Some years ago, I went to visit a friend at Iguana Entertainment in Austin, Texas. They were best known for developing the Turok, NBA Jam, NFL Quarterback Club, and South Park video games.
As I was visiting there, I talked with the Creative Director & all-around person in charge Matt Stubbington, whom after a brief conversation, surprisingly right off the bat offered me an Art Director's job. I made sure I asked him to clarify so I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, and he said again plainly that he would like for me to work for him. We talked for another hour or so afterward, with him telling me about what all was going on in the company, and the various kinds of things he saw me doing for his company, which was very exhilarating.
He also told me about his dream for Iguana, which was to have a place that would be a full-service visual effects & animation studio within five years. He was basically describing the very place I ultimately got to work at for almost 4 years, Reel FX Creative Studios. He had mentioned that he wanted to do a promotional video, showcasing all the various kinds of visual effects and 3D character design & animation his company could provide.
He said that it would take several weeks to make a spot for me, indicating nothing but positivity.
I went back home to Denton, Texas, and I started making plans to move to Austin. At one point, I got it into my head to do a previsualization concept piece of the the promotional video that Matt Stubbington mentioned to me earlier.
The result is what you see above, where I came up with a scenario of a kid playing a video game, when a sunglassed iguana would come through the computer monitor & yank the kid into a video game-type world where our kid encounters & interacts with all sorts of monsters, aliens, tornadoes, again showcasing all the various kinds of visual effects one would see in a great scifi movie.
Matt Stubbington reacted very well to the piece. He again was very positive about the job offer, and told me that he would be able to call me soon to inform me when he'd want me to start.
Then he simply never called me back.
He never returned any of my phone calls to him. To this day, I don't know why. You hear stories about this kind of stuff, and it seems like an exaggeration, even though you know it isn't. Then when it happens to you directly, you're still surprised.
So, whatever job opportunities that are 'talked about' with you by anyone, no matter how nice and positive they are with what they say... don't believe anything until it actually happens.
A job isn't real until it's real!
*UPDATE* I'm sorry to say that I never will get to know what happened in the situation I described above. I got news that Matt Stubbington has died too early in life at the age of 39. My condolences and sympathies go out to Matt's family and loved ones.
