08-23-2015, 11:03 AM
(05-21-2013, 09:30 AM)JCdied4me Wrote: I believe having a degree shows something more than just being good at your craft. It shows you can commit to something most do not have the patience for. It shows you can work hard to achieve your goal even when the scenario is not optimal. I have experienced hiring artists who are self taught and 90% of them have a difficult time working in a team environment. They tend to exert force when they have to compromise their own vision for the good of the project. This is obviously a problem when working on a project that already has a vision cast. Only about 40% of those with a degree pose such a problem. This helps increase the odds that you will find someone who is able to do the job without bringing a lot of drama. Good team work builds good friendships that last much longer than a project. But drama tends to compromise the team and the vision.
Sorry to bring this back from the dead.
As a self-taught artist I agree with most of this to some extent. The big thing I disagree with is the idea that no degree shows a lack of patience. I would argue that it may just show a lack of complacency instead. I left college after my sophomore year because I didn't see where the connections were going to come from that would lead to a job. I took a nine month 3D animation course, and shortly thereafter I had a job. Three years later, I'd doubled my salary.
As for self-taught being a little difficult to work with, sometimes you need your Steve Jobs.
If you remember the movie "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," the guy who did most of those faces was about 70% Steve Jobs. Self taught (aside from the same computer animation program I took, but that program was a bit of a rip off). No college. That movie would have been unwatchable if he hadn't been unpleasant and taken over the faces. The ones they were going to use blew. I don't care if I ever speak to him again, but the role he played in that movie has to be acknowledged. He should have been on Advent Children too, then those faces wouldn't have been such a big plastic mess.