Neil Helm, a young animator at Pixar, spoke to an auditorium packed with art students at BYU–Idaho in Rexburg, ID Thursday night. Helm began his Pixar career as an intern straight out of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and was then hired on to begin full-time on UP and has worked on each feature and several short films since then. He offered his thoughts on breaking into the animation industry and fostering constant creativity in an artistic field. Here are some of the highlights:

• Animation is about bringing something to life, not necessarily moving something. He showed a short clip of a lamp that was immobile during the clip, but was anthropomorphized simply through lighting, music and cinematography.
• He spoke briefly on the playful environment at Pixar and advised: "Wherever you are, create an environment that lets you be an idiot. That's how the best ideas come."
• To emphasize the importance of collaboration, Helm showed a progression of his shots while animating Stretch the purple octopus climbing down the garbage shoot in Toy Story 3. "I'm the one pushing the buttons and turning the knobs," he said, "but it truly is a collaborative effort." He showed the dramatic difference in animation quality between the original shot, and the final shot after he responded to the feedback and input of others. When working independently or in school, he suggested artists collaborate with other artists on projects. In that way artists boost their portfolios with an awesome piece of collaborative work rather than a mediocre piece of solo work. Then everybody looks good.
• Rather than shooting for an A grade on an assignment, judge your work against the best in the class to get a realistic perception of your talents and weaknesses.
• When you've got a job that demands constant creativity, you need to have a creative outlet outside of work. Helm enjoys photography and is part of a Pixar employee photography club to express creativity outside and away from the screen.
• When applying to big-league companies, he repeats a bit of advice he got in college: ditch the flip flops and cultivate a professional image. Be intelligent and articulate. Avoid presenting yourself as an over-enthusiastic fanboy college student.
• Big companies prefer specialists. Small studios prefer generalists. Decide beforehand where you want to end up and hone your skills accordingly. His friend Vladimir, also an animator at Pixar, was really into 2D hand-drawn animation, but because of his speciality in animating dogs for his short film, was hired to animate at Pixar when they needed some canine expertise while animating UP.

Helm is also offering an art seminar to BYUI art students Friday morning as part of his two day visit.