So today was my first day at Bent Image Lab, where I'll be spending the next month interning... and it was AWESOME!

As a heads up, I won't be allowed to say anything about what they're working on, as that is very confidential, and I had to sign a form saying that I wouldn't take any pictures of projects or the facility, and wouldn't reveal any projects etc.  So, my blog posts will be very general or simply focus on the work that I am doing or what I'm learning.  For those of you that don't know about Bent, it's an animation studio in SE Portland, they produce commercials for big names such as Dr. Pepper, Apple Jacks, Nokia... you get the jist!  They've also done music videos (Modest Mouse for example), and a number of short films.  To get a better idea of their work you can go see it on their website at: www.bentimagelab.com

So here's how my day went:

Got in at 10:20 (10 minutes early!  wasssuppp!), for those first 10 or 15 min, I filled out paperwork for the position, as it's very official there.  I had to sign off that I would not take pictures or reveal anything etc.  After that, I went and joined my Mentor, who's an awesome guy.  He is a technical director, meaning he works on projects and directs a number of people working on them as well.  I was introduced to a number of people I would be working around in with in the next month.  After that, for the next 2 hours or so I went around to different people, watched what they were doing, and had conversations with them about what they were doing or how things worked.  It was awesome to see them at work and what they were working on!  Then I went and got lunch at Pizzacato with a number of guys from the CG department (which is mostly made up of guys.  I was warned about their crudeness beforehand.)  After getting back from lunch, my mentor gave me my own station to play around with 3DS Max (a professional 3D modeling/animation program that I have a tab bit of experience with.)  So I followed some tutorials and played with the program and basically re-taught myself the basics of it and how to use it.  I impressed my mentor with what I already knew, and he will be coming up with some ideas of projects I can work on (and even help with some of his in the future!)

It may sound dull to some people, but this is the stuff I love!  It was awesome to see everything going on, and to know I would be working in this environment for the next month!

This is gonna ROCK

-Adam Maier