About 60 animation students, 20 illustration students, Illustration faculty members Justin Kunz and David Habben, Animation faculty members Nathan Lindsay and Kelly Loosli, and TMA chair Wade Hollingshaus, attended the Creative Talent Networking Expo in Los Angeles last weekend. Kelly explains that this Expo is a great place for students to meet industry professionals, network, and begin to get an idea of how to navigate the professional world. They encourage students to attend the Expo as early in their programs as possible because it helps them to understand how their training will apply to their eventual employment while giving them some idea of the many opportunities in the industry. The CTN Expo emphasizes visual development and storytelling, or storyboarding and concept art, which are areas utilized in the front end of animation development and production. Many artists have tables on the floor, and many industry giants like DreamWorks, Nicolodean, and Pixar, have booths. On Saturday night, there was an alumni event at the LDS Church in Burbank where many BYU alums joined with students to network.
While in Southern California last week, Wade Hollingshaus took the opportunity to try out the Dark Ride Disneyland app that has been created and developed by Benjamin Thevenin and Jeff Parkin. Wade brought along his friend and media arts alum Ryan Little. The app is designed to be used in the park and to engage users’ critical thinking skills. Although Wade used a test version of the app, Benjamin anticipates that the app will be available to the public in the next few weeks.
Student News Theatre Arts major Zoe Taylor applied for an internship for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in New York on a whim. Zoe is a costume designer and specializes in wardrobe supervision on student film projects. Since Fall 2016, she has been the wardrobe supervisor on student projects “Socorro,” “Anna,” “To Have and To Hold,” several 6-week Cinema projects, and is currently working on the capstone “Guardian.” She has also done art direction and wardrobe supervision on several students’ independent film projects. After competing with many other applicants, many from Ivy League schools, and almost all from film programs, she was chosen as one of fourteen production interns on The Late Show, in part because her resume was so unique! Her internship will go from Jan. 7 through the end of May 2019, and she will have the opportunity of rotating through all the production departments on the show. Dennis Wright will serve as her faculty advisor. Zoe also has the distinction of being the first TMA student to ever have the opportunity to do this! And yes, she feels very excited and is looking forward to representing BYU well in this once-in-a-life-time opportunity!
The Sound and the Fury 