Our mentorship program connects SHM filmmakers working on their BFA projects to industry professionals for project specific help and advice. Mentorship can take many forms, and Mentors and Mentees decide on what works best for their relationship – it can be anything between just a couple of meetings from on-going meetings for the duration of the project. Many times, just a few meetings will be exactly the help the teams need to bring their films to a higher artistic/technical level.
Mentors can be from the SHM alumni pool of talent, or anybody in the entertainment industry that is willing to help.
Projects
2019/2020
The Morning Bake
3d Animation, Completed in May 2020.
Directed by Logan Wong and Produced by Betsy Lee.
The team needed help with 3d lighting for their film, and we connected them with an awesome lighting artist – with plenty of industry experience – to help them with some advising. We paired them with Lighting Artist Adam Chin. Logan Wong (director) and Val Wingfield (animator and lighting artist) had several meetings with Adam, in which they were able to develop the final look for their film.
After it was completed in May of 2020, “The Morning Bake” was screened in several film festivals nationally and internationally.
Testimonials
“Adam was an invaluable resource for The Morning Bake. We showed early lighting tests to him for our proof of concept, first shot, and several others where he gave feedback. For each shot he advised us in our focus and approach; not only to how the environment was being accented, but more importantly how the light wrapped around the character. The lights were to be treated as if you were sculpting out the character’s form from the background.
He also pointed out specific ways we could contrast cool lights versus warm lights in a way that was logical to the shot setup and natural to the world. Adam was specific in his notes and generous with his time – the Morning Bake had an additional level of polish thanks to his input and we are so thankful to have had him advising our project.”
“Being a mentor to The Morning Bake animation team is a great experience. I get to witness the student’s emerging talents and their enviable technical skills. It’s rewarding for me to realize I do have things to offer the students, and that by carefully articulating my comments, I get to actually see them grow. That’s really cool.”
A little bit about Adam Chin
Adam Chin is a fine art photographer who spent a career as a computer graphics artist for TV and film. He was one of the original employees of Pacific Data Images, a pioneering computer graphics studio which later became part of Dreamworks Animation, working on such films as Shrek 2, Madagascar, and How to Train Your Dragon. While his first love is traditional b&w photography, Adam also practices using Machine Learning neural networks trained on databases of real photography to render images. By augmenting traditional photography with neural networks, he is exploring how much information is contained in a given photograph, and the implications to accuracy, privacy, and racial bias.
SHMfilmcollective.org 