The hunter chases his prey, but what happens when the prey is a giant robot panther?  The interns at Zoic Studios have the answer.  In March, several Zoic interns created a spot as part of their internship program.  The program, an unpaid sixteen – week commitment held three times a year, is an innovative course of study that combines education and real-world practical experience alongside professional mentorship.

Dmitri Gueer, Zoic’s Senior Editor of Zoic Edit and Brooke Brigham, Production Manager and Intern Coordinator, developed the Zoic Studios Internship program to offer the next generation of talent an inside opportunity to explore and learn the inner workings of a visual effects company and to get a taste of what it is like to work in the entertainment industry.  Brigham goes through the process of finding interns, “It’s seeking individuals out from schools, art institute’s like Otis College of Art and Design; going to their job fairs and reel reviews.  So it’s seeking out entry – level talent, but that includes people making a career change or individuals who aren’t necessarily sure what they want to do in the industry.  Some are a bit greener than others so all different kinds of people,” says Brigham.  Beyond just visual effects artists, Brigham is looking for a mix of people with varied interests.  “We want a mixture of editorial, producing, and administration as well.  Visual effect artists of course, but at the same time you want to be able to really find an eclectic group of individuals.”  The internship program has grown considerably since it first started.  In fact, Brigham herself was an intern at Zoic Studios back in 2004 before being hired on full time.  “When I started here as an intern, there were about four of us and there wasn’t a program, we were essentially PA’s.  After my internship was over I started working at the front desk and I worked with the interns.  Dmitri and I realized there was all this great talent coming in, and we weren’t giving anything back to them.  We wanted to say, ‘Hey here is a mentor and here is a great project you can work on for your reel.’  We decided to make something more structured so that the interns could walk away with more knowledge, experience, and contacts then they had when they came in.”  Hence, the internship program that exists now came into its own.

The internship has an educational and practical component.  “We want the interns to think they are going to Zoic University.  We have a series of lectures by industry professionals who work here and have years of experience,” says Gueer.  The first two months are spent on lectures and bringing the interns up to speed on how the visual effects world works.  The interns are also assigned a mentor who helps guide them and answers any questions that may arise during the course of their internship.  “If I was a 3D intern I would be assigned a 3D artist.  I would be able to sit with them if I have any questions over the course of my internship and learn from them.  There is a relationship that is built so you can learn directly from the industry professional.”

For every intern cycle, there are two groups of interns that come up with an idea for a project, a commercial, short film, anything that will incorporate the visual effects world.   The teams must pitch their project idea to Gueer, Brigham and other Zoic staff members who act as clients.   If the pitch is approved, the team is on their way.  However, Gueer treats the interns as though they were going through a real pitch process, which gives them a better understanding of what pitching to an actual client is like.  The teams must create their own visual effects company.  “The idea is that the interns get a taste of what it is like to work at an actual visual effects company where they would be dealing with clients on a daily basis… I want to get them to a point where should they ever start their own visual effects company or if they ever deal with clients, they know what it is like.  So they pitch the idea and we critique them.”  One of the reasons Gueer turns down an idea is the lack of story in a pitch presentation, “Usually what is lost in pretty much every internship presentation is story.  In the next internship cycle we will start teaching how to tell a good story.  I don’t think I have ever been in a presentation where someone had a solid story in the first presentation.”  Once the idea is accepted, the two teams of interns create a project, it can be a short, a commercial, anything that they can create and execute in the time they are interning at Zoic.  The interns have cutting edge technology, hardware and software at their disposal to turn their ideas into a reality.

When the projects are finalized, they are presented in front of the entire company.  The winning project gets accolades, a prize, and is posted on the front page of the Zoic Studios website.  “It’s beneficial to the whole company because the projects showcase the talent of the interns.”  The interns are able to build their resume and their reel as well as have exposure to both the inner and outer workings of the industry.  “Our interns get a chance to connect with major studios including Warner Brothers and NBC Universal, ad agencies like Wieden and Kennedy, major production companies like Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon’s company) and game companies like Activision and EA,” says CFO Tim McBride.  Some of the interns may end up working in the visual effects industry and a select few may even end up working for Zoic Studios, but the overall goal of the program is education and gaining hands on experience in a supportive working environment.  Gueer is also happy to be giving back. “At some point you realize you have been working in this industry for a long time and you think what have I done to make this industry better?  I wanted to give something back and hopefully somebody gets inspired.”

For intern Marshall Huffman, the process of creating a project that stuck was one that he immensely enjoyed even if it was fraught with hurdles.  His team went through several ideas, none of which seemed to be working.  “Each person came up with one or two ideas.  We all threw it at the wall and none of it was sticking… Later that evening it popped in my head that there was a guy hunting for a cat and it was actually a car… I was in the shower washing my hair and I was like man chases cat through jungle.  The hunt is over; oh that is an awesome tag line.  Man is pursuing something he wants. I think the pieces were there and it was obvious and fell into place.”   The next day Marshall sent the idea to Gueer who approved it and the interns were finally on their way.  However, the real work was only just beginning.

From concept approval to finished project the process took a couple of months to complete.  Marshall was the 3-D lead and lead modeler on the robot while also acting as co-producer and co-director on the spot along with intern Vince Blin.  Andreas Berkstein and Daniel Rico made up the additional members of the team.  Vincent was the 2D lead on the project for compositing and roto as well as the lead actor, prop maker and costume wrangler.  Everyone had more than a dozen jobs to juggle at any one time.

As for the spot, it started with two ideas that were combined into a one of a kind commercial spot, a car commercial that features a sleek robot animal.  The jungle was created with several matte paintings, taking several different images and scrap booking them together.  Vincent was in charge of building out the forest, but much of it was actually shot.   A pipe was changed to a mossy fallen tree and a creek was transformed into lush brush with a waterfall in the background.  The log was a digital model that Andreas built in a 3-D sculpting program called Z Brush.  The cityscape was created as was the car and of course who can forget the robot cat. The robot was a model that Marshall sculpted.  The character rigger, led by Daniel, put together all the parts and Andreas animated it.  Clearly the process is quite time consuming as each component must be completed before another component can begin.  After his internship experience, Huffman was hired by Zoic to do visual effects for the television show V, “This is as darn close to a life – long dream as I can think of, which is to get paid to play with spaceships.”

Want to live your dream learning the inner workings of the visual effects world?  Contact Brooke Brigham by email at: internship@zoicstudios.com for an application and more information.