News

Hand Turkey Studios is looking for a part-time intern for the fall of 2011. This position will be responsible for working with and assisting on real-world projects that utilize 3D computer graphics. Applicants should have moderate to good skills in 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, and texturing. Preferred software competencies are in Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape. Programming experience (particularly in Python) is a big plus.

Update: This fall’s internship application period is now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied.

Recently, Hand Turkey Studios was the subject of a case study conducted by GreenButton and Microsoft. GreenButton is an on-demand high-performance computing solution built atop Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. Earlier in the year, Hand Turkey used GreenButton to render a whopping 1.25 million frames for one of its commercial projects; a render job that would have otherwise taken months to process on our in-house workstations.

You can read the case study on GreenButton’s website or download the case study PDF here.

For our fourth year in a row, Hand Turkey Studios is participating in the Richmond 48 Hour Film Project. Yes, yet again we’ll be producing 3D animation… because we’re crazy (and because we’ve proven that it can be done). Despite the incredible amount of work and even more incredible lack of sleep imparted upon our team, we keep coming back for more fun each year. It’s a ridiculous challenge, but it’s totally awesome to see how things come together in just a mere 2 days.

What’s even crazier is that each year, our team gets larger and larger. This year, we so far have 35 people on the Hand Turkey Studios team; 15 people will be working from Richmond, Virginia, while the remaining members of our crew will be joining at various points in time from locations all over the globe. In fact, here’s an alphabetical list of all the goofballs whom have so graciously agreed (and in some cases, actually asked!) to take part in this year’s shenanigans:

• Team Richmond
  • Benjamin Bailey (Banor)
  • Bobby Craig
  • Bob Holcomb (Bobalicious)
  • Brandon Worthington
  • Dave Kline (americandave)
  • Grant Rutledge
  • Hal Dowdy (brokenjack)
  • Heather van Gumster (starla)
  • Jason van Gumster (Fweeb)
  • Jennida Chase (jumpcutjen)
  • Roberto Rubet (bertodemus)
  • Roland Hess (harkyman)
  • Sam Brubaker (Rocketman)
  • Thomas Vecchione (Seablade)
  • Warren Belfield
• Team International
  • Andrew Wall (lumpycow)
  • Anna Tisch (greenbutton)
  • Bassam Kurdali (slikdigit)
  • Beorn Leonard (freen)
  • Derek McTavish Mounce (dmounce)
  • Dolf Veenvliet (macouno)
  • Dominic Agoro-Ombaka
  • Jarred de Beer (Jarrhead)
  • Jason Tyler (Spudster)
  • Jean-Sébastien Guillemette (Ecks)
  • Jonathan Williamson (carter2422)
  • Kernon Dillon (kernond)
  • Kevin Hays (Jeepster)
  • Lee Salvemini (LohnS)
  • Paula Decanini
  • Reynante Martinez (reyn)
  • Rob Cozzens
  • Rogério Perdiz (rogper)
  • Sebastian König (sebastian_k)
  • Wray Bowling (bmud)

As you can see, we’ve got a team that’s jam-packed with talent. The event takes place this weekend (22-24 July) and like last year, we’re opening some doors and windows so you can watch the team working in a mad frenzy to finish by our deadline. Here’s a short run-down of where you can find us:

• TinyChat – We have webcams set up at the Team Richmond home base and among our various team members around the globe. Drop on in and see how well we’re doing without sleep. There’s a little chatbox there, too, so you’re welcome to ask questions. We’ll be very busy, but we’ll try to answer.
• Follow us on Twitter – Members of the team will be posting semi-regular updates during the course of the weekend. If they’re not posted directly on the Hand Turkey Studios twitter account, they’ll at least be retweeted there.
• #ht48hfp on freenode – We use IRC as our main means of real-time communication. If you have a preferred IRC client (Chatzilla, Pidgin, Xchat, etc.), point it to the #ht48hfp channel on freenode.net. If you don’t have a client, you can use freenode’s web interface.
• Ustream – This is something new we’re adding this year. TinyChat is great, but the trouble there is we may have cross-talk among the various broadcasters… and it can be easy to miss important information that’s conveyed that way. Since Ustream allows for recording, we can give animation tips and story tips that can be viewed by team members after they wake up. This channel will give you a sneak peak at some of that process.

That’s pretty much it! Come watch us work and keep us from falling asleep! Also, good luck to all of the other Richmond teams! We’ll be thinking of you shooting outside in 100-degree weather while we’re sitting in an air conditioned room.

Hand Turkey Studios is looking for a 3D computer graphics intern for the summer of 2011. This position will be responsible for working with and assisting on real-world projects that utilize 3D computer graphics. Applicants should have moderate to good skills in 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, and texturing. Preferred software competencies are in Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape. Knowledge of Python is a plus.

This is a paid internship. Applicants should be local to the Richmond area.

Update: This summer’s internship application period is now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied.