TJ Galda
Character Technical Director, DreamWorks SKG
1999 Kinesiology Graduate
What does a typical day of work entail for you?
My day begins with a pleasant 9km bike ride through of Griffith Park,
the park that is most famous for being home to the Hollywood
sign. I normally get to work by 8am, and have a leisurely
breakfast by the fish pond, enjoying the tranquil setting of birds
flitting through the trees, fish lazing around the pond and of course
good weather. DreamWorks is extremely nice to their employees,
with everything from free 5 star food, to $1500 chairs, to movies in
our own theatre on campus. It's not all play though, and after
breakfast, I normally have a quick shower and get down to work.
My work day is never quite the same, due to the flexible nature of
working in feature film production. Our department works as a
team to put the controls into the characters. We receive
characters that are already digitally sculpted, and insert controls
that allow them to bend and deform in order for the animators to be
able to move them around in the computer. This team effort
requires many meetings with producers, directors, artists, and
animators in order to assess exactly what each character has to be able
to do. Between these meetings, I will do a variety of specific
tasks that include programming, painting deformation areas, building
skeletons, solving biomechanical digital challenges and writing
mathematical expressions. Depending on the stage the film is in,
and the various pressures from deadlines, we work until 6 or 7pm [and
sometimes much later] and then I hop on my bike and head home.
What aspects of your current job do you enjoy the most?
That is hard to narrow down. I honestly could not picture ever wanting
to change careers. I still marvel that I am employed on big budget
movies where we get to watch cartoons, interact in a fun and goofy
environment, and be creative. Of course, there is lots of work to be
done and it is often stressful and challenging, but I get paid to
create cartoons. Wow.
In what ways has your Kin degree prepared you for your new careers?
There are many obvious and directly related areas such as anatomy,
biomechanics, physiology, physics, calculus, programming, mathematics,
and my electives in fine arts, that tie directly into things I do on a
daily basis at work. Moving characters around in a computer could
easily be compared to taking those courses, and applying them
digitally. However, beyond that, there are several under-rated and yet
extremely important skills I learned at UW. Things like: how the
demanding pace of UW hones your memory skills and work speed; how lab
work and interacting with fellow students prepares you for dealing with
a variety of opinions and points of view that you encounter at work,
especially in management; how university demands a strong commitment
and self-motivation; how heavy course loads teach you the importance of
time and project management. I have found these skills have allowed me
to strive hard, work quickly, and excel in my field.
After graduating from Kinesiology, you took a course in computer
animation, ultimately leading to employment working on Ford automobile
commercials, and later character animation. What motivated you to
pursue this path after obtaining a degree from UW?
Even by the middle of my studies at Waterloo, I realized that I did not
love medicine enough to become an enthusiastic doctor. Despite knowing
so early on in my studies, I chose to finish my degree and am thankful
I did. I doubt I would have progressed to where I am without it. During
my second year at UW, my sister who had completed her degree of
architecture at UW, introduced me to one of her friends in computer
science. He was programming for a large 3D animation company, and later
went to work for a film effects company. After talking with him and
going on a tour of his work, I was amazed that people were actually
paid to do his “job”. I immediately fell in love with the field and it
was a natural step to take the digital animation course at Centennial
College [http://www.thecentre.centennialcollege.ca/animation/]. There
is a great respect for Centennial's digital animation course amongst
the local studios, largely impart to their co-op program and alumni
working in the field, much like Waterloo. I quickly found this out by
researching and talking to various studios in Toronto. During the last
week of my course there, I was offered employment and have been
progressing ever since.
What advice would you give to students considering Kinesiology?
One should research as much as possible into what career they hope to
pursue, no matter what that may be. There is always someone working in
that exact field willing to answer questions about their career. In the
many different fields related to Kinesiology, more often than not, UW
will be ranked as the best school in Canada, if not North America, to
help them obtain that dream. Most importantly, even if your goal
changes during your studies, strongly consider completing the degree.
With a few carefully chosen electives, a Kin degree can pertain to an
enormously wide variety of jobs. Although what seems to be an unrelated
and an entirely different career than the typical Kin graduate, I use
what I have learned at UW on a daily basis. I am very happy I chose to
finish my degree and it has helped me greatly along the way.
