17
DAWN
Hey Dawn!
Good news and bad news.
Bad news first: I tried with Pirelli, but he shot me down on switching places. Sorry.
Good news: an alum from my Dramatic Writing program just got tapped to do the movie version of Chrysanthemum. She talked about how she and the director had put some animation about the history of slavery into the opening sequence. I told her about LOVE ORIGINS. She made a call, and long story short, one of the animation directors over at Yinz Animation Studios wants to talk with you! All her info is below if you want to get in touch.
Best wishes,
Asher
I nearly fell out of my chair when I read Asher’s email just a few days after our conversation. Then I transcribed it by hand and deleted it from every conceivable folder before Victor or whoever he had monitoring my email could see it.
Chrysanthemum was a mega-popular opera about a woman who goes from slavery to working in Abraham Lincoln’s White House. It had been touring for years, and I saw it three times when it came through the Newport Performing Arts Center. Though sadly, never with Sirena Gale, the opera singer, who would also be playing the title role in the movie.
Even better, Yinz Animations was one of the most cutting-edge animation houses on the East Coast. They’d been behind some of my favorite opening and closing credit sequences, and their commercials consistently won awards that included words like “innovation” and “avant-garde.”
Even the disappointment of not being able to switch thesis presentation spots with Asher couldn’t eclipse the joy of getting an interview for my dream job.
I emailed them right away. And to my shock, Lucy Marr, the person who would be directing the animated sequence for Chrysanthemum, immediately asked to see my reel. Luckily, I’d just put it together as an assignment for our Thesis Production Seminar.
I shot it right off to her, and she called me for what she referred to as a “new hire conversation” right before my Friday Advanced Character Design seminar.
“Pre-production on the project begins in June, so we’d need you to move out to Pittsburgh then. Will that be a problem?”
“No, not a problem at all,” I assured her, happily ditching my plans to get an apartment in Rhode Island.
Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think of moving out of state sooner. In June, I’d be free. And I relished the thought of starting my dream job in a new city where I wasn’t a prisoner.
“Good, if you do well on this assignment, we’ll probably be able to keep you on full-time for other projects. Clients are always asking about animation with a fresh perspective. And yours is definitely that. I shed legit tears at your depiction of the Middle Passage.”
“Oh wow! Thank you!”
“Any questions for me?” she asked.
“Actually, yes,” I answered, beyond excited about the prospect of working with Yinz Animation into the foreseeable future. “Do you think after I prove myself, I’ll be able to pitch a few more things on my own? The more I work on Love Origins, the more I think it could actually be worth produc—”
“Listen, I’m going to be truthful with you; we don’t do much pitching in-house,” Lucy answered, her tone brisk and sharp. “It’s more like the client comes to us because of our stellar reputation, and we give them what they want. We’re not Studio Ghibli or Pixar. We’re the people productions call when they’ve got a great script, and they want a final film that could compete with Studio Ghibli or Pixar for an Oscar.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“But a lot of animators work on their own thing in between projects,” Lucy told me, and her tone became a little more encouraging. “That’s what I do, and it’s way more fun if you ask me. Less pressure and no deadlines. Although, the boss on those side projects can be a bitch. She’s kind of neurotic too. Never know what you’re going to get with her.”
I laughed, appreciating her self-deprecating sense of humor. And she had a point. I’d chosen Love Origins as my thesis production. But before that, I’d only been able to work on it during breaks and in between class assignments. This wouldn’t be any different.
“Plus, you’d be surprised how the stars align in some cases. Like, your Love Origins project? A lot of times, the client will come through looking for something that sounds really specific. But it will turn out that one of our animators had a personal project just sitting around that exactly matches their needs. Serendipity like that happens shockingly often in this business.”
“Wow, that sounds great. And I hear Pittsburgh’s a great place to live and raise a family.”
“It is,” she confirmed, her voice becoming a bit more careful. “But I’ll be frank with you, woman to woman. A few of the guys here have families. But if you’re serious about climbing the animation ranks, it’s pretty hard to have both. Especially for women. The long hours we keep and raising kids don’t exactly mix. Would that be a dealbreaker for you?”
“Um…” It was strange, but I had never thought seriously about whether I wanted to have children and raise a family before.
I’d been so busy keeping my head down as I served out the rest of my sentence, it had seemed dangerous to dream about the future. Much less make practical decisions in the firm Yes and No columns of milestones.
I mean, I wouldn’t mind being a mom. The idea of having children with a loving husband didn’t upset me. And, I was thirty-two. It wasn’t too late yet, but it might be soon…
“So, it is a dealbreaker?” Lucy asked, making me realize that I had left her hanging on umm.
I shook my head. What was I thinking? They were offering me a job right out of grad school. My program mates had been applying to places all year. They’d kill for this kind of career opportunity.
Yinz Animation was finally my chance to live my life on my terms. There was no way I would give that up.
“No, I’m totally in,” I assured her. “I was just thinking about logistics for the move up to Pittsburgh.”
“Oh, good.” Lucy let out an audible sigh of relief. “Once we saw your stuff, we really had our hearts set on you.”
Okay, well, that filled me with all sorts of warm fuzzies. Yinz liked me. They really like me!
But then she said, “Just make sure to keep up all of your grades. We pride ourselves on only hiring animators with MFAs. And I would hate to rescind a job offer, especially for someone as talented as you. But, ironically, the working-class founder of Yinz is kind of snobby that way. Luckily, you’re graduating from RhIDS. He won’t even let us interview candidates from the no-name schools.”
She laughed, and I weakly laughed with her.
Working with the elite of the elites sounded like a dream come true. But if I didn’t do my thesis presentation, it wouldn’t happen.
I had to figure out how to change my thesis presentation date since asking Victor to give me a reprieve wouldn’t work. Just the opposite. He probably relished the thought of ruining everything I’d worked for as much as I relished the idea of finally getting out from under his thumb.