Rejection Letters from Days of Olde... - by JB

Just a quick one from me today. I was going through my email the other day and found an old folder called 'rejection letters'. Back in 2001 after the place Nigel and I were at closed, we basically had like 3 days to scrape a reel together and send it out to everyone we could. This is also back when Adobe Premiere sucked a lot worse than it does now and it took like 4 hours to encode anything, so we were both at work reeeeal late a few nights editing our stuff. I guess I saved some of these emails to look back on in the future and remind myself that I suck and that nobody wants me.

I have a bunch from studios that never got back to me after I sent my work, but those are all 'we'll get back to you after we review this', then I hear nothing. But those aren't worth posting because they're boring form letters. So here we go - these are from December 2001, and I ended up going to work at Treyarch in LA for a year on the Minority Report video game....yeeeeah :/ Then I went to Bungie for 5 years to work on the Halo franchise, now I'm at Blizzard on the Warcraft team so all in all I guess these rejection letters were a good thing.

These will probably be pretty dull to everyone, but I like sharing old stuff.

LETTER ONE - 2015 Studios

From: xxxxx@2015.com
Subject: 2015-Your resume
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 17:56:50 -0600

Thank-you for applying, John. You have some excellent 2D work, however you do not have sufficient 3D work to make a judgment. Do you have more 3D work, or would you be willing to make a test? I will not be back in the office till the 3rd. I will contact you in the new year. Talk with you soon.


This is weird because I sent them an animation reel. Granted it was full of WCW wrestling and some baseball animations, which were hard to pick any good hand keyed moves from since the games were 99.9% mocap. I had also literally learned 3D animation the year before, so I bet my reel was so fucking shitty. I'll see if I can dig it up for another post. Oh, I think I did send more stuff, but never heard back. Might be a good thing, because they're in Tulsa, OK.

LETTER TWO - Microsoft

Subject: Thank you for your interest in Microsoft
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 12:34:14 -0800
From: xxxxxx@microsoft.com

Hello John,
Thanks for attending our Open House on Dec. 13th. It was a pleasure to meet you. At this time, it doesn't look like we have any current positions that meet your skill set. This may change after the holidays, I'll keep your resume and contact you with any possible opportunities. You are always welcome to contact me with questions or updates in your location. Happy Holidays to you!

Hey John, you suck! Happy Holidays to you and go fuck yourself!

LETTER THREE - Blizzard Cinematics

From: xxxxxx@blizzard.com
Subject: Cinematic Animator
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 16:11:47 -0800

Hello John,

Thanks for sending us the additional 3D/2D work, and for your interest in our Cinematic Animator position. Unfortunately, our Cinematics team's current goals are not a perfect match for your skills (they are looking for someone with a very broad range of high-res 3D experience). However, I would like to keep your materials on file in the event of future employment opportunities at Blizzard.

Thanks again, and best regards,

Do I even need to explain this one? What the hell was I thinking sending my stuff there at that time? They must have watched it once, slowly taken the cd out of the tray, and then flung it as hard as they could against the closest wall. 'Our current goals are not a perfect match for your skills' = 'We want out stuff to look good, and you being here would make it look like shit.'

...and finally...

LETTER FOUR - Bungie

Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 3:41 PM
Subject: RE: checkit

Hi John,

Thanks for taking the time to send in your updated animations. We reviewed the changes you made, however we feel that your skills won’t make a good fit for our team at this time. But thanks again for your interest in Bungie and good luck with your professional efforts.

Yes, it took me two or three times to get into Bungie. Nathan went there after Kodiak shut down (he worked with Nigel and I), and for as much shit as we give him I'm pretty sure I owe him that job. I was working on that Minority Report game, and it was about as fun as it sounds, and I saw that Bungie had an opening for an animator. So I send my reel at the time and get asked to do a test...(I think I still have that test somewhere, too. I bet it's shit.) Then they ask for some revisions, and I get the above letter. Fuck. So I spend the next six months in absolute hell finishing Minority Report, all the while with an absessed tooth because I couldn't afford to get it fixed because I was living in Santa Monica on not a lot of money (picture being stabbed in the temple all day - that's what it felt like). So December rolls around and they still haven't filled the animator position up there, so I figure what the hell and apply again. I get more revisions and end up getting the job, but my guess is it was mostly Nathan going to bat for me that got me up there, so thanks guy! Unless you didn't want me to get hired, in which case you suck!

Anyway, there's more JB history on why I suck at animation and should have probably been a mechanic. One special day I will scan and post my rejection letters from my second year of college. Every summer, animation studios in Toronto would poach the animators from our college as cheap labor under the guise of 'valuable industry experience'. Basically they would hire the students for the summer and pay them shit, but we didn't care - INDUSTRY CONTACTS AND EXPERIENCE OMG. Well I applied to two studios and got two rejection letters that summer. Awesome. Disney Toronto picked a guy who copied his test out of an art book over me, and Nelvana just straight up passed. Yeah, Nelvana - makers of every shitty children's cartoon in the world thought I was too shitty for them. So I ended up working in a movie theater that summer and getting really fat. Ahhhh, college.

JB