RE: 3d studios in Chicago?

["Matt Lind" <speye_21(at)hotmail.com>]

We used to have a lot more work, but you Canadians keep stealing it from us 
with your lowball bids - especially in Toronto.

Cinematics and FX was never really a big market in Chicago - or at least not 
in animated form.  Chicago is biased more towards editorial.  When Jon 
Hughes was making films (Ferris Bueller, Home Alone, Uncle Buck, Breakfast 
Club, etc..), there was a lot of Chicago film work, but today it's mostly 
editing, games, post production, print ads and web design/e-commerce. 
There's also a fair share of independent film making and side projects for 
place such as Navy Pier, but those are usually one-off's and/or low budget. 
Within the post production moniker I would have to include corporate video 
such as court room animation, corporate training, education, documentaries, 
.. basically brick n' mortar stuff.  That market is very stable and 
interesting if you like to learn as you have to tackle and solve production 
problems you don't normally encounter in games or film work. However, it's 
not terribly abundant or well paying for full time job seekers.  You can do 
moderately well as a freelancer if you have the connections.  Chicago is 
within driving distance of several markets such as Milwaukee, Minneapolis, 
Detroit, St. Louis, Indianapolis, ....  So thers's multiple wells to draw 
from if you don't mind knocking on some doors.  It'll take a lot work 
though.

I should correct my previous post by stating Dreamation is a film studio, 
not a games studio.  It's mysterious though as they don't give any hints as 
to who they are.  They claim to be run by director Jon Waters and are 
located in Lake Forest, Illinois, which is a very well-to-do area (around 
the corner from Halas Hall - Chicago Bears headquarters), but outside of 
that....nobody has any clue what they do because even their classified ads 
are vague.  They had a few anime characters as part of the ad artwork, but 
who knows what it means.  I heard rumors that Paramount backs them in some 
form, but I wouldn't put too much stock in that as Viacom and it's 
subsidiaries tend to be very visible when starting projects and advertising. 
Dreamation isn't.

Chicago is the unofficial small business capital of the United States. 
About 85% of it's business is classified as small business.  The other 15% 
is of course giants like Boeing, McDonalds, United Airlines, Sears, 
Motorola, State Farm Insurance, etc..  So just about any industry you jump 
into in the Chicago area (outside of the immediate downtown or larger 
suburbs such as OakBrook and Schaumburg) will be small to midsize companies 
surrounded by a few giants.  The 3d market in Chicago is structured the same 
way.


Matt


---------------------
Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
   Softimage|3D
   Softimage|XSI
Matt(at)Mantom.net
Mantom, Chicago




Date : Wed, 19 Jul 2006
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
From: marc-andre.carbonneau(at)ubisoft.com
Subject: RE: 3d studios in Chicago?

Hmmm that's kind of not attractive for 3D artists then.
So unless you want to make 3d for games you're pretty much stuck
freelancing? No movie effects, cinematics or such? 
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