- Hi, hello everyone, and welcome
to today's Foundry Virtual Events.
Thank you very much for tuning in,
and I hope everyone is doing well.
So what's happening in today's session?
A welcome from me.
My name is Joyce Parukanil.
I'm the Field Marketing
Manager here for Foundry EMEA.
I'm here with my colleague Juan Salazar,
Senior Creative Product
Manager at Foundry as well.
So we're gonna be going
through a quick outline
on what's going to be happening here,
with the Nuke family here at Foundry,
and then we're gonna dive straight into
the panel discussion as
well with our panelists.
So as you know, we've launched
the Foundry Virtual Events
a month ago, and we've
been incredibly successful,
and we've received so many great feedback.
So thank you so much for everyone
for tuning in, and for supporting us,
and ongoing, always joining
these sessions as well.
For any upcoming schedule, you can have
a look at our Foundry events section.
We have new listings on a weekly basis,
so make sure you keep an eye on that.
We have six virtual events per month,
so we're quite packed up every month,
so make sure you do check out that page.
For any questions, for any feedback,
any suggestions you have on any topics,
you can send us an email on
virtual.events@foundry.com.
If you wanna keep up to date with us,
you can check out our
Insights Hub on our website,
and you can also follow us
on social media as well,
where we always show
trends and what's happening
at Foundry, what's happening
in the industry as well.
So what's happening for content
advice from the Nuke family?
So we've got a couple of
things that are brand new.
We've got five new articles
on our Insights Hub,
so make sure you check those out.
We've got another Nuke webinar happening
on the 14th of May for small businesses,
so make sure you tune into that
as well, when you have time.
And we have also some learning materials,
sorry, materials as well on our website.
And a brand new one we've
got from Shahin Toosi,
who's actually a panelist today as well,
who has a morphing article there as well.
And finally from me, I just wanted to give
a massive shout out to
all of our partners.
Access VFX, ASWF, ACM
SIGGRAPH, and VES as well.
So a massive shout out to you guys,
and also please make sure
you support these as well.
And I'm going to hand over to Juan.
- Cool, thanks very much, Joyce.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this panel
on supervising, VFX supervisors.
We are super excited about this.
But before we jump into it, even though
we are really excited
to bring all these guys
into stage, I want to talk a few things
about what is happening at
Foundry and on the Nuke team.
Especially with the current situation,
with everything, we want to let you know,
as we have done in the awareness,
we are still hiring for some roles,
engineering roles, and
some artist roles as well.
So please do check out
the Foundry.com careers,
and have a look at that.
We are definitely looking for good people
to join the team, which
is really exciting.
The next part is we are actually
looking for beta testers.
So with the situation as well,
we are all working from home,
the whole Nuke team is working from home.
We have achieved to have the whole team
really well on that, but
still there is some areas
that we really want you to start testing.
And knowing that you have a little bit
more time staying at home, we are really
looking for new, better testers.
So we have put the link there.
We will post it in the chat as well
for you guys to be able to pick it up.
So please go, fill the form, let us know
we are looking for
artists with experience,
and that they have their own licenses
with maintenance, and at least, again,
two or more years of professional
Nuke experience will be amazing.
So please do apply to that.
So with no further ado, I think
I'm gonna start inviting
people onto the stage.
Let's start, I'm gonna.
Maybe I've got to stop this.
And the first person I'm
gonna invite to the stage
is this, let's see, there you are,
is Lindy Quattro, VFX
Supervisor from Technicolor.
- Hello.
- Hello.
I'm gonna share, two seconds.
There's too many clicks on this thing.
There you are, sorry.
(both laughing)
Welcome Lindy.
- Thank you.
I'm a Production Visual
Effects Supervisor.
That means that I work directly
for the production, I'm the overall
supervisor on the shows
that I currently work on.
Obviously my career didn't start that way.
I was always into both
art and math and science,
but I didn't really
know about this industry
when I was in school, that was back
in the early 90s, and the industry,
of course, was much smaller then.
But I double majored in
art and computer science
at Berkeley, and then
I went and I actually
worked at Intel for six months,
and hated it. (laughing)
I was working as a
programmer, and I was like,
this is not fun, I need to find something
that's more creative.
So I went back to school, and I decided
to get my MS in computer graphics at USC,
and it just so happened, of course USC
is known for their film school.
And while I was in the last semester
of my MS program, this professor
from the film school came over,
and he said, hey, we're
starting a brand new major
in computer animation,
but most of the applicants
that we're getting so far don't have
any technical background.
They're not programmers,
we don't have any coders,
and we're really trying to come
up with a balanced classed.
So if any of you guys have a portfolio,
and you think you might be interested,
you probably have a pretty
good chance of getting in.
And I thought, well my older brother had
applied to the film
school and not gotten in,
so I thought this will be
really cool, I'll apply,
and then if I get in, that'll be something
I can lord over him.
Called my dad, and I was like,
what do you think about
paying for one more degree?
And he's like no.
So then I called my mom, and she's like,
all right, I'll talk to dad,
so she talked him into it.
So I went there, and I became one
of the first 13 people to graduate
in the new computer animation program,
from the USC film school.
And while I was there, I was actually
there at the same time as Breck Eisner,
when his father was the head
of Disney, and he's a director.
And he had this really ambitious
student project called Recon,
that had a full union crew.
It starred Peter Gabriel.
We had Charles Durning and Elizabeth Pena.
It was really top notch talent,
and he wanted to do a bunch
of visual effects work.
So he came over to our program,
and I jumped at the opportunity.
And so I worked with him on that,
and then I worked on this film
called Cyber Bandits,
that one of our alumni
had brought back to the school.
We worked for free to class
credit, doing FX works.
So by the time I graduated, I actually
had two film credits which was--
- Amazing.
- I think really important
in getting my first job.
I also had two internships
while I was in school,
and again I think internships are a really
good way to get experience, because nobody
really wants to pay you when
you don't have any experience.
So you have to figure out how are you
gonna do something beyond your
two minute student project.
And so I was lucky enough to be going
to school in L.A., and I got an internship
at RGA LA, where I
worked on Mortal Kombat.
I actually animated, lit,
composited the whole deal.
I did the Scorpion character that came out
of the hand, on the
original Mortal Kombat.
- That's brilliant.
- And then I actually
had a night internship
at the Sony High Def
Center, where I worked
on this film Rainbow, that was written,
directed and starred in by Bob Hoskins,
not a box office smash, but again,
by the time I graduated, I actually had
four credits, four film credits.
And when I went to get my first job,
that was primarily what
I used to build my reel.
So I went and worked
at what we called WBIT,
which was Warner Brothers
Imaging Technology,
and then that shortly turned into WDS,
that was Warner Digital Studios.
And then shortly after that, it closed.
So that was a relatively short period,
but almost three years
with Warner Brothers.
One of our famous projects we worked on
during that time was on
Eraser, the bad guy company.
It was called, let's
see, it's called Cyrex,
I think, but when you said it with
a Texas accent, it sounded like Cyrix,
and apparently there is a
company called Cyrix in Texas.
And so they brought a lawsuit
right before the film
opened, and so we had
to go through the whole film and turn
all the Xs into Zs, so that it was Cyrez,
so that they wouldn't
get sued over the movie.
So we worked for 96 hours straight,
turning Xs into Zs on every badge,
every building, every
window, it was crazy.
(Juan laughing)
Anyway, then I went to ILM,
and I'm from Northern California,
that's where I am now in
the San Francisco Bay area,
and so it was great for me to move home.
I took a job as a Technical Director,
and when I interviewed with them,
when you work at smaller companies
you do everything, so I was animator,
lighter, compositor, everything.
And when I went to take a job with ILM,
they said "Do you wanna be a TV,
"or do you wanna be an animator?"
I was like "Well I wanna do both",
and they were like "No,
doesn't work that way here,
"you have to pick."
And I said, "Well which one gets to be
"a visual effects supervisor?"
