ASIFA-East is mostly comprised of 2D animators and, being pirmarily a 3D animator, I’ve always wondered why there aren’t more of us in our organization.
Steve Mann is also a 3D computer artist and has been working the staff/permalance/freelance circuit in NYC for over 20 years. While we never crossed paths at a studio, he’s the head of the Facebook, NYC Maya Users Group, an open group for the NY Maya users group to discuss all things CG in the NYC area, of which I am a member.
Being the head of a 3D group, I invited him to talk about what it would take to attract more 3D artists.
Have I ever met you?
I think we’ve met in person. Maybe once at a SIGGRAPH thing, like eons ago.
I can’t recall running into you on the circuit because I have a feeling you were a Charlex (www.chrlx.com/) guy?
Yep, for like 14 or 15 years.
So you know I’m a 3D animator, started in 1995 at this little place called Image Design, but always considered myself an animator. You’re the head of the Facebook group, NYC Maya Users Group.
Yeah. Which used to be a physical thing. We had meetings and I had a lot of good support from Autodesk but at some point, they just stopped supporting users groups.. . I think people shuffled around and everyone I knew disappeared from Autodesk and went to other companies. And then with COVID I started working from home and actually doing a meeting in the city became a lot more work.
That’s something I’m doing with ASIFA right now. just getting people, I find nothing more enjoyable than working with and hanging out with people who have the same similar interests.
One thing that always got me was I always felt like I was an outlier in ASIFA because I was primarily a 3D animator, it’s mainly 2D. And one of the things I really want to do is to tell people that we’re an umbrella organization for animators.
I like Golden Wolf and Psyop. Are they still in New York or have they moved? It’s the only place I know that’s in the city.
There’s Titmouse, Augenblick, Buck. And there are some littler places, like Mighty Oak, they’re a do everything studio.But since the 90s there’s been more 3D. I don’t know Golden Wolf.
They were connected with Psyop and then they left New York.
Wait, Psyop isn’t in New York anymore?
To my knowledge they’re all remote. There’s not much of an office left in New York. All the people I knew were in New York left for L.A or going to work remotely for L.A.
And just recently Method is now gone. The Mill. MPC. Technicolor went bankrupt, which is just insane. So, it’s a little scary time right now (nervous laughter). [ note: Pysop does still have an office in NY with Goldenwolf]
That’s why I’m now a middle school teacher in the New York City public school system, making more money than I would as a tenure track professor and it’s a 10 minute bike ride from home.
I taught at SVA for. Close to 15 years. Working at Blue Sky and commuting and to the city , and then once I started working for Charlex.
I’d already been seeing some layoffs and then I remember I saw this video by an early AI company (Runway) it blew my mind, I’m like, oh f***, this is going to destroy the industry. This was a paradigm shift.
Yeah, in my school I was one of the only people using Maya. It just came out right and they were just like, “No that’s just you shouldn’t be doing that.” And then it became like a huge thing, right? So even with Unreal and Cinema4D and all that sort of stuff, AI just takes it to a whole other destruction level, if you want to say. You have people who have no idea even what animation is creating stuff that you’re like, “All right, well I can’t really compete with whatever that is.”
And I’m like ”Are you getting anything out of it when you do that?” I mean if you don’t know how to do anything? You know, I worked on a bunch of movies, commercials, things like that and there comes a time when what you really enjoy is the making of it, the process. It may sound sad but I just really enjoyed doing it, the physicality or process of what I’m doing, more than the result.
That’s a great way to segue to what I’ve originally contacted you. Do you feel that mindset is prevalent in the 3-D computer animation world?
For what’s happening now, I think less and less. I’m probably completely wrong, but it seems like a lot of people are just, “I just want to give them a final content move on, do my two second thing, throw it on Instagram, move to the next one.” I don’t know if people still enjoy keyframing. I still enjoy keyframing and figuring things out and the acting process and all that sort of stuff.
I feel like there’s definitely a bit of a pretty big shift and that people don’t necessarily have that excitement as much? I don’t know. I could be wrong since I’m not teaching, it’s hard to know what the students are thinking. But it just seems it gets less and less that the craft of doing it and solving this, like even sometimes some of the people I’ve worked with, they’ll come up against the roadblock and they’ll say “Oh, I’ll just watch a YouTube thing or whatever on how to do this” and then forget that information and move on. Where I’m still somehow still interested in learning new techniques and learning how to do things. And I think maybe that’s not the case anymore.
Maybe that’s a generational thing, too. People are so used to just looking it up on the internet real quick to get the answer and they don’t need to retain that information or build on information.
