The Invisible Layers

Seeing my portfolio people call me with job opportunities, mostly HR executives and recruitment agents. The conversation goes like this,

They: “Are you a designer or a developer ?”.
Me: “I am a developer”.
They: “But your portfolio shows designs and animations”
Me: “Those were created using programs”
They: “You mean using Photoshop and animation tools like Flash etc. , right ?”
Me: “Not exactly. Created by manipulating Images and Pixels directly using programs”
They: “Yes. A program like Flash, right ?”
Me: “No. Not using a software like Flash, but a program written in Javascript or Actionscript.”
They: “Ok. So you create and arrange things with the help of a designer and make it interactive using program, correct ?”
Me: “No. I take guidance from designer friends and do things myself. I use Photoshop only to cut and crop and then the rest of the things I do by writing programs - arranging, aligning, color balance, animation etc. “

and it goes on…

So what is the point ? Generally people have a misconception that programmers don’t love Art or don’t understand what is going on in Art. In a software development team they see the Designer as the last person who is connected to Art. In fact a Designer uses Photoshop which uses Digital Image Processing handled in a program written by a computer programmer. To write such programs you need an artistic mind, an artistic sense. Only then it will be useful to a Designer. Similarly we have Apple Logic Studio, used by musicians around the world which is the software implementation Audio Signal Processing.

Technology is not something that stands far away from Art, it is something that hides behind Art so that end consumers can be comfortable interacting with lighter things. Any beautiful creature that catches your eye has its representation in a Physical layer, a Biological layer and a Chemical Layer in this universe. Similarly for everything there is a combination of various hidden layers, but only those get attention who come in the topper layer. Personally I believe that all the layers are important because the output will be awkward if one is lost. While watching and enjoying the topper layer we must spend time to understand what is happening in the bottom layers. We need technicians, we need artists and we need performers to make the circle complete.

I support all #VFX programmers and artists around the world