And they said "It's usually TVs",
and I said "Okay, then I wanna be a TV."
So that's basically why I became a TV.
And my specialty was effects work.
I did particle effects primarily.
So I did a lot of, I think the very first
thing I did at ILM was a test
for the mummy character,
being created out of dust.
And then you can see on my slide,
these aren't all the films I've worked on,
but these are the highlights,
and the best known ones.
And the reason why I listed first project
with Scott Farrar, first
project with Joe Letteri,
is because these are the
guys that really mentored me.
And so I did, I think, five projects
with Scott Farrar, four
projects with Joe Letteri.
I did three projects with John Knoll,
and they were really the ones that
gave me the opportunities to move
to the next level, and prove myself.
So those were significant films for me.
I also put my personal milestones.
So I got married during Mission to Mars.
(both laughing)
Minority Report is the first project
where I worked as a sequence supe.
That was with Scott Farrar, so that was
another project I had done with him.
Peter Pan was the first time I got
bumped up to CG supe, that
was also with Scott Farrar.
And coincidentally, I also had my first
child on that one. (laughing)
Son of the Mask, I actually
went into labor at work,
but I had to finish writing my notes.
I had written this program to do
the taffy roadway, that
rippled and broke apart,
and it was kind of a complicated set up,
and so I was writing notes for the person
I was handing it off to.
I'd have a contraction, I'd have to stop,
and then continue typing my notes,
and then stop again. (laughing)
And then the next day
I had a ton of emails,
like "Where's Lindy?
"She's supposed to be in this meeting",
I was like in the hospital
with my baby. (laughing)
- Oh. (laughing)
- Yeah.
- That's a good excuse. (laughing)
- Yeah exactly.
XXX State of the Union,
that was significant
to me because I was the
digital productions supe,
and I don't know if every company
has this title, but it's
what's used to be a CG supe.
It's the overall pipeline technical
and creative supervisor.
You're right below the
visual effects supe,
but handling internal
creative and pipeline issues.
But that was the first time I got
any on set experience, that's why that
was significant for me.
And it wasn't long, I was
on set for a couple of days,
but it was a huge learning experience.
Being on set as a supervisor is completely
different from being
an internal supervisor.
Big learning experience for me there.
Chronicles of Narnia, that was the first
show where I was promoted to associate
visual effects supe.
Again, that was another project
I did with Scott Farrar,
and we were nominated for an
academy award on that one.
Evan Almighty was the
first time that a movie
I had supervised on, that I personally
was in the bake off, meaning I was one
of the four names that
was on the academy list.
So that was my first time
presenting at the bake off.
Rush Hour 3 was the first project
that I supervised by myself.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,
again we were in the bake off,
and I did all the onset
supervision for that.
Pacific Rim is probably the film that
I'm best known for at this point,
that got the most publicity.
Nominated for a BAFTA on that one.
And we were in the bake off, then we won
the Hollywood Post
Alliance Award for that.
And then Downsizing was the
last project I did with ILM.
And then I left, and I went to MPC,
which is under the Technicolor umbrella.
And because my job is as a production
visual effects supervisor, I actually may
cover an MPC show, I might
cover a Mill Film show,
I might cover a Mr. X, or Mikros,
because they're all under
the Technicolor banner,
and I cover all those shows.
So I only started in MPC, actually it was
the very beginning of 2019.
Before I had even signed my contract,
I was on a plane on my way to London
to supervise Dora, so it was that fast.
- That's good. (laughing)
- Yeah it was fun, it was fun.
It was a fun show, and I was in the middle
of my second show, shooting in Budapest
when my phone ran at three a.m.,
and the producer was like pack your bags,
go to the airport, we're
evacuating everybody.
The show's on hiatus, we're shutting
everything down, and I was running around
like a crazy person,
throwing things in suitcases.
I had a six a.m. flight.
He woke me up at three, and
I had a six a.m. flight,
and I had camera gear, and I was supposed
to be there for five months, so I had
six giant suitcases of stuff.
It was crazy.
But came home, and yeah,
now we're on hiatus.
So hopefully we'll go back sometime
this year, but we'll see.
- Well I'm sure we all get back to it
at one point this year.
- Hopefully. (laughing)
- Eventually.
So before I move to the next person
I'm going to bring on stage, one question,
if you could describe being a production
VFX supervisor, in one
word, what would that be?
- Maybe translator, I think.
Translator or possibly communicator.
A lot of my job is taking in information
from all the different department heads,
from the studio, from the director,
and interpreting everybody's vision,
and then passing that information on
to the internal visual effects
teams, in their language.
Because what you find is everybody speaks
a slightly different
language, and sometimes
when a director says something,
they don't mean exactly
what they're saying.
They're trying to solve a problem
that they haven't correctly identified.
So you really have to be able to hear
the message behind what
they're actually saying,
and figure out what the real problem is,
and then explain to
your team how to fix it
in a language that makes sense to them.
For me, a lot of it is translating,
translating between all
the different parties.
- Cool, awesome.
Thank you very much.
So with that, I'm gonna
bring another person
onto the stage, this time is Shahin Toosi,
VFX Supervisor and VFX Designer.
I am gonna invite him into the stage.
Did I invite him?
Are you invited?
There you are.
There you are. (laughing)
Shahin, welcome.
- Bad positioning, to VFX Supervisor,
not quite there yet. (laughing)
I know everything's
supposed to be about me,
but Lindy, I love Mortal Kombat.
(everyone laughing)
- Thank you.
I heard they're doing a remake.
(Shahin squeaking)
(Lindy laughing)
- How do I take it from there? (laughing)
Wow.
Okay, so funny enough, I started
digital modeling and animation at school.
I couldn't really get
a job as an animator,
so I was working in a computer shop.
What I did is I was just running around
looking for jobs that's not working
in computer shop, just anything
that's close to my field, and at the time,
Frame Store were advertising
for pain and roto artists.
Now funny enough, Chris Manly, Chris,
which is one of our panelists,
was doing a rest for
the rotoscoping artists.
So I got in there as the rotoscoper,
and naturally I'm a freelancer,
what you do in this career.
I stayed a year at Frame Store.
I was working on Children of Men.
Rotoscoping a vagina for six months
for that birth sequence,
which was traumatizing,
to be honest. (laughing)
Then I jumped to MPC,
and I was just working
as a paint of roto artist.
I ended up settling at Double Negative
for close to 10 years, and that's,
to be honest at the time, I didn't
even really wanna be a compositor.
For me, it was just I was happy
doing pain and roto, and DN were
very interesting company at the time.
They were very positive, so they kept
encouraging me to try out new things.
Actually, it was a big way who just said
one day, "Shahin, you're
a compositor now",
and I'm like, just started compositor.
Later on in time, I started working
on different movies, and they loved
to push you to see what else you can do.
It was like all right,
he knows how to comp now,
let's try some of this,
let's try some of that.
Let's see if he can do some look devs.
So I was working on Prince of Persia
with Mike Ellis, and I started doing
look dev on that, and I jumped onto
another movie called Scott Pilgrim,
and that's just when they start
finding my rhythm, as one would say,
to do fantasy, sci-fi, abstract stuff.
So I started going down more and more
at D Neg, and I was doing some test shows,
I was jumping on Captain
America, doing look dev on that.
When you stay in a facility,
everybody is different.
Some people keep
progressing, and some people
hit the glass ceiling, which I did,
because I didn't really have an appetite
to be a supervisor.
I did try leading, it
wasn't really my thing.
So I balanced, at the time, I was doing
a little development
project with Chaos Group,
with this V-Ray Nuke thing.
I'm sure you remember that.
And I went to another
company called Lipsync,
and I started doing
lighting and compositing.
So this was tryna do
everything in one package.
It was like trying to Nuke a mini katana.
That got me a job at ILM, just working
on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
but that was just as a
generous compositing TD.
