It was election season and that was the talk. This was Gore and Bush. Remember that one. During a render or when you heard something that you didn't understand and didn't agree with, you would talk.

We were working overtime so Pactitle did what they always did got us dinner. In between rendering you would take a bite and maybe say something about the election.

If you had a question regarding your comp you could get an answer. Between Jim, Dolores we all would help each other. We looked at each others work. We QCed our shots as a whole. I seemed to get the shots that included tanks firing there guns. That meant smoke and the tank tracks that are surprising hard to paint.

Because I was working nights I would get to work and go straight to a review with the supervisor. They held a 5pm dailies just so the night crew could get notes.

My first shot I struggled with. Remember I was coming from a After Effects background. I was not thinking in native "Shake". My ideas had to be translated from After Effects to Shake. This made it slow going. One if the day compositors noticed this, Patrick gave me some pointers and I have been a node compositing fan since then.

I was also very new to digital paint. I had seen Matadorbefore but had not need to finish anything. More a button pushing painter. They also had licenses of CuriuosGfx which having a better GUI I started using. Maureen really showed me how to paint. When I mean showed I mean humbly shown the basics. She can paint. It's not a mistake she was staff. This is where I learned "Composite yourself into a corner and paint your way out." Which is a very smart handle on compositing. You can give a comp some really great extra polish with a paint node and and soft brush.

When your new a place they give you a harder or really hard shot to see if you get up and run out of the building. Sure enough my shot had its challenges. When I got to a place with it to where I was ready to show a supervisor, this is when I met Mark.