I just listened to a podcast with C. Andrew Nelson. For those of you who don't know who he is, he was a visual effects supervisor on several movies as he worked for ILM and LucasArts. He also played Darth Vader for a few commercials.

But what I learned about him is that he was completely self taught. Everything he knew about visual effects and animation he learned by himself. From what I gathered, he did not go to school for any of it.

So for all of you who would like to eventually break into the industry (maybe even some company like ILM) and are not getting a degree there is still hope!

-MikE