And at the time, I knew Paul Franklin
from the two Batman films, and he started
doing the pitch for Blade Runner 2049.
So we met up, and he was the one that
pushed me to visual
effects design, I call it,
which was not really,
you're not even really
in on a show, all you're doing is going
throughout the entire sequence,
and you're designing the environment,
the atmospheric effect,
and you're communicating,
and this is where I think I
started to find my calling.
The communication, like Lindy was saying,
you're acting as a translator,
it was more about feelings.
Everything was about feelings.
I wanted to feel love,
I wanted to feel anger,
and we're all tryna figure out all
of these emotions and
turn them into images.
On the road, because I
do some presentations
for the Foundry, and I
used to do for Chaos Group,
I met a woman called Virginia Bordeaux,
and she had her company called AOD,
which is Art of Direction.
And she was gonna do a Marvel show,
and she wanted me to jump on board,
and maybe be a transitional point between
visual effect, the art
department and visual effects,
with a production designer.
So I went to Barcelona, I worked there
for six months under Marvel Studios,
and tryna work on Captain Marvel,
which is Marvel, Marvel, Marvel.
That was really exciting, actually,
because it really took me
out of my comfort zone,
and there was a period of time which I was
still using a quarter, or some of my time
doing visualizations of concept work,
but then I started doing virtual sets,
and virtual, basically we're turning,
we're getting the sound schematic,
we're getting the concept art,
and whatever 3D asset I had.
I was building set, and we were trying
to mush together, see what would work,
what needs to be built it,
what didn't need to build it.
And I start to learn
more about CC printers,
and having things TCL compliant,
because these are the stuff that
a production designer has to deal with,
and this is the stuff
that has to get built
and put up on set.
So that was really exciting.
I got sick, so I had to come back home.
So there was a period of time I was going
through a bit of a recovery period,
as one would call it.
I got really lucky, I run into a person
called Mike Ellis, and he was running
doing title work at home,
and doing smaller shots.
I couldn't really work in a facility,
let alone sit for long periods of time.
So he started to support
me to work from home.
He was mentoring me in
basics of visual effect
supervision on set.
So we were working with
this company called Ember.
They were doing visualizations
for, what's it called?
Architectural projects.
Going on set, learning about
motion control cameras,
setting up for those kind of stuff.
I started getting more mentored into that,
and I genuinely, I owe Mike Ellis so much,
and I always like to remind people
how much in indebted to him.
If I become half as good as
him, I'm very, very lucky.
Mike actually helped me to get a job
on a movie called Aeronauts.
I got introduced to Matt Tinsley,
who referred me to
Russell, and Miranda Jones.
I know the production designer on that,
and I came in as an
in-house artist for Amazon.
And on that show, I met
Tom Harper and Mark,
which is the editor, and
that's when you start
to realize what you really enjoy,
because they're film
makers, and they don't
talk like visual effects people.
So it's like whenever you talk to Mark,
you talk about rhythm,
because he's an editor,
and there are moments in
time when we're comparing
Prodigy to what he's doing on Aeronauts,
like you know that beat
over there you did?
It's a little bit like this
soundtrack, I love that.
With Tom, you would talk about feelings
and emotions, and it was not a typical
visual effects environment.
I didn't even think to
consider visual effects,
because we were just basically say look,
I got this idea for an ending,
I got this idea for an ending.
Shahin, grab a bunch of
plates, make me an ending.
So I would go make him an ending,
actually Russell would give me the place
we would stitch together, and we would
go back and forward, and
instead of where you're having
your normal dailies, I'd grab my laptop,
run to the grading suite, which is further
down the road, put it on a laptop.
We're all looking, and he'd say,
change this, change that, and then Mark
would come in, you
know, I don't like this,
let's change this a little bit.
And we just worked together, you know?
And it was just that kind of, I'm getting
excited just talking about it.
It's that kind of interaction
that's just different
from what you would tend to work in any--
- In the normal--
- In any job.
- Things that people don't
think you do as a VFX part--
- Yeah, you don't think about that as VFX.
When you're growing up as a kid,
your feedback comments
is, little bit less cyan,
fix that edge, and add some edge flows.
Where you're going into, you know what,
I want to feel something here.
And Lindy was saying, you're acting
as a translator, and
one of the funnest part
is it depends which director you're with.
At Ember, there art director would talk
to you with sounds, not I want this,
he would just say, Shahin, you know what,
I want a bit of whoop whoop
and (blows raspberries).
(Juan laughing)
So yeah, we got a whoop
(blows raspberries),
all right, I can work with that.
(Juan and Shahin laughing)
At that point you started to learn that
you listen to what they say,
but you look at how they say it.
- Shahin, I'm gonna move you over,
because I've got to bring the other guys,
then we can have more
conversations about that,
because I really find interesting the idea
of how a supervisor
thinks, and communicate
all that part of the directors,
and everyone on set, how we bring that in.
So I'm going back to the stage,
to Dan Akers from Blur Studios.
Come on.
Are you gonna let me?
For some reason, it's not gonna let me.
Joyce, do you mind trying inviting Dan
to the stage, because for some reason
it is not letting me.
(sirens wailing)
There.
Thank you Joyce.
- There we go.
- There you are.
Welcome Dan.
Thank you very much to be here.
Please, tell us a little
bit about yourself.
- Thanks Juan, it's great being here.
I just always love these Foundry events.
My name is Dan Akers, VFX
Supervisor with Blur Studio.
I had many obstacles coming up to where
I am now, and one of the first obstacles
early on was my mom.
As much as I love her, coming from
an Asian household, she believed that
there were only three roads to success,
which is lawyer, doctor or dentist.
Those were the three paths, essentially.
None of those really interested me,
because she felt like being an artist,
the only way I was going
to be a starting artist,
live under a bridge, essentially,
so that was the picture in her head.
So I did go to study law for a little bit,
and then realized it
just wasn't in my heart.
I dropped out, and then went
in this circuitous route,
and then found that I
just needed to do art,
and then ended up at the Savannah College
of Art & Design, where I studied
film and computer graphics.
And immediately knew
it was the right move,
from the time I was in kindergarten,
all the way through high school,
I had one art all the way through.
So it was something that was very natural
and passionate to me.
It was just a natural move.
I was there for three years, and literally
one month before I was about to graduate,
I took my hire portfolio and my reel,
getting ready to interview,
and I stepped out
with it, because I was
going to help a friend out
to just basically reformat his computer,
and stepped out a late night, midnight
out of my apartment, and
walked down the street,
completely deserted,
and I saw this slow car
creeping by, and turned the corner,
and as I turned, this guy immediately
came out the car with
a gun and held me up.
Not only did he take everything I had,
but he took my portfolio and
my demo reel at the time.
He said "Turn around, I want everything",
and he took my bag.
I was there, and he said "Now just run",
and I ran, and then he actually shot
in the air while I was running.
Thankfully I was unharmed, but it was one
of those things where my years of work
was all down the drain.
My portfolio, my reel,
and I had a month to go,
I had $100,000 worth of
student debt that was there,
and all I could hear was my
mom saying "I told you so".
These are situations of adversity
where I picked myself up,
I put some things together,
and I was able to manage to
get a couple of interviews,
and one of them at the time was thankfully
with CNN International, and I met
this creative director that saw
a lot of potential in
me, especially the fact
that I was both a
designer, I could animate,
and I was this jack of all trades.
He was obviously looking for someone
that could really help
rebrand the network.
At that time, the biggest
competitor was the BBC,
and he really wanted to take that step up.
So I went in there, and I said
this is what we need, we
need a half million dollars
just to get the software,
hardware, programs,
and he just let me loose
for two, three years,
and I helped rebrand that
network from top to bottom.
It was sports program, networking,
and it was a great time to see
how things work in a
breaking news situation,
high tension stress, and
how people operate together
from the anchors, all the
way to the set operators.
Just the communication that happened
on a very fast paced situation.