They could always look it up on YouTube at the next gig.
For me, I was always trying to improve myself to some degree and that’s why I keep doing it
I relate it to sports. I do a lot of snowboarding, windsurfing, mountain biking, stuff like that. And I fear the day when I stop improving in those things because I don’t think they’ll be interesting anymore, if I’m not getting better and I’m just going to go through the motions.
I don’t think I’ll be as excited about it but if I can learn a new trick or learn a new thing or feel like I did that just a little bit better, that’s exciting for me. That’s the same thing I feel with animation and rigging.
Where did you go to school? And what did you go there to study?
My undergrad was at University of Vermont, painting sculpture, drawing. Very little of anything on the computers. And then for graduate school, I went to USC film school in the animation Department.
At that time, it was pretty new. I was in the second class to go through it. And it was not necessarily computer animation, it was everything. Didn’t matter. Stop motion or you could do just really weird avant garde experimental work. It was everything. All at the same time
Was Christine Panushka one of your professors?
Yes, yes, she was. She was a professor and then she later became the chair of the department.
She was my professor at CalArts.
Yeah. She’s great.
So when you got a job, you were a 3D person, right?
Yes, yeah. Toy Story had just come out and I went to SIGGRAPH and saw some early Toy Story tests and that’s what got me going, “Oh my God, I gotta do this.”
When you moved to New York, had you ever heard of ASIFA?
I probably did at some point.
But you weren’t interested at all.
I was probably more worried about getting a job that I wasn’t even reaching out that much, but I definitely know it’s always been around.
So you move to New York after grad school. You got a job.
Eventually.
And then your animation community became where you worked.
Absolutely.
And did you expand that animation community by joining any other organizations, like SIGGRAPH?
I never actually joined SIGGRAPH, but I did do a lot with them, a lot of talks and presentations. Stuff like that.
The other thing at the time was (longtime 3D person in NYC, now a professor at RIT) Dave Halbstein was running the Maya users group, he also taught at SVA. And so SVA was a good reaching output point for everybody because they had (SVA Instructor) Danny Williams who worked for Blue Sky, and then there was a couple of people who worked for Framestore, couple who were at the Mill. So it’s actually through SVA that I met a lot of other professionals in the area.
I actually started teaching first before I had my first full-time gig, I was doing a lot of freelance work, but it was through SVA that I sort of started networking out a little bit and meeting people.
Would you say most 3D animators would probably prefer SIGGRAPH over ASIFA and why?
I actually don’t know the answer because one of the things I noticed was when I was in LA, I actually started to try and teach for Gnomon. And the environment there, everybody was super excited to talk about animation, work on animation. And oh, did you see this film? And talk about that and I had the same expectations that I’d get to New York and would have that same sort of energy and it did not. Most people I worked with were “The minute I’ve done with work. I don’t want to talk about this at all. I’m done. I’m gonna go do my own thing.”
So, for a little while, I tried to talk to somebody to start a Gnomon here, as well, which didn’t really pan out. I honestly don’t know. I forget, who does Bring Your Own Animation?
That’s SIGGRAPH.
I found that to be probably the event that gets a lot of attention nowadays, at least for my interest. Outside of that, I don’t even really know.
It sucks. The last five years I’ve been living in this room to work. That networking thing is just gone.
I feel that meeting people and that type of mentorship of doing like the render walk, when there was such a thing, and looking over someone’s shoulder and asking “How did you do that?” is completely gone. You know, one of the things I want to talk to you about is having 3D artists come to some events. It might get you energized.
Are the 3D/VFX artists interested in creating their own work?
I think that percentage has gotten smaller. I think originally it was very large but we’re talking 15 years ago. But I think it’s gotten smaller. I always want to do my own work, I just never have time to.
With the Maya Users Group thing, part of what has happened is we haven’t really added any new members, but a lot of the people who have similar mindset to me about being interested in this still are the ones that are all there. So I find that I’m always, “Hey, SVA! Send me your kids. We’ll add them to the group.” And they’re not all that excited to join for whatever reason.
Have you noticed any other organizations that are picking up those newer people?
I really haven’t. That’s the thing. So I’m actually part of a group and I’ve been part of it for a really long time called 3dpro.com. It’s just an email server that’s been around well before I even got into the industry. It’s been my most active group and it’s all old-timers. A lot of people who aren’t even in the industry anymore, but they’re still on there. So, yeah, I always want something.
So maybe we can team up someday?
Yeah. I would love that.
To be continued…
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