Kenji170624_001 - DesignCinema

The speaker is introducing the first episode of a podcast called Design Cinema. They plan to discuss the concept design industry, including its history, how to enter the industry, and what the job entails. They mention that some students have little understanding of the industry but still want to pursue it, possibly due to the increased popularity of video games and films. The speaker compares this to someone wanting to buy a luxury car without knowing anything about cars. They also mention that many students aspire to work for well-known companies like Blizzard Entertainment. The speaker acknowledges that concept art is a challenging job and emphasizes that it requires more than just drawing. 24th June 2017 Hi everybody and welcome to the first episode of Design Cinema, the podcast edition This is Phang Du speaking and a beautiful Thursday outside I hope to make this episode clear about 2 hours mere time here to record it for you I have no idea how long this is This is one for probably over an hour I guess because this podcast just speak freely and relax just pretend we're in a classroom here and just randomly speak a bunch of things related to this episode, no video I'm hopefully try to make it interesting as possible for you guys I've never done the podcast before ever so this is gonna be experiment for us here so I'm gonna apologize ahead of time for the kind of mishap, coughing and so forth So I try not to edit it too much just make it as broad as possible so you guys can choose what it's like, just have a conversation Alright, let's jump into this episode where I'm gonna speak a lot slower here because there's no video then make sure the audio is nice and clear for everyone to hear and speaking slowly actually is a challenge for me I'm so used to speaking at a really fast rate so I have to constantly remind myself to slow it down, breathe, relax so you guys don't miss anything I'm gonna say here Alright, for the first episode, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about concept design industry because we are a lot of students, there's nothing to show of course we have a lot of professionals as well but I think we have a lot of students who are trying to make their way into the concept design industry but yeah, at the same time, the industry is quite hidden now with the internet and Facebook all these kind of things, all the art style, all the books this is a little bit exposed before but that exposure, sometimes not entirely 100% either so what I want to do for this episode is talk about a few things Number 1, a little brief history of concept design industry in terms of from a point of view how it's changing and growing then I'm gonna head into how do you actually get in what are your chances, what are the odds what do you actually prepare for and what do you actually do, right I'm going to a section which if you actually get into the concept already what do you do every day entirely what do you prepare for in terms of portfolio or even think like what do you work in the meantime you get yourself ready for this business alright, so let's talk a little bit about history what lead to this episode well, I'm starting this school in 2009 most of the students who applied to the school had a pretty good understanding about what the concept art was they had done the research, they had other books they had researched on the internet and kinda had a good idea of what they are heading into so we don't have to worry about them ok, you get it, you're here you know what this business is about you know the odds, you know what they do every day perfect now, come today, 7 years later we're starting to get a small percentage of students who apply who have absolutely no idea what is in the industry is actually about about maybe 10% of students who apply just absolutely no idea but yeah, they want to pursue this in my opinion, extremely difficult job or career path so they had to ask, what is there to do this I actually think this has to do with the popularity of video games as well as films in the past 10 years plus, you know, 1990s or even early 2000s before YouTube came along, before social media became a giant and enormous thing that's taking over our lives now video games and films were quite exposed in terms of production in terms of what goes on behind the scenes and also especially in video game side we've been seen as very nerdy business to be in you tell your friends, you're working at a video game at present you automatically get the assumption that you're a big nerd a geek and things like that just wasn't really cool to be in gaming and then, somewhere in 2010, 2011 2011, when a slew of video games got released for example, Skyrim and Fallout on this game, we see a lot of attention on the internet, both by the game industry and to the mainstream I think it did but with that, only the nerds and most hardcore gamers would know about this game but then, you see on television you start to see video blogs on YouTube having millions of followers just talking about video games Skyrim alone probably had, I guess, 30-40 million followers throughout all the channels on YouTube so now you have an influx or exposure of video games to the mainstream audience and no longer is video games perceived as nerdy I think now it's almost cool to work in games so back to the porn students I think the small percentage of students who apply will be like, oh, video games are cool I want to do it which one, which job