Widunder

Okey, this story is getting ridiculously long. But it’s fun to write so hopefully it’s enjoyable to read!
Part 5 today! Some good stuff about interviews, jummy! Today’s soundtrack is ‘Ulver – Themes From William Blake’s The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell’.

So, one day (21st of July 2009) I went up around 4 in the morning and took a bus down to Gothenburg, from where my flight was leaving. My trip consisted of going to Warsaw, sleeping at a hotel and have the interview the day after.

The next day when I arrived at PCF I was greeted by the producer. I got to sit down with a cup of coffee in a smaller meeting room. I had to wait a while because of stressful times at the office. After 15 minutes or so the producer came back together with the lead animator. We greeted each other and sat down and began talking. It was, again, a typical kind of interview with the questions of “what do you like to work with?”, “what have you done at GRIN and what was your responsibilities?”. And also some questions this time about what happened to the GRIN-studio. They asked me if I had any experience with the Unreal Engine, which I didn’t. We talked a bit about their work flow and pipe line for animation in general, and about the team of animators they already had there, which was two more animators except the lead. I got to ask a couple of questions as well which was mostly about how it was working with Epic and with the engine and also what my tasks would consist of etc.
After half an hour or so I got to sign an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement), and finally they could talk about the game they were working on. We talked about for another half hour or so, I got to know the name and the core features. And also a lot about the actual animation work that was required for the project.
After a while the lead animator had to leave to join some other meeting, we said good bye and the producer told me that I was going to be interviewed by a couple of programmers and the lead level designer. This was different but interesting, since I had never been interviewed by programmers or level designers before. Luckily, it went fine. They asked me if I had any experience building animation trees (animation trees is what decides what animation a character should use at a certain time) and if I had any experience with  physics simulation for destructible environments and I had experience working with programmers and level designers in order to solve certain tasks and problems. We also talked about small stuff like what games I liked and what I did in my spare time.

After they were done with me they order me some lunch. I tried “pirogi” which is a famous polish dish. It was pretty tasty, but not brilliant. It’s basically some kind of dough filled with different stuff, there is a lot of fillings to choose from. The once I ate was filled with cabbage or meat. I recommend everyone to try it at least once if you have the chance.

When I was done eating I was led to a bigger meeting room where I got to meet the studio director and a producer from Epic Games in USA. The producer was the “supervisor” for the entire project from Epic Games point of view, so she worked both in Poland and in the states. The questions they asked me was kind of different from what I had been asked before. They asked me stuff like “If you could improve anything about the way that Terminator Salvation was produced, what would you do?” and “If there was one, what was the biggest problem you encountered during the Terminator-project, and what did you do to overcome it?”. I managed to answer the questions, but it was kind of hard to think of answers directly on the spot. But I guess you always have to be prepared for more difficult questions like this, and not only the “standard” ones. I also got to meet a publisher executive of some kind from EA, which was unexpected. He just happened to be there because of other meetings but we talked a bit about game developing in general and a bit about GRIN and what was going on in Sweden.

It was finally time for me to play the game. Something I had looked forward to since the beginning of the interview when they were talking about the project. I got to play a build that they had used a while back to show off the game to Epic Games and to EA, so it was pretty fine tuned. A real good experience and also I got to dig deeper into what I would work with if I got the job.

After this I got a tour of the office and then it was time for me to leave. I had been there for about 4 hours. So a much longer interview that I was used to, which usually only lasted about half an hour or so.
When I arrived back home in Sweden I felt some what satisfied with the interview but it was still a lot to take in. But I was sure that I could like it there, living in Poland wouldn’t be a problem for me and the people in the studio was really nice and the project was awesome. Still I had almost no time to breath out. Two days later I had to fly over to England for my interviews with Bizarre and Lionhead.

Because Bizarre couldn’t find any better flights, I got to fly over to Liverpool on a Friday and stay there for the weekend, and then have my interview on Monday. But in the last minute my interview with Lionhead was booked for the day after my interview with Bizarre. So my final plan was to spend the weekend in Liverpool, have my interview on Monday and then catch a train down to Guildford and spend the night at a hotel, and then have my interview with Lionhead on Tuesday, the day after

I must say it was rather boring to spend an entire weekend in England by myself. I walked around a lot and checked out some of the things there was to see in Liverpool, like a fairly new shopping centre and cinema etc. But it was a free vacation basically so I didn’t really mind.

