* Click on images for pop-ups Dariush
Derakhshani, 30 and nicely bald, is currently a special effects
animator at Sight Effects in Venice, Ca, a premiere effects house
specializing in commercials. He began his professional career
as a junior architect in New Jersey, where he first began his
forays into digital 3D. Deciding he’d rather be slumped over a
keyboard than a drafting table, he worked for and received an
MFA in Animation from USC’s School of Cinema Television, earning
a fellowship from Paramount Pictures, an award from the Columbus
Film Festival and finalist honors from Tokyo’s Animation Grand
Prix and Poland’s Contact Festival in the process, and a screening
at the Director’s Guild of America in LA.
His
first industry exploits took him through Sony’s Hi-Definition
Division, where he worked on Race to Atlantis IMAX ride
film, and landed him at South Park, where he worked up
to being Supervising Technical Director. Saying goodbye to Cartman
and pals a year later in pursuit of effects work and teaching,
he began an annoying freelance existence, where he taught classes
in 3D and played fistfuls of Starcraft between stints animating
at NBC, designing for AXN-TV, and compositing for a couple Snoop
Dogg and Ice-T features, culminating in an appointment at Rhythm
and Hues for compositing on “The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas,”
quite possible the finest film. Ever. It is!
Itching
to get back into CGI, however, Dariush left compositing and joined
the CGI department at Sight Effects as a staff animator, where
he has worked on award winning commercials since 1999, racking
up credits on spots winning honors at the London International
Advertising Awards, The International Advertising Festival at
Cannes, and the AICP Awards.
Never
wanting to get a good night’s sleep, Dariush has been teaching
night and weekend courses at various animation programs around
LA, including USC, UCLA Extension, Gnomon, and The Art Institute
of LA. He has taught animation production, compositing, and CGI
using 3d Studio Max and Maya. Furthering his academic career,
he has published online articles and tutorials on several sites
of The Digital Media Net network of digital arts web sites, Digsmagazine,
and The Scratchpost, and is currently the Senior Editor of taint
magazine online art and literary journal. He has had some school
work published in “Computer Animation - A Whole New World”
by rockport Publishing and is currently working on an instructional
book on the basics of Maya.
Dariush's
thoughts on production:
I have vacillating opinions when it comes to production. I enjoy
the rigors and challenge of it, but I also find it to be pretty
annoying, if not out-right infuriating at times. When I first
started out I was very excited to get my hands on any and all
work. But that led to long hours and my generally being grumpy
most of the time. But I think everyone has to go through it, at
least a little bit, to come out the other end stronger and wiser.
It’s
a tough field, there’s ferocious competition in all levels of
production, since there is a very high caliber of talent and skill
being put out daily. I found that tremendously daunting, but I’ve
found, and am still finding out, that with a strong gut and some
persistence, it gets easier with the passing years. I guess the
trick is finding the kinds of people you are comfortable with.
Had I not been surrounded by professional peers who also became
my good friends, I would have packed it up and left this racket
a while ago.The
production industry has a notorious habit of chewing up and spitting
out people. It’s all pretty much because of the huge amounts of
money flying around this business, and the tight deadlines and
“interesting” personalities driving the jobs, asking you to create
for their vision late into the night.
Production level artists end up getting batted about by the tremendous
force of a production which just picks them up in its wake and
carries them downstream till it dumps them off in the ocean, where
they often find themselves swimming back to shore to do it all
over again. It gets so tiresome after some time, that I have seen
many people leave the field entirely, grumpy and disgruntled.
But I find the successful always try to have something going on
for themselves. They animate their own projects, or they write,
or whatever, to keep part of their creativity solely for themselves.
Part
of what keeps me going in production is teaching. I find it relaxing
when I walk into a classroom (usually 15 minutes late) to teach
folks what I’ve learned about animation. Overall, I can say that
I find production can be all too overwhelming, especially when
one’s first starting out. It’s very important to keep other things
going to not lose one’s inspiration in the pursuits of another
person. While it’s true that compared to some, I haven’t been
around in animation for very long, but I think I’ve managed to
pay attention to a lot of important things. So, this I know for
sure: You’ve got to like what you do. More so in production than
perhaps any other field. It is imperative to be honest with yourself,
and find out what you like to do, and to try your best to do it
with the people you like the most.
