Cube Satellites illustration from my NASA summer job shadowing
Before the reality of the world became clear to me, as a seven year old I wanted to be an astronaut. I would ride Mission: Space at Epcot and scream as the simulated space craft blasted from Earth to Mars. Continuing to reach for the stars as I grew up, I decided to pursue a career in art. My goal at the moment is to improve my understanding of the world and how people relate to each other alongside my art skills in order to tell stories that can reach diverse groups of people.
As a professional I am a well-rounded person who can learn new skills efficiently to complete a project and am resourceful with the knowledge I already possess. Collaboration on a team is where I shine best as I believe through communication we can create an end product that conveys the clearest version of an idea.
Storyboards from my NASA animation internship
Disciplines range from graphic design, to animation, to illustration where the characters we all grew up with were created. However, my fascination lies in storyboarding. Storyboard artists take the script from words on paper to visuals that specify how these would translate in animation and hammer out things like spatial details and character movements. At the beginning of my NASA animation internship I was tasked with developing three one minute animations that would explain the concept of distant retrograde orbit (DRO) to children.
Rough sketches of the Orion
After creating initial rough sketches, the most important interesting conversation of my internship would occur. To gain a better understanding of the Orion capsules flight path through space myself and a fellow intern spoke to Nujoud Merancy, the chief of the exploration mission planning office at NASA. Seeing the differences in the way we thought of concepts was interesting. While I was very focused on how things would look, the other intern in the meeting was in charge of scriptwriting so they were ensuring all the technical details were correct. Nujoud explained the information in a way that made sense to both of us and after a lot of questions I finally felt I had enough of an understanding to move forward.
Style test for Orion and space backgrounds
Then, came another milestone of my internship: the first team meeting where I would have to present my work. Out of three art styles that I presented the above is the one that won the team over. This made sense as I had been noticed due to this kid’s book illustration style from my previous project.
Initial Storyboard
Revised storyboard
Since this topic can be so technical, many revisions to the storyboards were made in hopes of clarity. In order to communicate better with the audience, I first had to set up strong communication with my team. In weekly meetings we would go over each frame of the storyboard and consider if it was conveying the proper idea. If not, I would write down their critiques and tweak it until we found a visual solution to our problem. This process took many weeks but I believe it paid off.
Creating the actual animations was a whole other process. My knowledge of Adobe After Effects, the animation software I used, was near zero. In addition to learning how to animate 2D assets I had created I also had to figure out 3D in order to model the Orion. I achieved this by scouring the internet for almost each specific action I was trying to achieve.
In addition to my internship, I am also participating in the Innovation Scholars program at USF. This program pairs freshman students with professionals in the field they plan on entering. My mentor, Peter, is a graphic designer at Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital. It was cool seeing how another team in a similar field operates and all the wonders and pitfalls of that sector of the industry. During this program I was able to sit in on a meeting between his team and learn how they organized their projects. If I was confused on aspects of the industry, my mentor would give me advice on how to navigate the problem and find a solution.
The skill I was forced to improve on the most throughout this semester is time management. As someone who was previously even more disorganized and had never willingly filled in a planner, I started creating checklists on my phone with all the tasks I had to accomplish for the day. Additionally, I had to improve on my communication skills as I was interacting with many different people from all kinds of background. Finally, I proved to myself that the only way I would succeed in the animation industry is with perseverance. It was overwhelming at first to start a project moving through a pipeline I had never experienced before. However, by talking to others and methodically learning new skills I was able to achieve my goal.
