Nick Jauregui\u27s \u2709 summer internship lands him a spot helping produce a major animated film

Wills, Megan, \u2709

English

DigitalCommons@Linfield

Linfield Magazine Volume 6 Number 1 Summer 2009 Article 10 Summer 2009 Intern Finds His Calling in Film Megan Wills '09 Linfield College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine Recommended Citation Wills, Megan '09 (2009) "Intern Finds His Calling in Film," Linfield Magazine: Vol. 6 : No. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine/vol6/iss1/10 This article is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@linfield.edu. 1 2   -   L  I  N  F  I  E  L  D    M  A  G  A  Z  I  N  E S  U  M  M  E  R    2  0  0  9   -   1 3Zane Johnston ’09 popped out from below the stage in Marshall Theatre. He had been helping adjust the elaborate lighting for Linfield College Theatre’s presentation of Book of Days, in which he played the Rev. Bobby Groves.  Johnston took a short break to talk about his next major role: 2009-10 acting apprentice at the prestigious Actors Theatre of Louisville.  “Relieved to know I’ve got something lined up after graduation” is how Johnston modestly described his reaction to landing the appren-ticeship. Then he added, “Ecstatic. This is the first choice for acting. It is unlike almost all other apprenticeships that have you work in the box office, push papers and get coffee.”  Johnston is in exclusive company: Of the 2,600 actors who au-ditioned, only 22 were chosen, said Amy Attaway, assistant director of Actors Theatre’s Apprentice/Intern Company.  Its alumni include actors Timothy Busfield, who apprenticed in the 1979-80 season, and Jason Butler Harner, who was in the 1992-93 company and recently had roles in the movie The Changeling and the mini-series John Adams. Johnston auditioned at the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival Conference, Region VII, in February at the University of Idaho.  “I was really sick and had almost no voice,” he remembered. “I think the thing they liked about me the most was that I was trying to be easy to work with – kind of joky, nice and fun.”  Attaway concurred: “Zane impressed us with his candor and sense of humor in addition to his talent.” Johnston, who majored in theatre arts with a math minor, said his first role was in community theatre, at age 5. When he visited Linfield, theatre arts Professor Ty Marshall spotted Johnston from his office window, invited him in and gave him a tour.  “Ty was so welcoming, and this facility is amazing; it’s so versatile,” Johnston said. He was immediately won over.  After his nine-month apprenticeship, the Issaquah, Wash., native hopes to pursue an acting career in New York. – Beth Rogers ThompsonIf Nick Jauregui ’09 were an animated object, he just might be a sponge. Sitting in the production studio of Coraline, an animated feature film released this year about a young girl who enters an alternate version of her life, Jauregui absorbed all that he could from the great cre-ative masters of animation.  “I would sneak in, watch their shots and listen to them,” said Jauregui, a double major in electronic art and studio art. “The best of the best were talking and I was trying to soak up everything they were saying.” Fascinated with animation, Jauregui was searching for a summer internship that would test his skills and teach him new techniques in computer graphics.  A field trip to LAIKA, an animation company specializing in commercials, music videos and feature films, captured his imagination. Through persistence and luck he landed the position of Data Wrangler 2. Jauregui realized immediately that the internship had a steep learning curve. On a daily basis he juggled various digital camera formats and computer programs. As the work load increased, the time frame for Coraline became tighter. If a cameraman didn’t get his shots to Jauregui on time, he immediately fell behind. Assistant directors demanded shots in time for Henry Selick, the film’s director and co-writer, to view the film. Any delay at Jauregui’s station slowed production and post-produc-tion of the entire movie. “It was stressful because there was so much pres-sure on us to have Selick approve shots that were all laid out on my desk,” Jauregui said. “I was responsible for so much, and had access to so much, that if I hit the wrong keys I could literally delete the whole movie.”  Jauregui learned the multitude of ways to shoot specific scenes, most of which never make the final cut. Animators shoot from numerous angles to test different possibilities for a scene in the movie. A scene can be put together dozens of different ways, but only one will make it into the film. One of Jauregui’s biggest challenges came when the director changed the format of the entire movie, requiring that all of the lines on the faces of each puppet be removed by a computer program that Jauregui had never used before.  Jauregui had to capture and pixilate the puppet strings that crossed each char-acter’s face so they disappeared and the face looked smooth. Shadows made the process even more difficult.  With a steady hand and patience, he finished his three shots.    “The program required that we do the work frame by frame,” Jauregui explained. “It was so time consum-ing and I only did 3.5 seconds of the total movie, which took me 24 hours.”   Working tirelessly on a major motion picture does have its perks. Jauregui’s memorabilia includes one of the dancing mice and a pair of specialty Coraline shoes. Inside information is another bonus. The address of the pink palace in the movie is the address of the Hillsboro production building and the face on the dollar bills in the movie is Selick’s.  Jauregui also hinted that a picture of Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas can be seen somewhere in the Coraline movie and challenges viewers to spot it. Dan Ford, Jauregui’s electronic art advisor, believes that Jauregui’s personality and hard work are what earned him the internship of a lifetime. “For an intern he was given a great deal of respon-sibility and credit,” said Ford. “He was able to work for a premier animation studio and contribute, in his own way, toward the creation of a successful feature film.” Jauregui’s experience on Coraline has sharpened his career focus on entertainment and animation. Af-ter graduating next fall, he hopes to work on the next LAIKA animation movie, Paranorman, which begins shooting in the fall.  “Movies are so different because there are magical ele-ments to them,” he said. “Once I started doing it I never wanted to stop.” – Megan Wills ’09Intern finds his calling in filmActing his way to LouisvilleSeason ends on high note2009 has been very successful for Linfield’s theatre program. Among the ac-colades, Ty Marshall, professor of theatre arts, received a Faculty Excellence Certifi-cate of Recognition for Career Achieve-ment in Scenic Design from the Region VII Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Linfield’s production of Crave, directed by associate professor Janet Gupton, was a finalist at the festival.Tess Malone’09 was KCACTF lighting design regional winner and received an honorable mention in national competition.  Matt Cantelon ’09 was regional sound design winner. Malone and Cantelon were invited to participate in “Live Design” Broadway master classes in New York. “This is three and a half days of tuition-free classes in lighting and sound with pro-fessionals from Broadway giving workshops and demonstrations,” Marshall said.  “I have a ton of experience for an undergraduate because Linfield believes in its students and gives them a chance,” said Malone, who has a 2009-10 lighting de-sign internship at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Cantelon added: “The fact that we can come into the regional festival and stack up against much larger schools, or schools with graduate students, is a really good testament to the theatre program.” Other honors and internships include:•	 Jillian	Haig	‘10,	Pacific	Conservatory	of	 Performing Arts, prop artist internship;•	 Afton	Pilkington	‘09,	Willamette	Shake-	speare Festival, costume designer;•	 Kathy	Ganske	‘69,	regional	meritorious  achievement award, vocal coach and  pianist, Man of La Mancha.Zane Johnston ’09 in a scene from last fall’s production of Man of La Mancha in which he played Don Quixote.Zane Johnston ’09, Matt Cantelon ’09, Tess Malone ’09 with Professor Ty Marshall

Intern Finds His Calling in Film

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Intern Finds His Calling in Film

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