My Trip to LA - Day 3

Wednesday March 7

Wednesday was a fantastic day!  It was probably my favorite day of the whole trip, it certainly is the day I took the most pictures.  That was the day we went to Dreamworks!  It would be a fantastic place to work.  They have a nice campus with plenty of sunshine, and free lunch and breakfast for the employees!  They let us take pictures outside the buildings, so here a few.

While we were at Dreamworks we saw Anthony Holden, a BYU alumni and storyboard artist.  He talked about how he came to work at Dreamworks and the process he went through to decide his career path.  He compared his work to the story of the Brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon (Ether 3:1-6) where he brings 16 stones to the Lord because the Lord gave him the task of deciding how the boats he built should be lit.  The Brother of Jared came up with the idea of the stones because they couldn't have fire, so he came to the Lord with the stones and asked him to touch the stones and make them give light.  The Lord did so and The Brother of Jared then proceeded to have a very spiritual and enlightening experience.  Anthony said that the Brother of Jared was like, "Lord, I have these 16 stones.  I know it's not the greatest idea, but it's the best I can come up with, please make it work?"  And that he's all like, "Lord, here are my cartoons.  I know their not very good, but they're all I can do, so would You please make them shine so I can support my family?"  I thought it was a good comparison.  It's a good humble view a good artist should have.

Then Dreamworks fed us lunch!  It was tasty good food.  After lunch we went to The Huntington Library and wandered around the gardens and museums there.  I didn't go in any of the museums, but I wandered around the gardens and tried to take some good reference pictures to draw from later.

Shortly after I took this picture my camera got dropped.  It still works fine, but the outside casing is all crunched up on one corner and the top piece is a bit out of alignment.

After the Huntington Gardens we went to visit Cliff Nielsen in his home in downtown LA.  The guy lives in a warehouse!  It was so amazing!  Lookit!

I tried to take pictures inside, but it was too dark since it was so late in the day.  He has an amazing set up!  His house is built into the front of it and then he has a huge space to use for his photography.  It was mind blowing.  He gave some really good advice as well.  He spoke out strongly for using your own reference, you can't steal stuff from other people and it's just better to make or get your own anyway.  Also, he said that you need to think of yourself first as a storyteller.  Doing that will make you a much better illustrator.

And there was a Goodyear blimp flying around.  I hadn't seen one in a while, so I documented it.  I think the picture was well timed.

After Cliff we were supposed to go to visit the Whitemoon Dreams game studio, but the car I was in got very lost.  We wandered around Chinatown for a bit before accidentally finding the highway and decided we were half-way back to the hotel already, so we might as well just go the rest of the way.  From what I heard Whitemoon Dreams was nice and a good experience, but of all the things on the trip to miss, it was the one to miss.  I'm glad that was the case, because I really enjoyed catching up on the internet that day before going to bed before everyone else got back.