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Congratulations if you stood out from the hundreds of reels that vfx facilities receive on a weekly basis. You’ve been called to come in for an interview - now don’t fuck it up!

The first step to not fucking up your interview is an obvious one, but needs to be mentioned. Don’t be late to your interview! The planets that have to be aligned to free up the 30 minutes that a CG supervisor needs to meet with you are very hard to move again, especially if you have already wasted their time by being late.

Hopefully you took my advice from the last post and were very specific about what you contributed to your demo reel and your resume is fairly embellishment free. The people who are interviewing you conduct over 500 interviews a year on top of dealing with the responsibility of finishing their show and know more about your skill level after talking with you for five minutes than you do. Being honest about your skill level and being aware of your current limitations are two things that you should be able to convey effectively. Your interviewers have a very informed opinion of who you are and what you are capable of, and the closer your summation of yourself is to theirs the better your going to look.

A good thing to be aware of is that your interview goes both ways. Often times you will be asked to come in for an interview broken up in time slots for meetings with different shows. The CG Supervisors need to size you up and at the same time they need to pitch their show. At a busy facility shows are often fight over candidates and most of the time it is left up to the artist’s preference of show assignment. Be sure to pay attention and be receptive to the pitch; if you receive an offer of employment and get to choose your show assignment you will be making a long commitment (1 year or more) to a show. The show that you are most excited about working on will be the show that you are going to do the best on in most cases.

Good Luck!