In this roadtrip nation interview they interviewed Rex Grignon, a head computer animator who worked for Dreamworks. I chose this story in particular because it is basically the opposite spectrum of my story. For example he was always into math and science in high school while I was never into math, I was more interested in the arts and learning new skills related to art. Although I am very different in terms of upbringing I would like to achieve the same goals as Grignon. This relates to this quote that Grignon said during one of his interviews “ There are an infinite number of pathways you can take to get to your goal.” This quote really resonated with me because I see a lot of people in the vfx/ animation industry with high levels of math/engineering degrees and knowing that you don’t need to have those to make it in the industry.

    Rex’s day to day life includes overseeing the animation department of Dreamworks and helping with the big parts of the animation process. In one of the interview clips he says that he still feels like a kid every day because he loves his job so much. I really would like to feel this way with my job because it seems like such a good way to live your life. Grignon almost didn’t have the opportunity to become someone big in the animation industry because he almost wasn’t accepted into the school that would teach him how the animation industry works. Shortly after he got out of film school he got at job at PDI and started a character animation team. After the creation of the character development team he heard that “Toy Story” was in the works and left PDI to go work with PIxar. Then after this, Dreamworks picked Grignon up and he has been with them since then.

In conclusion, since Rex has been working at Dreamworks he has worked on big movies like Toy Story, Antz, and Shrek. Grignon is a huge inspiration to me because he seems like a very real person who believes that anything is possible with hard work and even though he came from a background of math, you don’t need to come from a prestigious background to do well in the industry. And with that he assures that there are infinite possibilities as long as you set your mind to what you want to get done.
Sources: https://roadtripnation.com/leader/rex-grignon

By:Shaymus Marshall

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5EaTP3L47rVpOr9eJCYq6gnW9a2dint5AYSk6BQzNI/edit?usp=sharing