At the same time, I was able to learn
a bit of the trade, learn these skills,
and put a reel together,
and the next thing
you know, I got a call
from Rhythm & Hughes
saying "Hey, we really like your reel,
"and heard a lot of
great things about you.
"We'd love to invite you
to work on Scooby Doo 2."
That was my first gateway
into the film business.
- Awesome, that's amazing,
and a great story also,
an adversity, especially
for people that is actually
finishing school at the
moment, to understand
in this adversity times, there is always
something that will come up later.
So that's great to hear
from your experience.
- Yeah, go ahead Juan, sorry.
- Yeah no.
I was going to invite
Christian, but please.
- No, I was just going to say, it's really
about persistence and
it led me into the film,
and then where I went to ILM, and then
I was there at DD for a long time,
and then obviously now Blur.
Yeah, let's please invite the next person.
- I'm going to invite Christian now,
just so we can roll it, and you guys
have a lot of experience I want to share
with everyone on this.
I want to invite Christian
Manz to the stage.
Joyce, you will have to do it again,
because for some reason there has decided
that doesn't give me the options.
Sorry, technical issues.
Dan, while Christian join us,
you can tell us a little bit.
You have been at Blur since 2016
doing an amazing job.
What would you like to highlight
from your time at Blur?
- I think one of the
great things about Blur
is just the content we create and stories.
We're not just a company that does
visual effects, but
we're content creators.
Being a part of that the last four,
five years, it's been a big part,
obviously with Love Death & Robots,
Sonic The Hedgehog, these are all
part of Blur productions, about creating
transformative content.
It's not really just about making
pretty images, but it's about making
images that really make you feel
and move people, is the
part I love most about Blur.
- That's amazing, Love Death & Robots,
you know my feelings
about it, it's incredible.
- (laughs) Season two and
three are on the way. (laughs)
- Awesome.
All right, with that,
obviously Christian Manz,
thank you very much to be here.
Can you tell us a little bit about
your experience and your career?
- Thanks Juan, it's a pleasure to be here.
It's slightly different again.
I studied illustration, actually,
painting and drawing.
I had very little, well I couldn't use
a computer by the time I left university,
because it wasn't part of the course.
But as part of the
course, I did animation,
stop motion animation, which I didn't
carry on with, but my tutor I became
good friends with was a graphic designer
at the BBC, doing title sequences.
She worked with this very small company
called Framestore, at the time,
and she always used to talk about it.
I ended up doing a project where I did
a painted, animated stop motion logo
for a cinema trailer, which actually
I got as a commission.
I ended up going into Framestore
to go and see it being put together,
and I was like wow, this is a cool place.
I've grown up loving film, TV,
is probably my first love.
Things like obviously Star Wars,
Doctor Who, et cetera, et cetera,
and it seemed like it was
something out of my reach.
I didn't know anybody
who was in that business
at all, so suddenly Christine,
my tutor, became this link.
I left university, and after a few months,
I realized I didn't really
want to be an illustrator,
because I enjoyed painting,
but I didn't really
enjoy doing painting when it was somebody
asking me to do something
that I was prescribed,
rather than something I was making up.
So I put my CV in around Soho.
I walked around Soho,
and one of the places
was Framestore, and in October 97,
I had my interview, and I became a runner,
making bad tea, thank goodness,
because I think making bad tea probably
aided the journey upwards
into the Tape Library.
What was good about being a runner,
and being in the Tape
Library, at the time,
it was the time when you were
running tapes all over Soho.
You would then tour the facilities.
I went into all the suites,
I saw who the clients
were, what the work was.
Gave me a bit of
confidence, because you were
delivering stuff to broadcast,
and all this sort of stuff.
It was actually quite a good internship,
in a way, and in the
background of all of that,
I was coming in at evenings and weekends,
and beginning to learn to use the kit,
things like Photoshop, simplest Photoshop
and Matador, at the time,
which was for doing roto.
And eventually I got an interview
to be a texture artist, which I failed,
because somebody, Darren, who still works
for Framestore now came
in with a portfolio
full of dinosaurs, and got the job
for Walking With Dinosaurs, so I failed.
But on my next attempt, Sharon,
who ran the company at the time,
interviewed me and I got
a job as a texture artist.
It was a pretty, I was
pushing myself all the time.
Suddenly I was kind of doing what I did,
I was painting but I was doing
it on a computer instead.
Over time, I gradually, I'd suddenly
be asked to do, I went from doing
textures to buildings, on a big
global sequence we were doing,
to suddenly creatures
on Alice In Wonderland,
and the Walking With
Dinosaurs, in the end.
Then I got asked to do an animated texture
for something, so I asked
them to get me After Effects.
So I got After Effects, and
I learnt how to do that,
and slowly but surely, I ended up becoming
this department of one, which was
like Framestore's 2D department.
So at the time, everything
was Inferno and Henry,
very expensive kit, and there was me
on my PC with After
Effects, and Photoshop,
and Softimage, and whatever on it.
So I could model and texture and render,
and then composite my own stuff.
So I ended up doing a lot of television,
and ended up, bizarrely,
working with a lot
of people like Armando
Iannucci, and Chris Morris.
People I'd grown up, if
my dad had been alive
would have been absolutely in awe
that I was working with these people.
But suddenly I found
myself working with them,
and again, it was just pushing yourself.
I always, I guess,
everything I was asked to do,
I was always going "Yeah,
I think I could do that",
and then probably stayed in the evening
looking at the manual,
working out how to do it.
And eventually then from there,
well basically I got told I was doing
really well in my appraisal, but I could
earn more money, basically,
if I learnt Flame,
and so I stuck to my artistic integrity
and learnt Flame, and moved up
to be a Flame and Inferno op.
And there I was doing commercials,
and television again, and
working with Tim Webber.
Then he was VFX supervisor
for donkey's years,
even when I walked through the door.
On Dinotopia, we were doing a lot
of those hallmark mini series at the time.
And Shackleton was a
really big show for me,
because that was about the explorer
going to the Antarctic,
because I did a lot of VFX.
Again, I was doing the matte painting.
I was then composting it.
So I was like a one man band,
and actually, bizarrely, I remember,
because we were there with a TV aerial
in the middle of the room watching 9/11
when I was doing the shot
that's on that thing,
which is kind of very surreal.
And then slowly but surely, having done
Love Actually, which bizarrely was one
of the most traumatic shows of my career,
in terms of the amount of hours,
and push to what we were doing.
Suddenly the opportunity came up
to work on Harry Potter
3, and at that time,
the original Mill Film team,
Mill Film was disbanded,
and that team came to work at Framestore.
So there was me and Pedro,
who was a compositor
at Framestore, suddenly
working with potentially
the Mill Film comp
team, and their CG team,
doing the Hippogriff for Potter 3,
and I still think that's probably
one of the turning points, a
real crossroads of my career.
Karl Mooney was the
supervisor at Framestore.
Tim Burke had left Mill
Film, was the production
side supervisor, and I think everybody
I met and worked with on that job,
we all still keep in contact now.
It was an amazing experience.
And again, it was just
building on that experience,
then after that, I think,
in different shows,
I was considered the lead, suddenly,
and I was leading teams of people.
Having learning the skills of managing,
making sure that people were getting
through the work, and
knew what they had to do,
and were hitting the notes.
That then led onto being comp supervisor,
was a fairly new role, really.
We hadn't had that title at Framestore,
but on Potter 4, I was the comp supe,
on the above water
sequence of the underwater,
there was two parts to that sequence.
Again, it was working
with Tim Webber again.
It was a great experience, I think,
and there I was suddenly
using Shake as well.
So I was using Shake and Flame.
So that was a very, because Flame
is just so bloody
difficult with color space
and everything, with film.
So that was juggling, and using the tools
to do the best that they could.
I'd do some stuff, I'd go and use Flame
to do some stuff, and Shake for the other.
So again, still mixing and matching.