should I pick to get in? there are 3D artists, programmers sound design, music and animation VFX, texture, and then there's concept art I think a lot of them tend to choose concept art because from the outside world it's not really fun and maybe even perceived as easy because all they need is a piece of paper or Photoshop, buy a Wacom tablet and boom, you're in so making concept art you don't have to study really hard C++ code, you don't have to know Maya animation terms, things like that you don't have to learn Zebras all the hardcore 3D software required to become a good 3D artist just seems like an easy way, at least from the outside my opinion however, the truth is far from that this job is equally as difficult as anything that would be in production or product, it's just perceived as oh, you don't have to do the education you don't have to study anything and just draw that's part of it I think that's why so many young students are trying to apply the concept art even though they know very little about what the job does so let's talk about that, what exactly is it and the confusing sometimes that leads to I think this kid applies who know very little about what the concept art think and what you do, just draw fun stuff all day you paint the characters, accent the scenes and all that, and really that's not what we do in the job that has to do with some type of marketing art or other books that mix a bunch of stuff together and I'm gonna go over that later in part 2 of what we actually do but this has to do with I like to use analysis of cars ok let's be patient with me here when I set this up again, this is a podcast, it's gonna run for quite a while so let's just keep talking pretend you're in California the United States Powerball you guys probably heard there are a lot of things going on right now and the amount is 1.5 billion a lot of money over there imagine you're just some guys, some girls and you win, you're the only winner now you have close to a billion dollars in the bank after tax maybe you have 600 million dollars or something crazy like that and you wanna go buy some sports car my guess is the sports car this person gonna buy it's gonna be probably a Ferrari, Lamborghini, maybe a Bugatti but probably something like Ferrari or Lamborghini, very high chance that it's one of those two brands now, does this person know anything about a car? probably no but do we care? no why do they buy a car? because it's expensive, it's very flashy and it shows you have money but in terms of knowing history the buyer doesn't have to care they don't even know where Ferrari are made you know and I don't think they care all they know is it's freaking nice looking, it's sexy, it costs quite a lot of money and most people cannot afford this car so therefore, when they try this car they won't know how much money and that's the purpose in terms of why they're buying that car totally fine, totally legit no problem there ok, so scenario number 2 now you're a student trying to become a mechanic or engineer you desire high-end car engine ok, and you apply to a school that teaches you how to do that you desire very high level high performing racing engine and now this school is going to interview you and ask you what company would you like to work for after you're done? and your answer is Lamborghini, Ferrari ok, totally cool, recognizable company make great engines ok, let's tell you a little bit about this company why you want to work for them what kind of engine do you like which Ferrari model is your favorite let's see I don't know, I just want to work for them I have no idea ok, do you know which engine is the smallest is it in the front, in the back how many cylinders no, I have no idea I just want to work for them now you can see from the school interview you're starting to be like wait, you want to choose Ferrari or Lamborghini but yeah, you have absolutely no idea what they actually do but yeah, you're choosing the two brands you want to choose Ford you want to choose GM you want to choose Lotus you want to choose the two brands why Ferrari or Lamborghini and my personal opinion is because those brands are named brands they're recognizable and they give you a lot of points in terms of social side it's like, cool, I work for Lamborghini but yeah, you don't know anything about them now, is there anything wrong with that no, probably not choosing the good brand is important you know what I mean are you happy to work there, sure but I think what's driving that for the concept industry is not because they want to be concept artists to try every day to work on product really long hours, a lot of stress I think this answer comes in because they just want to play games it's fun to be in companies and make school games because the answer we get on outside with a car mechanic it's a Lamborghini or Ferrari on outside as a student, what do you want to work for after you graduate the number one answer I think 99% of the time probably is Blizzard Entertainment followed by a couple of other big brands like Bioware I think but that doesn't seem to show up much because I think it's a hard title to pronounce so they don't promote themselves as much in terms of who is scary and things like that so you get like Bioware, Blizzard all the time but yeah when you ask a follow-up question of who your favorite artist of Blizzard or tell us about which game you like the concept art from or for Bioware which particular game that you found interesting in terms of design no