got fans who wear their hats backwards." Continue reading

We had a meeting on Friday. The purpose of the meeting was for my department to inform another department that we wouldn't be using them very much, since we'd found a company in Europe that's cheaper. Now, my entire company has been waiting, for several years, for my department to... Continue reading

Feedback, please. (I'm still working on the resumé.) (Updated slightly, Sunday morning) I'm excited to be writing to you regarding the Production Assistant (job #ILM00790) position at ILM. My years of art production experience -- streamlining artists' work by creating smart systems to manage resources, presentations, and archives -- uniquely... Continue reading

The word you a attempting to evoke is "extemporaneous." Not "contemporaneous." You are hoping to get extemporaneous performances. That is the word you mean. Your colleagues, including the clients listening on speakerphone, are all either too polite to correct you, or know that it doesn't matter because the performances will... Continue reading

Mandrake: Jack... Jack, listen, tell me, ah... when did you first become, well, develop this theory. Ripper: Well, I ah, I I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love. Mandrake: (sighs fearfully) Continue reading

After a year at the company, I've gotten my first raise: by sixty-two and a half cents an hour. Continue reading

For the last few days, I've been building websites at work, which is fine except that my coworkers have never heard of debugging. They tend to think of building software-stuff as being like other jobs -- compiling a spreadsheet, cooking a meal, booking flights -- where you can just triple-check... Continue reading

Here's what I'll be working on this weekend. Digital Training Dept. Admin I Job #ILM00810 Summary: Working closely with the Program Manager, provides general administrative support to the Training Department. Primary Responsibilities: Coordinates arrangements for all fine arts classes: maintains wait lists, coordinates models, works with instructors, orders food, and... Continue reading

Lemmie know what you think. Matthew Baume Position Applying For: Digital Training Dept Admin (ILM00810) 2324 Fulton St; San Francisco, CA 94118 ph: 415-244-9943; mattymatt@gmail.com Qualifications: Extensive experience in education, fine arts, VFX, and film; developing and executing curriculum; designing libraries and circulation of educational materials. Professional Experience: Feature Development... Continue reading

One source of confusion in my office is how my boss invents his own terms for existing technologies, or substitutes wrong terms for right ones. This all came out within five minutes: He wants video footage delivered "digital whatever" format (his actual words) or in MP3, a format that is... Continue reading

I am often, in my job, asked to do something that I know is not a very good job. When I'm conscientious, I take the time to interpret what the person THINKS they are saying, then do what they actually want, then describe what I've done by converting it back... Continue reading

This is verbatim: "If you've got the time for you to nail those, we'll cut them in if you want. It goes pretty far into it, and we talked about the in-camera thing that this whole thing is about. We're selling this thing here that sometimes gets lost and it's... Continue reading

We have resolved a major source of confusion at work today: the boss believes that there is no difference between video that is on a digital tape and video that is in a digital file. So now we know why he planned for a seamless workflow from DV tapes to... Continue reading

He actually picked up the trade magazine lying on my desk as I was reading it and walked away with it. Five minutes later, he came back to ask, "can I look at this?" Continue reading

A script was just delivered to us, with this line of dialogue on the first page. Emphasis mine. "Once I met a girl. Beautiful as spring. Kind as hope. Unforgettable. She had pets. Not regular pets. Fish." The second page contains this description of action: Then the little fish leaps... Continue reading

I felt immediate panic this morning upon discovering that our EDLs DO NOT HAVE TIME CODE. An EDL -- edit decision list -- is a document that describes exactly where each cut in the footage occurs. It must maintain the highest possible granularity, describing each cut's hour, minute, second, and... Continue reading

Lord knows why anyone asks my boss anything, but someone just posed him this question: "Why are Macs cheaper in Europe?" His answer: "Because they're synchronizing the currency, almost." Continue reading

Well, things certainly are a bit complicated at the moment. I had two very very good interviews at ILM last week. I mean REALLY good. It's for a job that I would love, and everyone seemed to like me. They called to ask me back for a second interview only... Continue reading