If you think about it, cognitive style is probably why the bigger houses like ILM, Pixar and DreamWorks/PDI tend to have very specific job descriptions. Specialists are able to develop highly refined skills in a relatively confined area. TDs do technical work, lighters do lighting, designers do design and animators bring stuff to life (God-like when you think about it). This way, ILM can hire people who do one thing and do it very, very well — no distractions. Even if tight specialization is a little boring to some of us, it is a home for many of the very best vfx people. Often smaller houses, though, prefer generalists who have high-level skills across the board. They must be able to handle everything through the final composite.

Too often the best previs whizzes are filtered out by irrelevant job requirements like specific degrees or expertise with specific software. All the big name houses do it. Sometimes HR people haven’t got a clue about digital artistry. Requiring a college degree is a very bad way to narrow down the thousands of applicants. When will the HR people learn?

To find the right people (I used to be an art director at a game company), I tend to look for excellent work on personal Web pages showing both artistic and technical skill. Then I check out their demo reel. Take Doug Cooper. I met him on his way up and immediately recognized he was equally as facile with code (as I recall he was writing plug-ins) as with artistic design and actual hands on fine art. His nudes are awesome (and tasteful, too). He was a TD at the time, but it was clear that he had the “eye” and animation coursed through his neurons — the perfect previs guy. But, alas, as happens with so many of these especially talented people, he was needed elsewhere. I had no doubt at all that Doug would someday be running the show and I told him that… Today, he’s a vfx supervisor at DreamWorks Animation and was vfx supervisor on Shark Tale, and he just keeps getting better. Doug now oversees previs and knows what he’s looking for: “Previsualization is an integral part of our production process at DreamWorks Animation. Rough layout artists must have excellent skills in composition and cinematographic camera design. They are responsible for translating sequences from storyboard into a form of rough blocking animation of the camera and characters that works within the confines of the 3D environment. Whereas the storyboards are about the emotional beats in the story, and illustrate the character’s performance, the work done in rough layout sets the stage for all of the work that follows in the production pipeline, from animation to effects to lighting.”

So perhaps the biggest problem with finding the perfect previs jockey is you can’t keep them in that job. It takes roughly the same talents and skills to be an individual previs whiz as it does to run the whole shebang. In fact, these people would probably make great directors! Fortunately, a personal passion for hands-on development sometimes out-weighs the draw of power, fame and fortune. Besides, supervising can really be a bummer if you can’t animate. So, savor the great ones while they indulge you with their talent, for surely they will not be around forever. Attractive new horizons, greater control and bigger paychecks beckon.

Peter Plantec is a best-selling author, animator and virtual human designer. He wrote The Caligari trueSpace2 Bible, the first 3D animation book specifically written for artists. He lives in the high country near Aspen, Colorado. Peter’s latest book, Virtual Humans, is a five star selection at Amazon after many reviews. You can visit his personal website.