Our April Usergroup Meeting was held on Saturday, the 9th, and was another great meeting. Our guest speaker was Will Nicholson, special effects animator and founder of Lucid Dreams. Will has had a love of films since he was a wee lad and has most recently worked on the feature film Sin City. Some other past projects are Spy Kids II, GI Joe, and Flight of the Phoenix. Will talked about how he got started in his back yard at the age of 5 with a home movie camera. His love of the work, along with his obvious talent and drive have provided him opportunities to work on many great projects, sometimes working in Dallas, and sometimes being called to work in Los Angeles. Will is a great believer in the talent that resides in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area.

After his talk, Will answered questions, and then showed a demo reel that included clips from film, television, and advertising. Some of Will's main points were:

• Be persistent in showing your work to those that may be interested.
• Try to figure things out yourself by experimenting with the software and reading the manuals.
• If you can't figure it out in 15 minutes don't be afraid to ask.
• Save the hard questions for the guys who are brilliant.
• Your potential can be more important than what you have already done - thus pointing out the importance of having a good demo.
• Be humble about your work but be agressive at the same time. That is let people know you are passionate about what you do, but don't give off the vibe that you know all there is to know, or that you think you can't learn to be better than you are today.

Thanks Will for sharing your life and your work work. You can contact Will NIcholson by email at: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

The meeting was not as long as usual because some of the users wanted to attend a life drawing class sponsored by A Bunch of Short Guys. 

Thanks to everyone who attended. We hope to see more of you in May!