Internships?

Jeremy Lindstrom · Oct 2007

Ok, I'm getting pretty frustrated, and possibly because there aren't a ton of places with 'internships' in the gaming industry. I've only got a few weeks left to find a decent internship or I'll be tutoring kids at school for 3 months during my internship time.

Any ideas? I've pretty much emailed all the companies in Dallas and Florida (where I'd like to go for an internship) and its cost prohibitive to go to California/New York/Canada in regards to rent or an extended stay hotel.)

I'm starting to look outside the gaming industry into movies and effects houses now, I'm just kind of surprised lots of places aren't interested in 3 months of free work.

/shrug

I can see it from the employers perspective too don't get me wrong.

If any of you all have any suggestions, let me know. I guess if I stay local here in Tampa, I can at least work on my portfolio for those 3 months when I should be interning somewhere.

Also, if the company doesn't have an 'official' internship program if a supervisor contacts the school every couple weeks and let them know how I'm doing, that's fine too..

Any ideas?

Thanks Polycounts!

PaK · Oct 2007

Dekard, your porfolio is sparsly textured.

If you put together some nice renders of your textured environments and apply to a company that makes urban environments then you might get more takers.

If you are willing to do that I will show one of our art directors some of your stuff.

-R

skankerzero · Oct 2007

we have an intern right now. he's a highschool kid that wants to be an animator.

We don't have an official structure for interns, but we've done them in the past.

did you try us?

pliang · Oct 2007

We need to see more finished work instead of WIPs.

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2007

We've been bringing in interns fairly regularly here recently, through a Boston school that mandates the students do at least 120 hrs of intern time. It's a good arrangement for both. Mostly just bug testing and play testing, not that exciting, but they do sit in the same area as the artists so they get to see how things happen.

Mark Dygert · Oct 2007

We do internships, and they've worked into full time jobs for a few of them. Most of them where allowed to do actual work on some of the games, and where credited for it. Others where brought on as contract and loved it because they could work from home, when they had the time and keep going to school.
As your portfolio stand, there is a photo sourced dumpster left all by itself to do all of the talking for your textured work. The CTF textures are nice, but I can't say I'm a fan of the bevel/emboss and none of it speaks to your skill at texturing objects.

Finish more of your portfolio pieces with some good lighting and great textures and I bet most of your frustration would disappear. At best, with the state of things the way they are I would imagine you would end up play testing. I know you can do better, why you're not showing it I don't know...

Jeremy Lindstrom · Oct 2007

yeah, I'm currently finishing my senior projects I have 3 photo real scenes, I'll have those all finished next week, and then I go to lighting them in 2 scenarios each but at least once I get them textured I can throw some decent lighting to at least get them up on my site.

Thanks for all the info..

Jesse,

Yes, I sent an email but haven't heard anything back just yet as I've said previously the school kind of does this backwards where I have to land an internship technically before finishing my demo reel and final projects.

But, yes I agree I've got a lot of stuff that's not up there yet as well.

Thanks.

Ott · Oct 2007

Most studios will look at internships as a stepping stone into a full time job. Look at the graphics of today. If you aren't doing that, or better, what's the point?

Unless you are specifically looking at making XBox Arcade, Wii, or the few PS2 games out there, most studios are looking at THIS-Gen and next.

Any studio that is starting a new project right NOW, will probably only ship 1-3 more games for current-gen systems before we will be at the next milestone of systems. (Assuming a 2 year development time)

Most studios aren't going to bring you in as an intern unless you are already just about there, and only need a little more direction to push you to where you need to be. They don't have time to sit down and teach you how to take it to the next level.

I'm not trying to dissuade you in any way, but realize that this might have something to do with why you haven't gotten any response, and will hopefully push you to getting where you need to be.

foreverendering · Oct 2007

I know Electronic Arts does 3 month internships. Did you try Tiburon in FL?

Jeremy Lindstrom · Nov 2007

Yeah Tiburon has a 'internship' deal with UCF already and they only do 'summer' internships.

I did however take a tour over there back in January, some cool stuff definitely.

rollin · Nov 2007

come to germany.. here all games are made by internships *G*

ok not aaall.. but kind of

Internships?

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