Motion/video jobs?

April 21, 2015 11:19 AM

I want to do something involving motion, audio/video, interactivity, multimedia, and exhibits. What jobs should I be looking for?

Something like this or this or this. But I can never find any "Hiring" ads for this stuff. I don't think I'm using the right search terms. I want to make/design these multimedia exhibits, but I DON'T KNOW WHAT JOB TITLE THAT EVEN IS! Or what programs are used. (I'm learning After Effects and openFrameworks..)

Anyone in this business or know anything about it? Thanks!

posted by lhude sing cuccu to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Best answer: I think Interaction Designer or Experience Designer or Creative Technologist might be the search terms you're looking for, but I don't know that being in a just started learning OF and AfterEffects level of knowledge is gonna get you a 9-5 paid position. Those firms you're linking to look like they started as a small shop of friends that went corporate and started getting paid gigs from advertising companies, you could try sending a resume into them directly on the contact page, but it's not clear from your question whether you have a portfolio for Interaction Design I'm not sure how much luck you would have.

If your just looking to get started working and building projects with others, you might try looking for the indie developer scene in your area which should have ties to the weird technology art scene and going to people's openings and getting involved. Look around for an indie development or tech art meetup in your area and see what other people are up to. I suspect that freelance gigs in this field work on friend of a friend basis, since it's in the art world.

This appears to be an event that might be local to you based on your ask history.
posted by edbles at 11:56 AM on April 21, 2015

I've done archival research for museum installations, and the people who make films/exhibits usually work in post-production as visual effects artists, motion graphics artists, who have experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and the Puppet tool), 3D motion graphics (Maya or Cinema 4D), various editing systems (usually AVID), and sometimes storyboarding and script writing. There's also museum/entertainment installation designers and firms that specialize in this, not always for museums, but also for Disney, conventions, studios etc..
posted by Ideefixe at 12:07 PM on April 21, 2015

I worked for a while installing touring exhibits for a science museum. It seems like that might be a good venue for possible jobs of the sort you want. I think the one I worked for just called them Exhibit Designers.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 12:34 PM on April 21, 2015

In my industry, we call people who work on this kind of thing 'Motion Designers'. Also sometimes Motion Production.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:42 PM on April 21, 2015

Yes, seconding adding "motion graphics artist" or "motion graphics designer" to your search terms. Not sure if you will find anything in the vein of what you're looking for but I've found motionographer.com to be a very good resource if you don't already know it.
posted by matcha action at 1:54 PM on April 21, 2015

I'm a full-time tech with an interaction design group. Our work often involves projection and visuals, but the main focus is interactivity. In our studio (8 people), everybody really does a bit of everything; but everyone generally has either more of a tech or a design focus.

Creative Technologist is a good job to look for if you're more qualified or interested in the tech side. Interaction Designer if you are more on the design side.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/job-board/ is a good resource for creative tech job listings.

It's great you're learning Open Frameworks. We also often use Processing, Max/MSP or Pure Data, and Arduino.
posted by LRAD_der at 8:05 PM on April 21, 2015 [1 favorite]