Max the Mutt was happy this Tuesday to welcome Alwyn Hunt from ‘The Rookies,’  www.therookies.co.  Alwyn, visiting from Australia, has worked in VFX in England, Toronto, as well as Australia, and is now working full time on The Rookies. Part of his job is travelling  to visit recruiters and art directors at companies all over the world. The purpose of The Rookies is to foster talent and help young artists launch their careers.

In addition to stressing that the entertainment arts industries are now global, Alwyn shared some valuable insights about how to approach professionals to ask for feedback. He encouraged students to research studios that they might wish to work for early on to find out the level of skills necessary to get hired..
“Don’t wait until you graduate-“Alwyn said. “You want to be ahead of the curve, not beginning your research when you have grads from all the schools to compete with.”

Alwyn also discussed why uploading work onto the The Rookies website is an excellent  idea, a way to create a page about yourself and your work so that recruiters and artists world wide can see your work. In addition, top professionals will judge what you’ve done, rate your work (the rating is not made public), and give you an idea of what you need to do to create a competitive portfolio.
Apart from valuable exposure, the sponsors for this website include major animation and video game companies who award internships. There are also cash awards.

 The Rookies also has school pages, and top schools (Max the Mutt included) are profiled. Last year was the first time MTM participated, and, although it was announced late, most of the students who entered made it to the finals! We hope that this year all MTM students will take advantage of this opportunity and post their work.

After his presentation, Alwyn  looked at work from many animation, concept art, and illustration students and seemed genuinely impressed by what he saw. “It’s not the size of the school,” he said, “but the talent and drive of the students to make it in these industries.” We can’t wait until June when this years entries will be judged! We think we’ll do very, very well!

Thanks for the visit, Alwyn!