{"id":14594,"date":"2022-12-15T12:55:08","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T18:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/?p=14594"},"modified":"2022-12-15T14:57:15","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T20:57:15","slug":"graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation Spotlight: Toby Johnson, Visualization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Toby Johnson had no art experience as he entered the visualization program<\/a> at Texas A&M University. But he did have a love of movies, fostered by his father, an amateur filmmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up loving that world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Johnson will walk the stage at Reed Arena Dec. 16 as one of the first graduates of the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts<\/a>, with a portfolio full of feature animation for movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson found his niche in lighting and compositing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce I figured out that lighting was a nice mixture of tech and animation \u2014 a lot of problem-solving but also getting to use light in a very artistic way \u2014 that was very appealing to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt like I had an eye for it, so I focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson will move on to an internship for DreamWorks Animation<\/a>. He has been mentored by Dave Walvoord, who earned a master\u2019s degree in the visualization program and is now visual effects supervisor at DreamWorks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the program\u2019s summer industry course, Johnson helped to create an animated short with the mentorship of Walvoord and other DreamWorks artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was by far the most meaningful animation project I\u2019ve worked on, because I got immediate feedback and experience from mentors in the industry, and I got to work side by side with like-minded students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson has also worked for \u201cThe Hive\u201d as a student technician, helping others in the program with equipment, setting up the Viz Fall Show and other \u201cjack-of-all-trade\u201d tasks, he said. He credits the program\u2019s culture of students collaborating and helping each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re helping them, they\u2019re helping you,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not a great classroom learner. I\u2019m OK, but I\u2019ve learned the most just by talking with people. Viz is great for that, especially when you get in your specific tracks. Whenever you specialize in specific things, you don\u2019t want to just do that, or you have questions about other stuff. That\u2019s when someone else who is interested in another aspect of animation knows more than you. And so it works out to be super communicative, which I think is great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That spirit of collaboration is now a part of the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, and Johnson said he is eager to see that evolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to know they\u2019ll be able to work more hand-in-hand,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve always thought that, for example, I wish Viz would work a lot more with the people who do sound production in performance studies. I think that would be a much cooler thing to help grow the arts scene at A&M. I\u2019m excited to be one of the first people to have that on my diploma. It\u2019ll be cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toby Johnson had no art experience as he entered the visualization program at Texas A&M University. But he did have a love of movies, fostered by his father, an amateur filmmaker. \u201cI grew up loving that world,\u201d he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":14595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[59,58,90],"tags":[149,173,171,148],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGraduation Spotlight: Toby Johnson, Visualization - Texas A&M University College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Toby Johnson will get his diploma Dec. 16 as one of the first graduates of the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Graduation Spotlight: Toby Johnson, Visualization\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Toby Johnson will get his diploma Dec. 16 as one of the first graduates of the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Texas A&M University College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/tamupvfa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-12-15T18:55:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-12-15T20:57:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/app\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Toby-Johnson-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"robclark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tamupvfa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@tamupvfa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"robclark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"robclark\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/9f6f92d18d5bc0deccbeb90ae781afb8\"},\"headline\":\"Graduation Spotlight: Toby Johnson, Visualization\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-12-15T18:55:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-12-15T20:57:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\"},\"wordCount\":482,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"animation\",\"DreamWorks\",\"graduation\",\"visualization\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Academics\",\"News\",\"Visualization\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pvfa.tamu.edu\/news\/2022\/12\/15\/graduation-spotlight-toby-johnson-visualization\/\",\"name\":\"Graduation Spotlight: Toby Johnson, Visualization - 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