dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot," he said in 2003. "They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs." Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly called the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it "inventive". Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "by filming piles of sand changing". He made at least one other short film as an animation student, but its title is unspecified. Rocko's Modern Life Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related. Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In particular, the third