And then it wasn't long after that,
during that time as
well, I was doing a lot,
between shows, I was
doing composting on TV.
I won a couple of VS awards for composting
during that time.
And then in the TV department,
suddenly the main supervisor was on a show
and wasn't available, so they gave me
this chance to supervise this show
coming up, Primeval, which was a TV drama,
very different from the
Walking Dinosaurs stuff.
And so I said yes, and I went and did it,
and I did that for three series,
where I was again the overall supervisor,
suddenly thrown out on set, working with
lots of different directors, and VPs,
filming underwater, abroad,
in stages, in forests.
It was a real learning experience.
By the third series, I
was second unit director.
And again, it built all of the experience
that I realized when I moved over to film,
it was the same but just more.
And then in between that, I
was doing different things.
I was doing bits on other shows as well.
So we were supervising, I was supervising
a whole bunch of TV.
I was the sole supervisor for that.
And then after that, it was film.
Again, it was just what
I was asked to do really.
Fiona at the time, who still is now
global MD of Framestore, asked me whether
I wanted to do Nanny
McPhee or Harry Potter,
and I ended up doing both concurrently.
Nanny McPhee was amazing,
but it was so short,
such a short, sharp shock of a show,
but I'm still really proud of the work
we achieved on that,
because we did it all,
and there were a couple of 40 odd
hour shifts in doing that.
And then doing Potter 7, doing the Dobby
and creature work, which
we got Oscar nominated for.
Was amazing really to
hit that level of work,
that still looks great today, I think,
and working with key
people at the company,
who I still got to work
with on later shows.
And then after that, I left to do
what I'm doing now, which is production
side of VFX supervision.
In 2010, I started on 47 Ronin,
which was a tough show, as a first
production side gig.
Three years and a lot of politics,
but still there was some great work,
working with multiple facilities as well,
Framestore and DD and MPC, mainly,
and some others, and it was a real
building of confidence.
I worried that people would be like,
who's this guy coming through
the door from Framestore?
But it was amazing to
suddenly be in the States,
and driving into Universal
Studios every day
is still very surreal.
And off the back of that, Donna Langley
at Universal wanted me
to do Dracula Untold,
which I did as well, overlapping.
And at the end of that, I was physically,
mentally drained, so I
took a bit of a break.
Framestore gave me the
creative director role,
which really meant
helping to bring in work,
guide what sort of work
the company would be doing.
And then that time I helped, I did about
six months work on Beauty
and the Beast, actually.
And then I got the
opportunity, having said
I'd never wanted to do a
film production side again,
I got the opportunity to
interview for Fantastic Beasts,
because Tim Burke, who was due to do it,
wasn't available for pre-production.
So I went and interviewed with David Yates
and Heyman, and got the job.
And Fantastic Beasts has
been my life since 2015.
I've done the last two films with Tim,
and film three, I'm doing by myself,
or was until recently.
Yeah, that's like a potted history.
- That is a beautiful
franchise to be part of.
Beautiful work that you guys have done,
and especially for you, starting with
almost with the Hippogriff
on Harry Potter 3,
and now Fantastic Beasts,
and continue that work,
I think is fantastic.
- Yeah, it's nice to have
done that both sides,
definitely yeah.
- So last one to come in, but not least,
I want to invite Elliot
Newman to the stage.
Joyce again, you will have to do it.
My interface, for some
reason, is completely locked.
(Juan laughing)
- Can you guys hear me?
- Yeah, all good.
Welcome Elliot.
- Thank you.
- Please tell us a little bit about
yourself and your career.
- Well my current role is at MPC.
I'm actually working within the new
episodic division, it's brand new for us.
Having come off supervising
on The Lion King.
It's interesting hearing all
your guys stories really.
It's fun to see all the differences
and the backgrounds we've all come from.
I think probably I'm closest to you,
Christian, in terms of my background.
Very much more the art side.
When I was in school, really what got me
interested in what I do today is really
just video games, to be honest.
I wasn't, and still not really a massive
movie buff, really.
People know a lot more
about films that I do.
I find the craft itself the
thing that interests me,
how movies are made, and that was what
got me interested, when
I was younger in school,
being in Sega arcades, playing games
literally all weekend long.
For me, it was like I
was always quite sporty
in school, and I always found that
I was quite good at the
stuff I was interested in.
I was lucky that I was interested in art
and I was interested in sport and stuff,
and I tended to be quite
good at those things.
So I wasn't particularly
academic in school,
much to my parents dismay.
But yeah, I developed more and more
an interest in how video games were made,
not just playing them, but also taking
a great interest in technology,
and also combining the art
and the technology
together was fascinating.
And I had a version of Photoshop 2.5,
I think was the first version I got
my hands on, on an old Mac.
I remember playing around,
and doing my own things,
little doodles and whatever else.
Then it just expanded, I was like okay,
that's Photoshop, how do I make a model?
I remember by the time I was in the later
stages of my secondary school,
in my wood shop classes, I would
be mocking up what I wanted
to build in 3D first.
(laughs) I'd bring in the prints
of here's the cabinet I want to build,
and I've got all the measurements,
and I'd textured the wood
grain on it and stuff.
So I was already getting
into it at that point,
and it was all quite new.
There was no real facility for that,
during my studies anyway.
Moved from secondary school, moved into
my A level studies.
I was studying art and design,
and also photography at that point.
Photography became something I was
really fascinated in, because again
it was interesting being able to combine
a creative thing with a tool.
So the camera is the tool, and my vision
and my creativity could be combined.
I could use Photoshop
and manipulate my images.
I was in the dark room, and I was doing
all sorts of wacky
things in the dark room,
like playing around with
dodging and burning and things.
Becoming interested in the
chemical process of photography.
At the same time, keeping my enthusiasm
of gaming and stuff.
It was weird, in the back of my head,
even from a young age, I was like
I probably wanna work on films,
even though I was really
interested in games.
I don't quite know why I
had that thought process.
(Juan laughing)
Basically once I'd finished
my A level studies,
actually I grew up in a
town near Bournemouth,
on the south coast, which is where
I'm sure many of you know the
Bournemouth University there
is a big center for animation.
At the time, as an 18 year
old, I was very impatient.
I felt like I've taught
myself a bit of Maya,
I've taught myself a bit of LightWave.
I know how to animate
now, I know how to model.
I know how to use Photoshop,
and I already had bits of reels and stuff.
So I was eager to start
the university course,
but I had to do a year of foundation,
art foundation before I
was allowed on that course,
which to me at the time, it felt like
I was just repeating what I'd already
been doing for two years.
It's funny the timeframes
I think about now,
because it's literally nothing,
a year is really nothing. (laughing)
But back then, it was a massive problem
that I had to do this thing for a year.
I didn't realize how lucky I was really,
just being on the south coast.
You look back and you think differently.
I think it worked out pretty well for me
in the end, because I found out about
Escape Studios, and they'd only
just started at that point.
They were very fresh.
It was cool, because it was very targeted.
It was very focused around
learning 3D software,
which I thought was perfect for me,
because again I was very impatient.
Went there, did the Maya animation course,
produced a reel, and
copied it to VHS tape.
Posted loads of VHS
tapes out, in those days,
and yeah, got my first job from that,
working at a small company in Ealing.
Made some good contacts there.
So I worked on, that was the first,
is it on this list?
I don't think it's on this list.
The first movie I worked on where I had
to model a digital White
House, for a movie.
That was a gig I had, it was
about three months or so.
And then I worked at Pinewood Studios,
which was a really great experience,
because I was there when they were filming
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I was in the next
building, and I discovered
that there's a company called
The Fake Chocolate Company.
The CEO must have been really happy
they were making Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory,
(laughs) because they literally had
truck loads of fake chocolate
just turn up on set.
It was incredible.
So they were shooting
that in the Bond stage,
and I was actually Kubrick building,
for those of you who know Pinewood.
So I was working on Captain Scarlet.
At that point it was
Passion Pictures and DNEG.
