DNEG interview

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As a part of my research, I listened to an hour-long interview by Henning Sanden and Morten Jaeger, the founders of Flipped Normals, who interviewed Harriet Edge-Partington, the top recruiter from DNEG (a British motion picture visual effects and computer animation and stereo conversion company that has received four Academy Awards for its work on the films Inception, Interstellar, Ex Machina, and Blade Runner 2049 (Wikipedia, 2018).

She said a lot of interesting things that can help me to get into the industry or learn how the industry works, and I summarised the most important for me:

±  She says that CV says a lot about you but showreel is the most important.
±  Covering letter is very important for people with no previous professional experience (that means us, graduates). All graduates apparently have similar showreels full of uni projects and no industry experience, but in the covering letter, they can explain why they want to work for DNEG specifically, how and why they got into VFX/3D. That means they want to see the passion for what people want to do.
±  Interview: They ask graduates about uni (what each year consisted of, what types of projects did they work on – solo/group, future goals and progress). They also ask technical stuff and tell you how it works in the company, what the job role consists of and what additional training you will need to do.
±  Quote: "When we are interviewing someone, it is about how we feel they are going to fit into the team. We are not going to disrupt the team that we’ve got at the moment just based on a fact that they are an amazing artist. They need to fit into the team!"
±  Talking about a previous negative experience – be careful! Always put a positive spin on it – even if there was someone in the team who was not putting the effort, it was a great challenge! Do not talk trash about other studios, they all know each other and talk!
±  Even if you were not successful with an application, always ask for feedback (but do not be pushy)!

±  They do not have a problem to hire internationals but if you need visa, they can’t hire you as a junior artist (runner/graduate) because it is by law that they have to give you a certain minimum salary, which is higher than the one they offer for junior roles. She says she almost no one knows it and she is usually the first person to tell that to internationals so I find it very useful for my future (Brexit, my plans to stay here).

References

En.wikipedia.org. (2018). DNEG. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNEG.
FlippedNormals. (2018). FlippedNormals | Digital Marketplace for Animation, Games and CG. [online] Available at: https://flippednormals.com/.
YouTube. (2018). Getting Your Dream Job - Interview with Top Recruiter from DNEG. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJYOE-k3cuI.

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