Jeremy Cantor first became interested in growing up to be an artist when he received praise for being the only student in his kindergarten class to accurately draw a house's chimney perpendicular to the ground plane rather than to that of the slanted roof. Years of having his doodles confiscated by frustrated schoolteachers followed. Then, understandably frightened by the image of the digital nerd he might become, Jeremy left his sensible Computer Science / Math / Pre-Med University studies and ran away to Art School (in NYC & PA), much to the chagrin of his guidance counselors and more importantly, his Dad.

The art department at Scranton's Marywood University had an exciting, new Apple IIe computer program which allowed you to type in the XYZ coordinates of each vertex of a cube and in less than 20 minutes, you'd get a wireframe printout of your cube in proper perspective! Jeremy's future career fate was sealed when he was awarded extra credit for creating a cylinder!

After graduating with a degree in Illustration, Jeremy fulfilled his dream of actually getting paid to produce artwork by landing a minimum-wage job running the art department of a small t-shirt factory in a nasty suburb of Washington D.C. Six months later, he moved on to another silk-screen shop down the road. But this place was different. They had a Macintosh (no more Letraset!).

L.A. beckoned soon thereafter (a friend needed to sublet his room actually), so Jeremy packed up his art supplies & headed out West to learn more about this "animation" thing. After a year of waiting tables, taking animation classes & almost building a successful freelance illustration career (mostly doing TV storyboards), Jeremy accidentally stumbled into an Amiga store and saw a $65 program called "Turbo Silver" spewing out 3D images that his new Macintosh could only dream about. So he worked some extra shifts, bought an Amiga, and began teaching himself 3D animation. Given that software manuals (if they existed at all) were written by programmers in those days, the years Jeremy thought he'd wasted studying computer science finally paid off, as he was actually able to decipher the cryptic "Imagine" tutorials.

A few months later, a short 3D animated film had emerged, which was included in the 1991 L.A. Animation Celebration. This (now embarrassingly primitive) film helped Jeremy land his first job as a computer artist/animator for a small games company called Acme/Malibu Interactive, where 2 years of 3D design/animation and a whole lot of pixel pushing followed. Art directing SuperNintendo's "Battlecars" was the highpoint of his experience at Malibu (but nobody bought the game). In his spare time, Jeremy produced a second animated short, which toured with Spike & Mike's Animation Festival in the early 90's.

Northern CA beckoned (a recruiter from Sega actually), and Jeremy seized the chance to try out the Bay Area. The job at Sega only lasted a year (but he learned Softimage & made some great contacts there), and a small interactive house called P.F. Magic was the next stop. A variety of work was to be found there, which included directing the animation on the million-selling "Catz" (digital pet) product.

Jeremy then "made the jump to light speed" when he landed a job as a creature animator on Tristar's "Starship Troopers" at Tippett Studio in Berkeley. Jeremy stayed at Tippett for a couple of years, working on various demo projects and helping with the animation supervision on Disney's "My Favorite Martian" (which nobody saw).In late '98, Sony Imageworks recruited Jeremy back to L.A. to be the Animation Supervisor on "Hollowman" (which nobody liked). A hierarchy restructuring occurred in midstream and he shifted into the role of character setup supervisor for the duration of that particular project.

Jeremy is now gearing up for "Harry Potter", seeing if he can manage to stay at the same studio for more than 2 years, enjoying life as a newlywed, and slowly accepting the fact that he was ultimately unable to avoid becoming a digital nerd after all..

Jeremy's thoughts on Production:
Is it better for a digital artist to be a jack-of-all-trades or focused on one specific skillset? I think the most winning combination is to be fairly well versed in a number of disciplines but have one in particular that shines above the others. Singular strengths tend to help you land a job, especially in larger production facilities where the artists are more compartmentalized and mixed demo reels can confuse recruiters, while versatility tends to help you keep a job. The ability to switch discipline gears or styles can be a powerful "job-security" tool, especially in-between projects. Each new production may have radically different requirements than that of its predecessor. The more potential holes you can fill, the more likely the next project will need you.

Versatility can, however, be a blessing as well as a curse. Sometimes your capabilities are more widespread than your interests and it's possible to find yourself stuck on a less desirable assignment because someone found out that you possess a certain unique (or at least uniquely revealed) skillset. Only reveal the breadth of your abilities when it serves you to do so.

I believe that the ability to accept and muscle-through disappointment, criticism & rejection is often the very thing that separates successful creative people from non-successful creative people. Accept the fact that everyone won't like everything you do, and you won't necessarily be happy with the outcome of every project. Some productions are indeed true works of art that you'll be proud of for years. But, others just paid the bills. The real disappointments are those that start out with the expectation of being the former, but end up as the latter. It can, however, be really exciting when the opposite occurs: The little side project that everyone ignores wins an Oscar or sells a zillion copies.

Keep in mind that we are all perpetual students. There's always more to learn. Seek new challenges where you will continue to grow as an artist and you'll never be bored.

I think the secret to surviving in this crazy business is to regularly remind yourself that this is a world where so many people lucky enough to actually have jobs, truly dislike (or at least have no passion for) their daily grind. We are the fortunate few who actually (at least occasionally) get paid to do our hobby.
Now, if only there was time for a good night's sleep once in a while…