idea, the answer is like I don't know, I don't know which one I've never seen this concept art I don't know what is this studio look for none of it so the clue of oh the reason why the student picking this company is nothing to do with the fact that they want a concept art there they just want to be there because it's a big brand and that was the whole point of this episode is about that I want to talk about what actually is going on in the job that's don't go to business simply because you think working at Blizzard and you play Blizzard game all day but don't do anything you sit on your desk, you play World of Warcraft 9 hours a day you draw a sketch on a napkin and that's your job it's the complete opposite of that and before you want to choose this as your next career for 20 30 years know a little bit about what you're getting yourself into now hopefully this episode will break that down alright so that's the setup in terms of why I'm doing this episode let's go back in history and talk about concept design 20 years ago so when I started out, my first shop for everyone was at Warden Systems this studio was about 300-400 people divided into I believe 3-4 floors big building out of Austin, Texas right by 360 Bridge nowadays it's being brought out by EA and I believe the same building is used to make Star Wars MMO for Bioware but 20 years ago, this was the home of Lord British who created Ultima so I was on the same floor as him basically they're doing Ultima online and then it's also the home of Chris Roberts who is currently a cost-making Star Citizen Star Citizen but back then he was the creator of Wing Commander and happened to be the last Wing Commander called Wing Commander Prophecy and then upstairs from us was a very small division making cool games but most of the guys probably never heard of them which is JSimulation J, A, and E they were making some really hardcore flight sims, a niche market but they're like a bunch of literate stuff if you go up there you feel like you basically walk into a military company because you just have a chain book and everything, all sorts of stuff are researching but anyway, that's what I started and when I got the job I was actually the first person in terms of a studio who officially titled as a concept artist prior to that, concept art in video games were quite rare in terms of their official job position most studios were just choosing whoever job best to do that job because prior to this you see, in 1997 1998, 3D wasn't even around yet, barely you had like Tomb Raider, just a handful of games that were in 3D most games were still in 3D development cycle so a lot of us have done in terms of concept design, which is like hey, you're a designer, do you sketch well? ok, you draw really well ok, design this thing or you, you're an artist, you do the title you draw really well ok, you draw some creatures and really, a lot of game companies who just create that way and they make some great games that way as well in terms of there wasn't an official position it's just people draw, you drew really well, and you end up doing the design and also back then you don't publish your concept art there was no internet to post anything to the quality of video, of concept art didn't have to be that great because no one seen this stuff and the technology wasn't even able to draw them out I mean in Wing Commander, we're looking at spaceships no more than, I think 250, 300 polygons is that for a spaceship and nowadays, that's like one-tenth in a character I think the character Thung in the video games now has probably 10,000 polygons so we're talking about 20,000 polygons for an entire spaceship so, no matter what you draw, doesn't seem to get captured you might be building on little air intake, and fins, and little light cockpit and stuff and then it ends up being 32x32 texture blurry texture or 200 polygon model so, nothing wrong with that but it's just a need for very, very high level concept art wasn't around there wasn't photorealism or none of that kind of stuff so, getting in back then was very interesting, which is you really want to become a concept artist your job was sit there, draw design, and try to get economy the company as much as possible no one know about what you did because I was the only concept artist in terms of Warren and most don't even know what I did what exactly are you doing? you don't do 3D, you don't do cow why did you get into the AI office and draw someday so, you really choose this career something you love doing but now, fast forward 20 years concept art has become very mainstream so many kids now want to get in and that creates a situation in which you have to procrastinate, no professional doing really cool stuff and you get a lot of younger kids who want to become them but they know very little about what concept art is and a small percent of that is pursuing this job simply because it seems like easiest way in to work at their favorite game studio not to draw concept art but just to be part of the studio and play their games and draw stuff on the side so that was I'm gonna lead into the get the in part of this business let's back it down, ok so let me back up a bit because I do want to stay there like to draw and design concept art is definitely a career you can pursue but now what you get into and really pay attention to part 2 of this talk in which I talk about what we actually do in the job because what you might perceive as concept art might not actually be concept art, ok