>> So I went to USC as a film production major.
I went to USC for film because I actually studied art growing up and I wanted to work
in animation, but my dad thought it was too impractical
and he didn't want me to be a starving artist.
So he tried to merge the idea of art and business and, in his mind,
film was kind of the biggest industry out there that was doing that.
So I wound up going to USC for film school and about halfway through around my sophomore year,
I wound up getting an internship at DreamWorks Animation.
And during that time, I actually went around the studio doing kind
of informational interviews trying to figure out what kind of jobs there were,
because I knew I wanted to work in animation still.
And I found that there was this job called visual development, which is kind of artists
who are drawing and painting the characters and designing the environments.
And I always thought the only job in animation was to be an animator, and I took a couple
of classes my freshman and sophomore years at USC and kind
of hated it, like didn't want to do it.
So when I found out there were people who just drew in paint, I was like, "I have to do this.
I want to do this."
So I started asking around where people went to school, like how they find these people.
And a lot of the artists said there's a really great college here called Art Center.
And so after I finished up my time at USC, I wound up reapplying to school and going
to Art Center to study specifically illustration in a track called entertainment arts.
And that focused a lot on visual development and character design for animation.
And it was there -- again, in my sophomore year -- that I discovered paper engineering.
And I took one class, literally because I had to fill a slot in my schedule,
and kind of took naturally to it.
I had no idea that I was actually any good at it until I brought in my first pop-up
and my teacher kind of looked at it and was really surprised by it.
And I didn't really understand why, because it came so easily.
And so through the semester I just found myself really liking it and really enjoying it.
And then in about a midway, we called them kind of like portfolio reviews to make sure you're
on track and learning the skills you have to do, one of my teachers pointed out to me
that paper might be the medium that I want to stick with because there was something
about my ability to connect all the things they were trying to teach me in terms of design,
color, shape, language that was just clicking in paper that I wasn't getting in the computer,
I wasn't getting through normal paint.
And I think for me it was mainly because I have a really strong sense
of science and logical thinking.
And with art there wasn't logic to it all the time.
That's what makes it art.
But with paper there's so many limitations that my creativity thrives
within the box that I have to work with.
So that's kind of how I wound up sticking with paper and pop-up stuff
because I started being naturally really good at it and just kind of started liking it.
So.