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September 2013

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sions. The piece was shot with a Red One MX camera and was edited in Apple Final Cut Pro, with files transcoded to ProRes. An Ever Present Silence was submitted to an Independent Film Channel competition and won a Future of Films Awards. As a result, he was allowed to pitch the network on a pilot and series. Upon graduating in 2012, he got an internship in the editing department of direct marketing company Bluewater Media. "They had me working on various aspects of production and post production," he explains. A lot of what he did during the six-week internship involved working on an Avid. While he had training, much of his experience to that point involved using Final Cut Pro, and Premiere for Red-shot projects, so this furthered his skill set. "I was working on assembling B-roll for them," he recalls. "Cutting it up and getting all the good stuff for them for a documentary. I also helped the crew during production, or in the studio." He kept in touch with the staff at Ringling too, and developed working relationships with many in the film department, including guest lecturers and advisors such as Forest Whitaker and Werner Herzog. Last October, he began working with Forest Whitaker on an introspective reel for his start-up organization PeaceEarth, which raises awareness of child soldiers, among other things, and encourages the promotion of peace everywhere. An Oscar-winning actor, Whitaker is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations. "It was a paying job," notes Burhoe. "It was an interesting role. I was more of an editor, and [worked to] have an original song created." He also directed two students whom created motion graphics for the three-minute video, which debuted at a gala event in England. "I'd be in Florida, Forest would be in London or Paris, and he had an assistant that I would send work to, who was always in South Africa," he explains. A week after completing the PeaceEarth project, Burhoe spent a week in Dallas, creating a behind-the-scenes video for Ringling with filmmaker Werner Herzog. Herzog was producing a project that looks at death row inmates. Burhoe helped shoot behind-the-scenes footage, where Herzog would talk about the filmmaking process and how he does thing. "It's not a master class, but more about Werner explaining the intricacies and ways of thinking about how to be a filmmaker: how to think [and that there's] more than one aspect to be aware of." The final video will be available exclusively to Ringling students for viewing. "You have to continuously network," Burhoe advises, reflecting on his busy freelance career. "It's not just when you are in school or when you graduate. You have to continue every time you are on a new production. Make sure you introduce yourself to as many people as you can." DANNY YOON Danny Yoon was born in Seattle and grew up in Maryland. Like many kids, he enjoyed watching cartoons and reading comic books. They opened up his imagination and inspired him to draw. He would try to replicate the imagery he'd see, and this interest in animation led him to pursue a career in the medium. "The advent of 3D animation — on TV and in movies — I thought that was even more interesting," he explains. "To make something that could potentially look real." He enrolled at Parsons in New York City, where he studied illustration and animation. "Most of it was 2D," he recalls of his studies. "We did learn some 3D, but it wasn't enough to make me competent." Yoon took a couple of odd jobs doing design and 2D animation, but it was a job as a photographer's assistant that gave him motivation. "I was asked to make some 3D assets for a backdrop to a photo shoot," he explains. "That reinvigorated me and gave me a direction and calling. I decided to pursue 3D. Then I found Gnomon." He enrolled in a two-year program at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. There, he developed his skills using Maya and ZBrush, and was able to build a show reel based on his student assignments. "My whole demo reel is comprised of finals from each class," he notes. "There were eight terms in two years. During our last two terms there was a demo reel class, which was dedicated to demo reel pieces. It also introduced us to the trials and tribulations of working in a pipeline: how to develop our own pipeline and see where we can improve." Yoon graduated last December, and was able to participate in a "preview day," which served, in part, as a job fair, where potential employers could meet with young talent from the school. "I met a recruiter from The Mill," says Yoon. "I didn't expect anything to come of it, but she called me in for an internship." As an intern at The Mill/LA, Yoon served as a modeler and texture artist. He was also asked, on occasion, to contribute in other ways. "I'd be asked to do lighting and shading, and some animation," he says of the onemonth experience. "I had the opportunity to do almost everything from the start, which is something I wanted. And I made sure they knew my interests and avenues of the CG pipeline that I wanted to explore." His work included contributing to a short film, as well as a car commercial. Executives must have liked what they saw, because after just a month, they hired him full-time. "I was shocked at the fact that I even got to intern here," says Yoon. "And it was even more shocking to be brought on as staff. I never would have imagined. I had known about The Mill previously, when I was in college, so it was kind of surreal." He's now a junior CG artist at The Mill/LA (www.themill.com). "It's definitely a very intense industry," he observes. "I still get assigned to a project and the bulk of your work goes into that project, but sometimes I'm asked to move onto another one. "In my case, I haven't been there from beginning to end, because my skill set doesn't extend all the way through the pipeline just yet. It's something I am trying to learn. I am always learning. I thought Gnomon gave me everything I needed — and it did — but it was only the beginning. It's very intense." Yoon's advice to those star ting out is to have at least one skill that they excel in. "It's not easy to know what you want to focus on," he says. "I think it behooves you to really focus on specific skill sets, even if you want to be a generalist, because it's tough to be a generalist unless you are really good at everything. Those types of people aren't too common. It's good to have something you excel at — that you are above average at." www.postmagazine.com Danny Yoon at The Mill in LA. He got his start as an intern at the studio. Post • September 2013 27

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