Then some interesting things happened
on that production,
and I felt after a year
it was time to move on.
I applied and had some contacts at MPC
at that point, we're 2004,
2005, something like that,
was when I joined MPC,
and I've been there since.
Been very fortunate to work
on lots of great productions.
I've had, I think
creatively, probably nearly
every role that exists at the company,
which has been quite fun.
So I've seen a lot, I've been exposed
to a lot of different
parts of the business.
Creatively I've ran, I've
been a department HOD,
I've been a lead, I've been an artist,
I've been supervisor, CG supervisor,
visual effects supervisor.
After my stint on The
Jungle Book as CG supe,
I was actually head of CG
for the facility at London.
So I've had a really great experience
within the company, and see a lot
of management of teams,
the expansion of MPC,
the growth over those years.
When I started, it was maybe two floors,
and the peak on Lion King, production size
was something like 1200 artists,
just working on one show.
And we got to a point where yeah,
on average we were
kicking out 10,000 shots
a year, as a company.
I look at this and we were freaking out
at 500 shot shows back then.
That's an enormous project, how on Earth
are we going to do it?
Now it's like, it's only 500 shots,
okay, that's pretty small, you know?
So it's been a great experience.
Again, this episodic thing is brand new.
There's a lot for us to establish.
It's fun to go from the
film workflow into episodic.
I think it's definitely a big part
of our futures, streaming and episodic,
and the introduction of all
these different services,
Disney Plus, Apple, Netflix, Prime.
So these platforms, I
think, are really important,
and I think it's gonna be an interesting
ride for the next however long I'll be
on this project I'm on now.
- Cool.
I think, as you say, I think definitely
what is happening with
the streaming service
and episodic is super interesting
for the industry, and
how we're moving people.
Something that I think we didn't use
to do as much before, with the movement
between the TV, kind
of episodic, and film.
I think that's super interesting,
what is happening in the industry.
- It is, yeah, for sure.
The lines are slightly blurred,
but I think hopefully
both sides can benefit.
- Now that I have you all here,
and we have heard from all
of your amazing careers,
and how different paths
you actually have gone,
there is something that we haven't
talked about in all this, because we have
concentrated on the visual
effects and on the work side.
But there is a lot of people asking
on the chat about balance with family,
and the visual effects supervisor role,
which we all know that the visual effects
jobs are quite heavy,
and intensive on times.
I think if you all raise hands, kids?
Who has, that is, got
everyone, right? (laughing)
So you all have kids,
you all have families.
Does any of you want to take that one?
I will open to all of you.
I said originally I was gonna give
you more into each one, but I think
this one I would like some of you
to jump in, because yeah.
I think it's a very interesting question.
- I can give you the mom perspective.
For me, I'm pretty lucky that my husband
doesn't work as consistently.
He's a freelancer, and
a lot of what he does,
he can do from home.
He does a lot of online
teaching and that kind of thing.
We sort of have slightly reversed roles
in terms of societal
norms, but he's the one
who always drove the kids to school,
and picked up the gifts for the friends
for the birthday parties,
and that kind of thing,
while I was away.
It's hard, there is no
magic bullet solution.
It's a really hard thing
when you travel all the time.
And I'm gone sometimes for six months,
that's really hard, and when my kids
were younger, it was really, really hard.
I would try and do Skype calls with them,
and they'd get bored and
wander out of the room.
They didn't even really
get the whole Skype thing.
Now they're teenagers,
one's 17 and one's 15.
They're driving, one's
going to college next year.
It's much easier, and they
also really like to travel.
So whenever I'm on location, I always
make sure to bring them out
to visit me at least once.
They've gotten to go to a lot of really,
I mean they've been to Canada,
they're practically citizens.
I've done so much shooting in Canada.
They've gotten to go to Norway,
they were coming to Budapest.
They've been to London several times.
They've just come to here I am,
because that's important
for us to be together.
- Awesome.
Yeah, we know that it
definitely is not easy,
but there is multiple
ways to go around it.
Anyone else want to say
anything about this?
I know you'll.
- I also think it's sometimes,
it is tough, and I have my first one
when I was in that TV world, doing lots
of crazy hours that
everybody still does now.
I guess for me, it's where I've gained
in confidence and experience,
I think that's the thing as well.
When you get to go no, I actually
somebody else can do
that, and I can go home.
Learning to be able to
say no was the hardest.
I remember one of my bosses
saying that in an appraisal.
Learning to say no is what I needed to do,
and I think that is a big part of it.
But it is touch, and obviously a big part
of my thing is for the last five years,
I've been doing Fantastic Beasts
which is a 30 mile drive
from here every day,
so it's much easier.
- Nice.
All right.
Dan.
- Yeah, I'll just say,
it is extremely hard,
and I feel like I'm very much,
Chris and Lindy, you're
just in the thick of things
right now with a seven and a two year old.
I remember when I had the first one,
I was pretty unprepared.
I was on Oblivion and my wife says
she felt like she didn't
see me for two months,
because I was working around the clock.
I think a lot has to do with the team.
It's really important, I compare VFX supes
to almost like a coach on a sports team,
basketball, how you dictate the schedule.
One of the things I try to say
is that if everybody does their job
from top to bottom, from anim all the way
through the departments
there's a good chance
we can get out of here at a normal time.
I really just try to
focus on the intensity
of the work, and try to make sure that
everyone has what they need.
But it's still very difficult at the end
of the day, balance that and home life.
It's constant challenges.
- Yep, which actually
Dan, you just drove me
into a great segue for
what I was thinking,
which is, sorry my brain just went blank,
clearly, because that's what is supposed
to happen when you're doing this live.
(Dan laughing)
(Juan laughing)
And it literally went blank.
That is the family side, it's difficult
to support, but then
what have you guys done,
Elliot, you manage a big team,
how do you plan to make
sure, try to constrain
as much that you're deadlines and the work
that you have can actually be achieved?
As the supervisor, when
you're making those plans,
and those ideas, what you're actually
trying to get with the themes done.
Do you have any techniques, or do you have
any moments, or things that you already do
that you have done in multiple shows,
where you go like I
normally try and tackle
this type of stuff first,
or that to make sure
that my deadlines are more achievable?
- I guess I can answer that.
Yeah, I think it varies depending
on the type of show you're on.
I think for us at our level, I think
a lot of it's to do with what's
your client relationship.
I think that's a key part of it,
is that every production and every client
has a different take and
a different expectation,
and a way of reviewing.
So I think to a degree,
you have to tailor things
to who you're working
with, to make sure that
you're able to keep things ticking over.
I think that's an important thing that
a visual effects
supervisor needs to bring.
A key part of that is the relationship,
and managing the relationship.
What do you need to show?
How many times do you need to show it?
Making sure that in your sessions,
you're getting what you need out of those
review sessions that you're running.
A large part of it as well is just
production management,
and making sure that
you've got the correct crewing,
and the crewing cycles are correct,
that you haven't overloaded
certain groups of artists.
And making sure that, you know, every show
will go through periods
where you're ramping up,
or you're ramping off
certain parts of the project,
and it's just making
sure that you're managing
those peaks and those valleys,
and spreading the work, and making sure
that you're getting the
necessary milestones
of approvals, the iterations
to get you over the line.
And not spending too long working
on something without sharing
what you're working on,
because obviously that can
also scupper your plans.
If you spent two months
working on something,
and before you reveal it.
For me on The Lion King,
that was one of the biggest
challenges was a lot of the industry
is based around the day, right?
We bid by the day, and
it's called dailies.
Everything is, production cycles
are typically done in 24 hours.
My renders weren't 24
hours on The Lion King,
they were longer, and
that was a challenge,
because it was actually
a logistical thing,
like a lot of what we had to do
with team planning and work planning
was actually based around
simulation times and render times.
Making sure that we
might not see that shot
come off the farm for another week.
That is challenging,
so a lot of management
has to go around.
