Blizzard Studio : Tips for a Cinematic Artist Resume Submission

Filed Under CGQ Job Board, Studio Guidelines

Cinematic artists at Blizzard are responsible for crafting one of the main vehicles for storytelling in our games: the cut-scenes. If you are interested in creating 3D rendered movies whose production qualities rival that of full-blown Hollywood effects houses, then this job is for you.

But unlike Hollywood, we are not looking for specialists. Our artists are generalists. This means the artist contributes to each aspect of a shot, including animating, modeling, texturing and lighting. This is incredibly demanding, but is also the most creatively rewarding. At an effects house the job is split between specialists in each field, which contributes to an assembly-line type of work environment. At Blizzard, we try to get away from the factory and let our artists exercise their creativity and broaden their skills.

So what does this mean when you apply to Blizzard? Make sure that your reel and portfolio demonstrate a wide variety of skills from modeling to animation. Which leads us to another point: A demo reel is required! We can’t tell how well you animate from a piece of paper. It seems obvious, but if we had a dollar…

Now, let’s get more specific on the stuff we like to see on a demo reel. First of all, no flying logos, please! If you have more than one flying logo on your reel, get rid of them. You can keep the one introducing the reel, but we are not interested in seeing the logos you did for corporate customers or for broadcast. It doesn’t matter whom they were for; we don’t want them.

Also, keep it short, and only show us your best stuff. A single, 60-second clip demonstrating your best work is far better than the same clip surrounded by five minutes of filler that is outdated or not representative of your current skill set. Oh, and make sure you put your best stuff at the beginning of the reel.

What we do want to see is incredible character animation. You need to communicate your sense of timing, balance, and the dramatic moment. Since most of our work is action-oriented, having a scene with lots of effects and movement would be a good one to submit. Since we are also looking for people who model, texture and light as well as they animate, you’ll also want to pay attention to the way the scene is lit and make sure all your models and textures are dead on. If your animation segment features a simple character (presumably to concentrate on motion, or to save on render time), make sure you include at least one example of a highly detailed and textured model in a scene to give us an idea of your eye for detail and photorealism.

In addition to your reel, it would also be helpful to include examples of any concept work or storyboarding that you have done. We find that having a basic ability to draw, conceptualize, and set up shots is very helpful for the type of work we do at Blizzard. Please remember that we cannot return any materials, so send copies and not originals.