The interview with Bizarre went really smooth as well. Just as in PCF I was there for several hours. I got to meet the lead animator, a couple of producers, the founder of Bizarre and also a couple of Swedish guys working there since several years back. I got to see the game they were working on, and an animator even showed me the workflow for their motion capture cleaning and setting up animation trees. They got some really nice tools going on there.
The actual interview part went smooth as well. The lead animator and the producer asked me, again, standard questions. And they talked a lot about Bizarre in general. What it is like to work there and how it was to live in the city, which was really nice to hear since that kind of stuff is easy to forget to ask about. For me anyways. Bizarre actually gave a job offer right there on the spot, which I had not expected at all. They already the knew that I was going for another interview at Lionhead and they understood that I wanted to keep my doors open. So they didn’t demand a decision right away. But I got the offer as a contract and they let me know that they hoped I would make “the right decision”.

At the end of the day I had been there for about 3-4 hours or so. So again a long interview. One of the HR-girls gave me a ride back to the station from where I was going to catch a train down to Guildford. Unfortunately I had several hours free until my train was due to leave, so I sat down in a café and read in my book. Good way to waste time it appears, because before I knew it I had to hurry to the train.

The ride actually took me down to London, where I had never been before either. The ride took about three hours. I had to take the subway down to another train station and from there take the train out to Guildford. Luckily the subway system in London was fairly easy to understand, so it wasn’t too much trouble getting to the right place and getting on the right train. The ride took about one hour from London to Guildford.

The next morning I took a taxi to the Lionhead Offices. It was bit further out from the centrum of the city. When I arrived I was greeted by the receptionist and after a couple of minutes the lead animator appeared and greeted me as well. He told me they had it a bit hectic so the interview would be pretty quick. We sat down in a meeting room and the technical animator joined us. We looked at my demo reel and I explained everything as it went on. This job was for a role as a Junior Rigger, so this was a bit different from the other ones. The explained to me very clearly what the role was about, and what my job tasks would include. Lionhead are working in XSI, so I asked them a few questions about the transition from Maya to XSI and some more questions about what would be expected of me etc. After just half an hour the interview was over and they had to get back to work. The lead animator gave me a quick tour around the office before he showed me the door. It was a nice place but a bit crowded. Cozy though.

It was time for me to leave Lionhead. They thanked me for coming on an interview and let me know that they would be in touch as soon as possible. Hopefully in a couple of days. I took a taxi to the airport and flew back to Sweden.
The next day I checked my mail and found that PCF had given me a job offer as well. And just a couple of hours later the recruiter responsible for Lionhead called me and let me know that Lionhead had given me an offer as well. I was apparently on a roll, sort of.

So now I had to decide. This was very new to me since I was used to only having one offer. It’s nice to have options but when I liked all of the offers so much that it was really difficult to choose. What it all came down to was;

• What project am I most interested in?
• Which offer gives me the most in terms of credits and experience to contribute to my career?
• Where did I feel most comfortable? What did my gut tell me?
• If I choose one of them, would I miss one of the other places? e.g. if I chose Lionhead, would I sit and think “I wonder what it would’ve been like if I took People Can Fly”

I was most interested in the PCF-project, and that job and the credits I would get would also give me most credit to put on my CV. The reason was that at Lionhead I was offered a Junior Rigger role. A junior role to begin does not give as big impact as a regular animator-role gives on a Resume, plus that a role as a junior rigger would take my career in a different direction where I didn’t really . And at Bizarre I would work on a licensed game, which does not hit as big as other new games (most of the time). My gut told me PCF, I don’t really know why. The place just gave me a better vibe, the way they had greeted me and really showed me that they wanted me to work there. The answer to the last question was actually also PCF, because of the answers to all of the other questions. So, my decision came down to People Can Fly.

End of Part 5 and end of “Getting a job in the industry”!
Next time around I will talk about what it was like moving down here and start working here.