If you ask Christian Le, a third-year independent major, he would say that his application to the Pixar Undergraduate Program (PUP) was done on a whim. But that whimsical decision, made late one night in the animation lab, would lead to a life-changing experience. For twelve weeks, Le joined Pixar as just one of 30 students as a technical director, the title given to interns and CG artists at Pixar.

What does a TD do, exactly? Le sums it up like this: “[f]or the first six weeks, you’re kind of thrown into the entire mix of the Pixar pipeline… you’re doing modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering… [you] walk through all the steps of the CG process there.”

Le is a self-taught animator, first getting his start as a freshman in high school. He joined CAMD as part of NU Bound at the Oakland campus. But it wasn’t until he came to the Boston campus and working closely with art + design professor Jason Donati that he really dug into animation. “Some of the things that I got to use being here in Boston [were] Maya or Substance Painter… those are the industry standards and the professional tools that all the artists are using out there,” Le explained. “Even at Pixar, we did use Maya for modeling. And so having even just a little bit of knowledge from just a few semesters ago, using Maya was definitely a big help.”

When asked about what he will bring from his experience at Pixar, Le admits he has an unexpected answer: “I’m bringing in a lot more openness or willingness to help others, and be there for people.  [PUP] was a very hands-on, everyone’s looking over each other’s shoulder, messing around helping each other [environment]…that’s kind of the thing I want to bring into CAMD, especially for all the other animation students, creating this collaborative kind of energy and environment. And I’m also just bringing back a lot of technical things that I got to learn there, in terms of the pipeline that I got to know better and what it’s like to get a small glimpse or step into the industry.”