[smiley8]

Im 27 yrs old and live in New Zealand. Ive been a student studying and gathering work experince for about 6-7 years in design, 3d animation, production and sculpting and special effects makeup.
Basically my goal is to work in film and television as a fx makeup artist, designing and making creatures for film and other makeup for on set, I have a lot of unpaid work experience on my cv no big features or anything but I do have on set experience and have done 2 years trainning specifically in fx make up, Ive won two NZ awards for creature making and people complement my work. However I can't seem to penetrate the tight knit industry here in New Zealand. There isn't a whole lot of work here for us but we do have quite a bit for our small country, we have a TV series being filmed here at the moment and have a lot of big budget feature films being filmed here all the time. Ive done my research etc on the company I would like to work for and researched other artists and their cv's are filled with all the films that have been made here but they seem to be the same people. It intimidates me and my confidence drops, I don't feel good enough and think if I approach someone they will just laugh and toss my portfolio aside, as I have done so in the past and had no reply. I know persisstance gets you there but I want to know how to approach it in a way that won't say 'desperate'.
Another thing that has made me feel disencouraged is my tutor at my institute has worked in the special effects industry for years in L.A. etc and has connections in NZ, he has taught me a lot and said he will help me, however he's recently told me to find another career and that special effects is being taken over by C.G.I. and to go and study that (which I've done and wasn't for me) and said in all his time of 6 years he's been teaching he hasn't seen one person that has wowed him and New Zealanders don't have the high level of talent that is needed in this art (which isn't true there's living proof of that). He is quite negative and puts peoples work down all the time especially behind their backs, he doesn't ever compliment anyone's work and I don't like going to class I feel I can't be creative there because he walks around and just pokes fun at mine and everyone's work. Im staring to loose the respect I had for him and other students have said the same thing. Im not going to give up, Im going to keep going but sometimes I just feel like Ive been doing this for so long when am I ever going to get that break? :confused:

[propsculptor]

As someone who has worked in the FX industry for Film and TV, I have to say IGNORE the negative and childish attitude of the instructor you described, teachers and instructors should be inspiring and helpful, and try to challenge students not discourage them.

Yes it's true many movies are using a lot of CGI effects but not all, go look at the most recent DVD's being released and you will still see a lot of Practical FX Make-up being used.

I also highly recommend the Smith course, don't give up on FX Make-up if that is your dream, you can do anything once you put your mind to it!

Check out my Blog, you will find it useful: http://propsculptor-halfcastsculptingform.blogspot.com/