You have to think, on projects like that,
almost four or five weeks ahead.
You have to predict the
future a little bit,
to know that if you're gonna put
a note in there in a shot, how is that
going to impact your schedule?
Because you could be setting your whole
project back by a factor of weeks.
A simple note could literally
send you back a few weeks.
So it's anticipating having the experience
and foresight to know
I might have an issue
with what's coming, and trying to catch it
as soon as possible.
That's my take anyway.
- Shahin, did you want to say something?
I saw you jumping for
the second part there.
- Yeah, sure.
I've got a little bit of an upper hand,
because I'm around the editorial,
so I know exactly what's going on.
I always multiple by 1.3 to create
a little buffer, and I go through,
I basically scout out to see
what's happening in the edit.
This is where I spot,
okay, they're not sure
about this sequence, but they are sure
about this sequence, and start to manage
sequences and shots,
going we can get these out
a lot faster, because
they're pretty sure about it.
This is a part that we need to hold back
a little bit, because that
edit's gonna chance a lot.
So that's when you start tryna balance
those workload, and then you constantly
have to keep an ear out to hear how things
are changing, what kind of feedbacks
are coming from the studio,
what kind of feedbacks are coming from
your cast and crew screening.
Sorry, wrong one.
Friends and family screener.
(laughs) Cast and crew, it's a bit late.
Screen to the family screener,
and get a relative idea
of what is going on.
That's like okay, this is where I'm going
to put all of my energy into that area,
but this area, we're pretty safe,
and then we know how to manage that.
He's right as well, you need
to have consistent shots.
I actually follow my
mom's rule on this one,
is do all the easy ones
first, and then slowly build.
So you have five easy
shots, and one hard shot.
You give them all consistency number.
The moment people don't see things,
if you don't have a turnover,
and they're like why are we not seeing,
that's when people start
freaking out a little bit.
- [Juan] Cool.
- I would say, for me, it's all about,
I think all of us have touched on it,
it's all about people.
I work with a great production team
on my production, a great set,
my producer, associate producer,
my coordinators who all help.
All their tasks help
get together that work.
Picking your previous
team, working with people,
your post vis team, and
then when you're working out
who's going to do all the work,
knowing who your people that you trust,
and that can get the work done.
And then like Lindy
said, then it's all about
interpretation for me.
Interpreting what people want into simple
notes that can be
actioned, and that you step
through them, and control what those
next steps are, as far as you can.
It's juggling all of those things,
but effectively, the main aim for me
is to see that shot number, on the wall,
dropped to zero, you know?
In pre-vis and then in
post-vis, the final shots.
It's all about collaboration,
as far as I'm concerned.
- And that communication that Lindy
was saying at the
beginning, on how your jobs,
as supervisors, a lot of
it is that communication,
and translating between the production
and the directors, and the concepts
that Shahin was saying,
about the feelings,
and then communicating that
all the way down the pipeline.
- Exactly.
- The other question I wanted to ask you
related a bit to roles, is there anything
that you normally pick,
when you're starting
to break down a show.
Obviously it depends on
the style of the show,
and it has CG, all CG, or
if it is with plates or not.
But is there any techniques that you use
when you're breaking down your shows,
or when you're starting to look at a show,
is there any ideas that you go and say
I try to look for these details,
when I'm gonna look at a show,
and start doing the planning for it.
- I mean I could talk a little bit.
I do a lot of bidding.
I did a lot of bidding in ILM.
There's not, I mean really
you just start broad,
and then you refine your
bid as things move along.
When I first get handed a script,
first thing you do is you
make a breakdown, right?
You turn the written words
into the spreadsheet.
It's like columns of
location, time of day,
description, visual effects elements.
And as I read a script, I just mark
this is visual effects,
this is visual effects,
this is visual effects.
And then when you put
it into the spreadsheet,
you know, we have some
general rules of thumb,
like we assume five seconds for an average
visual effects shot,
and we assume a minute
a page for a script.
So that means your average script page
has 12 visual effects shots.
If it's an action sequence, the cuts
are gonna be shorter,
there's gonna be more shots.
If it's a love scene,
there's gonna be fewer shots,
they're going to be longer.
So there's little things that you pick up
as you do it, that help
you build the spreadsheet.
And then once everything's
entered into the spreadsheet,
you have to start
figuring out how to assign
dollar cost to everything, right?
We generally start pretty broad.
This is an easy medium or a hard shot.
It's either a 2D or a 3D, and maybe
that's the only division you make.
As you get into it deeper, we call that
a ballpark bid, or a
back of the napkin bid.
It's very rough.
You're not gonna award at that
whatever that number turns out to be.
But in round two, when
the studio comes back
to you and says, okay, we
wanna keep talking about this.
We have a little more information,
you probably have a
call with the director,
you get some questions answered.
Then you can go back into it and be like,
okay, instead of easy, medium and hard,
we're gonna do simple, easy, easy medium,
medium, medium hard, hard, difficult,
impossible, never been
done before, you know?
You break it down.
Or you get to the point
where you're actually
bidding every single individual shot,
but you don't do it all at once.
You start like this, and you
chop it up finer and finer.
- I think on the production side,
I tend to think that you initially,
for me, when you start the job,
it's all about the creative.
It's about what we could do.
- Yeah, a lot of times
you're backing into it.
- So you spend a lot of time doing it.
- All the inspirations. (laughing)
- And eventually you work into
how are we gonna do it, and then you begin
to do your breakdown,
which you'll hand out
to all the companies
who are bidding on it.
Again, as Lindy just said, essentially
in an easy, medium and hard, very hard,
really, really bloody
hard kind of categories,
so that we get a ballpark idea of where
we think we are money wise.
Then you start engaging with who you think
is gonna do the work, and go
from there in terms of the how.
Obviously the collaboration with all
of the department heads on the film.
So yeah, that's how I tend to plan.
And then obviously once you get into post,
it's all about tryna get the hardest stuff
underway quicker, because you one know
that it's gonna take longer, and two
that they're always going to want it
in the bloody trailer, the hardest one.
(Juan laughing)
So you wanna get those rolling earlier.
- I've never heard that.
- And again,
it's the communication.
No, it's always--
- I've never.
- Always tends,
actually it's always
the thing that's pre-vis
that they want for the trailer.
So yeah, so you're just always building
that process with who you're working with,
and communication all the time.
I always say I don't want anything
to be a surprise to me.
If something's a problem, I'd prefer
to know it's a problem,
because then we can
deal with it and manage
it, rather than find out
something's a problem
the day before delivery.
- Yeah.
- A lot of times with
bidding, your technique
is determined by the budget.
There's the ideal way of doing things,
and then there's the way
you can actually afford.
So you start off bidding
it with the ideal thing,
and then you sit back down
with the studio people,
and they're like yeah, no
that's not gonna happen.
Here's the number you actually have,
and then you go okay well, for that number
we'll have to do it this
way, and you'll have
to change the shot like
this, and you'll have
to eliminate this character,
you know (laughs),
that's the reality of making most movies.
- And that's not popping
brain cells. (laughing)
- Yeah.
- So with that actually, there is another
question that is going on quite a bit
on the chat, and it's about what do you do
when you really are getting to a deadline,
and you know you're not gonna meet it?
Or you see that is an
issue, that you're gonna
have a problem with that deadline.
So how do you manage that time?
And how do you advise for someone
to manage with their
team, or with a client,
to manage deadlines?
Panic, ah, run away.
(Lindy laughing)
Dan, you have worked on really good shows.
I know you have a really good way
of dealing with stress and stuff.
Any advice on how to deal on those cases
when you know, how do you communicate
a little bit of that on those situations
that the deadlines are approaching,
and things are not quite there.
- At Blur, I think we always had to meet
the deadline, or else I think Tim Miller
would kill me, so you know. (laughing)
But I think it's a process too,
just saying hey, you
have to talk it through.
