So, I was looking through LinkedIn (Media Production Network) and there was someone asking for advice on what to do to get into production (television or film? he wasn't specific).
Instead of my initial thought like 'You want a secure job in production? Move to China, I hear Apple/Foxconn's hiring...' I decided everyone needs some real advice sometimes that doesn't involve phrase like 'don't do it' and 'run away'.

Here we are:

How do I get into television or film production?!

First decide if you're more interested in film or television (or multimedia/interactive). Generally, they are very different crowds (unless you're in post-production, then in the UK everything's more or less concentrated in Soho), very different production styles/methods and VERY different budgets.

Contacts are a big thing. Not as much those 'say hi and bye' contacts, but people that you actually know and have maybe actually worked with. Although the whole 'work experience' thing on one hand is a giant unethical scam, on the other hand that's where most people get those working-relationship contacts(especially if you're looking to be going down mainstream BBC television production street) With contacts, get them and KEEP them. Ask people what they're up to if you haven't heard from them in a while, just to let them know that you haven't dropped off of the planet and you want to know what interesting things they're doing.

Don't be afraid to work too hard, but also, GO OUT TO HAVE A DRINK WITH THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH. Those quick drinks are where business and relationships are built and it's what helps make it fun. If people can't see that you can have fun they'll think you don't like your job or just think you're boring. It's sad to think, but at the entrance-level of production there are always thousands of people waiting to step in to your job, so personality goes a long way.

Lastly, learn to accept the fact that no one will be impressed or even care about the last 3-4-5 years you just spent on your degree. I've been working in production all over Europe for the last 8 years and have NEVER been asked about my degree (other than 'oh, what did you study?').

Hope this helps someone...

We (ShinyGoldShoes) as a company are transferring all the domains that we manage away from GoDaddy and footing the bill on principle. GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world and has just helped the US congress write the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) bills. These Acts would more or less put big corporate American film, music and media rights owners (ie Sony, Turner, News Corp) as the censors of the internet, allowing them to take down websites if they deemed anything offensive, possibly infringing copyrights, not pro-corporate interest or displayed a representation or derivative work of a copyrighted work.

This would carry with it as much as 3 years in prison PER INFRINGEMENT. That would mean that if you sang a very tone-deaf version of a Michael Jackson song in your bathrobe and made a video of it, thought it was funny and posted it on YouTube and posted that YouTube video on your website and your friends also had links to your website (not your video) on their sites your video could be taken off YouTube, your website could be taken down and all your friends sites (because they linked to websites offering derivative works of copyrighted material) could be taken down and you could potentially go to jail and pay a very large fine. (Even if you are not US-based or a US citizen it would affect you because somewhere along the link of servers and registrars SOMETHING was based in the US in this heinous act of piracy, thus would have a US criminal record possibly without ever setting foot in America.)

GoDaddy, after pouring time and money into this bill has now backed out and said that because their clients fled after they officially supported these bills (and they didn't want to lose any more clients/money) they no longer support it (although, they're not against it). Because of their clearly hypocritical and cheap PR move and just dirty ideas and business practices we no longer are willing to do business with them. 

Thank you for your understanding,

Joel Urbina
Creative and technical director
ShinyGoldShoes 

Architectural visualization using Blender.
A test using the Blender Internal Rendering Engine



Rendered on a single machine:

Render resolution: 1920x800
Kubuntu Linux 11.04 64-bit
AMD Phenom II (4x3.2GhZ)
8GB DDR3 1333
1GB DDR5 Video RAM + 124 CUDA cores

6-10 minutes per frame x 250 frames

The purpose of this was to compare the internal renderer to external renderers.
Quality-wise, Blender internal did wonderfully, but was slow (on a single machine, but on the renderfarm wouldn't be a problem).
YafaRay: 1 minute per frame; wasn't as happy with the final result.

 Did a test on Renderfarm.fi and the render results were identical, BUT the rendertime was dropped down to 12 hours at a medium exceleration.

For the people on Renderfarm.fi I have posted the .Blend file here:  Architectural visualization .blend file

Testing Houdini Ocean Simulation Tools with Blender.
Also testing lens distortion node and color correction nodes in Blender.
Original rendering @ 1920x800:
Kubuntu Linux 11.04 64-bit
AMD Phenom II (4x3.2GhZ)
8GB DDR3 1333
1GB DDR5 Video RAM + 24 CUDA cores

Rendering with shoe: +/- 1 minute per frame
Rendering with ball: +/- 20 seconds per frame

So everybody, here are some of our newest 3d architectural visualizations.
All visualizations were done entirely in Blender.

Rendered images are 1920x800 pixels and took between 6 to 12 minutes per frame on an AMD Phenom II x4 (3.2GhZ x 4) with 8GB RAM and nVidia GPU with 24 CUDA cores.
Finished animation will be posted when it is finished (10 minute average x 250 frames = 2500 minutes ~41 hours).

 
 
 

La Memoria Dell'Acqua - ShinyGoldShoes from EcoArt Project on Vimeo.

Today the new ShinyGoldShoes Joomla-based website is going live... we've been using our custom-built CMS for the last 8 months, but have shifted over to Joomla, because we're wanting to create a more 'community-focused experience'...

What does that mean? Well... mostly, we want to put everything together and launch the new Open Creativity section of our website, which will contain lots of information about open-source software, community-focused design and development, free stuff and a lovely client area.