I think it's just preparing and planning,
and knowing, as Chris was talking about,
those problems ahead of time.
You wanna know what's gonna happen,
and then communicating
that to the production,
and then letting them know.
There was, on the last Terminator movie,
they wanted three of our
most difficult shots,
and we told them there's no way we can
get it done, there's no way, but they just
absolutely had to have them.
So we worked round the clock, and it was
just by the skin of our teeth that
we were able to get that stuff out.
The production, they're gonna want
what they want, and you just have
to figure out a way to push through,
whether it needs more resources.
It's a matter of preparing.
It becomes a stressful situation,
but it's like you said, it's a matter,
as VFX supes, figuring out ways
to alleviate that tension,
especially with a group.
I can't tell you how many times
I've had artists question
themselves, if they can do it.
So I've had many walks around the block,
and it's one of those things that
you have to really get the best
performance out of every artist,
and it's also a matter
of coaching them up,
and saying that they can do it.
- Cool.
We're approaching the edge of the time,
unfortunately, which is very annoying,
because I would love to sit down with
you guys for ages, talking about all this.
We should definitely do a part two,
if you guys are up for it.
- Yeah.
- Before we close on today, I would like
each of you to tell us a little bit,
very quickly, something
about what do you do
now as a VFX supervisor
that you never thought
you would do, but that you actually enjoy
quite a bit now in your role.
Let's start on Elliot, for
the first one. (laughing)
- That's a tricky question.
I like when people get me coffee
in the morning, that's kind of cool.
(Juan and Elliot laughing)
I don't really know really if I have
a perfect answer to that.
I think what's fun for
me is I'm in a slightly,
as apposed to a degree anyway, in a unique
position because I feel
quite well ingrained
with the company that I'm
in, the facility I'm in.
I have a pretty decent
working relationship
with everyone, for a number of years,
and I think that's nice to be able to know
that when I talk to my
crew, I can talk to them
in the context of I've been
where you've been before.
I know where you're coming from.
I can talk the same language.
I think that's been a benefit to me,
having come from the
positions I've come from,
it's quite good.
I think as the years go
on, and the more detached
I become from the reality of production,
maybe that'll change, but it's quite nice
to feel that I can approach supervisors,
or artists, or leads, or coordinators,
and feel like I can actually help them
and assist them at any level.
That's been, I suppose, that's been a part
of the job that I didn't
think would be rewarding,
but it actually has been quite cool
to be able to interface
with everyone, really.
- Nice.
Shahin?
- Me?
Excel Spreadsheet.
I never thought (laughs).
(Juan laughing)
I never thought I would be using Excel
as much as I had in my life.
- I know the feeling very well. (laughing)
- There's a lady called Zara,
and I call her the Excel queen,
because she's the person I always turn to.
- (laughs) Do you enjoy them now?
- Yeah slowly, it's kind of like painful
at the start, learning to walk,
and then you get into it.
I think the worst part
is when you're trying
to do simple thing, like either insert
a little screenshot
into it, and it doesn't
scale properly, you're like why?
(Juan laughing)
- Dan?
Or anyone.
- I never really, I
think about, as VFX supe,
the aesthetic and the
technical portion, you know?
I guess the one thing I never really
thought about was the
human equation of things,
and maybe it's part of the Blur culture.
We're 150 people, and we're very close
and tight knit, and a family atmosphere.
Really, it just goes
beyond work sometimes,
how the people will confide
with problems and issues,
and things that you
never really think about,
and you have to, a lot of times,
roll this into the production.
Figure out how to maneuver the pieces.
That's a part that I never
really thought about,
was that aspect of things.
That caught me a little off guard
in realizing that sometimes I've got
to be there for people, and make sure,
not just people, the families too
that are associated at Blur.
- Chris, anything on your side,
from probably part maybe being
VFX supervisor and
creative director as well,
that you are, is there anything there?
- Well I mean echoing what
the others have said really.
I've grown up at Framestore.
I've spent literally half
my life at Framestore.
In that time, I never thought,
I guess the thing I do now that
I never thought I'd end up doing
I actually just that working directly
with a director, and sitting a room
with Jo Rowling, sometimes,
and you're thinking
of ideas, creative ideas
that end up on the screen.
In all the films that I've worked
production side on,
there is stuff in there
that you think, God, I
actually thought of that.
I think having that
confidence in your own ideas,
that's one of the things I've said,
there was never any, well there are
some silly ideas, but
generally there's never
any bad ideas, they're just ideas.
It's a very personal thing.
Getting to do that, getting to direct
little bits and things as well.
That's been something that I
would never have dreamt of.
As I said at the beginning, I have no clue
how to get into this
world, before I started.
To be stood there calling
cut on a crowd scene
or something like that is amazing.
- That's incredible.
Being able to be part
of that creative process
has to be incredible, at that moment
that you see that final decision
still make it into the film.
- Yeah definitely.
- Lindy.
To wrap it up, we started with you,
we wrap it up at the end.
(Lindy laughing)
- For me, learning the camera side
of everything was a total unknown.
I had never anticipated that I would
need to understand
lensing, and photography.
That was a whole aspect of the job
that I never even thought about.
And the other thing probably
would be the travel.
When I entered the industry, which I think
was before everybody else, in 93,
it was L.A., that was it.
You worked in L.A.
There was no London,
there was in Vancouver.
That was it.
And I never anticipated that
it would become so global.
Most of the time, when I'm doing dailys,
it's funny because everybody talks about
the coronavirus thing, and oh my God
working from home, and the Zoom
meetings and all this stuff.
This is not new to me.
This is how I've been doing my job
for 10 years, because my crew is not
where I am, and they
haven't been for a decade.
I'm completely used to supervising
remote teams in locations
all over the world.
On Pacific Rim, we had people in China,
Denmark, Montreal, I'm
forgetting a country.
We went on a world tour, we called it
the world tour, and we went around
and visited each of the facilities
to do turnovers, and meet and greet
with the crew, and try and give them
a sense of inclusion on the project,
and all that kind of thing, so we're not
just faces on the screen.
But it's interesting, the way it's turned
from this local Hollywood industry,
into this huge global industry.
Really nothing is shot in L.A. anymore.
It's bizarre. (laughing)
- I think that that's a very great way
to actually wrap it up, in a way.
That is something I'm
very passionate about,
which is a little bit of that,
I call it the centralization
of the industry,
where now you really have all these scopes
around the world, and we are embracing
the level of the visual
effects work everywhere,
to be at a certain level, which I think
is incredible, because it allows artists.
For example I'm Colombian, so I had
to go to live in the States, then I came
to London, and I think that
is part of the industry.
It's part of the beauty of the industry,
but also as well, having the ability
for people from other countries to raise
and be at that quality,
and the whole industry
be at a certain standard is a brilliant
part of what is happening right now.
And also, I wanted to say you all have
amazing careers, again, it is incredible
to have you here.
Thank you for spending this hour,
well almost hour and a half with us.
So thank you very much to share this
with all the Foundry people
and everyone that is on.
I'm thinking--
- I'm here for part two. (laughing)
- Yeah, we should definitely
do part two of this.
We can break out multiple things.
It's incredible as well to see.
There is a bunch of questions about
how technical, or how
artistic a supervisor
should be, and the balance.
I think to people, look at the panel.
(Juan laughing)
There is technical--
- Yeah, there's no one formula. (laughing)
- And there's no one route.
- And there is, as
well, part of the reason
why I wanted as well to
do this supervise panel
is because I think there was an idea,
people feel that supervisors are
this single job that exists somewhere.
People don't really understand
how variety of supervisors there are,
what's the different roles,
what's the different spaces that you all
behave everyday, and jump
into the shows everyday.
Thank you very much.
I think that was brilliant.
Thank you everyone to be with us.
And I think with that--
- Thanks Juan, thanks for having us.
- Thank you.
- And keep safe all as well.
- Yeah.
- Keep safe.
- Thanks everybody.
- Thank you.
