Part 2 of our discussion with Christina Mandia continues, with this last part focusing on Christina's VFX industry journey, going all the way back to her first interests and influence, education, as well as showreel and general advice for current and aspiring mothers and animators. Christina’s journey as a VFX animator, begun with an entry into the VFX industry as a runner, following the completion of an animator degree at Ravensbourne university, leading on to a progression into the...

This week, we have the amazing Christina Mandia, animator at Cinesite London, giving us an insight into how she tackles her maternal role, whilst being a better, more efficient animator. Christina goes on to share some very important information on maternity leave pay for employees and freelancers through the government schemes, as well as employee entitlements. Some really useful info for employees and freelancers in any career. Christina’s journey as a VFX animator, starts with an entry...

In this episode, we chat to Jeremy Lasky & Danny Gonzalez, founders of Perception to learn more about the creation of what's become one of the most influential and important VFX & creative studios globally. Perception has brought us title sequences and HUD's (heads up displays) for films such as Iron Man, Black Panther, Loki, Wandavision, Spiderman Homecoming, Eternals, and many more. In fact, the list is endless! Title sequences and great HUD's play a great part in the...

Have you got an idea for a game you would love to bring to life? This week we catch up with VFX Supervisor, Mohsen Mousavi and Look Dev Artist, Hugh Behroozy who are doing exactly that with their new venture, Blinkmoon.  We discuss their impressive VFX careers and their time at Scanline, where they met and worked on projects such as Game of Thrones, The Meg, Guardians of The Galaxy and more... Despite the wide availability of tools such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game dev is still hard -...

In this episode, we chat to VFX generalist and author, Vicki Lau, about her take on being a female multi-disciplinary artist in the VFX industry. We also find out why she chose to write two books about her experience in the VFX industry, titled 'Why I Do VFX' (The untold truths about working in visual effects) and 'Not your starving artist' (Making money in the arts). Vicki also gives us a look into the misconception of the industry by the asian community, based on her own experience and...

With credits including The Batman, Walking Dead: Worlds Beyond Thor, Love and Thunder its's no wonder  we've been wanting to catch up with Freelance Compositor, Shonda Hunt. But in the end she got in touch with us after we asked about the issues facing mothers working in the VFX industry. So in this two pronged interview Daniel and Shonda discuss the challenges of parenting while working compositing. We also discuss Shonda's career and inspirations. This interview gives valuable insights for...

In this episode, we chat to Baptiste Jaquemet, a senior Houdini FX TD and generalist, about his journey into the VFX industry and how his journey has led him to work at the studio that inspired his interest in VFX - Weta. Baptiste's journey is an interesting one, and we talk about his early beginnings, his love for Blender, and Houdini, negative experiences in the VFX industry, and his dreams for the future. We hope you enjoy!  You can find our audio podcast on your favourite podcast...

In the second installment of our interview with veteran VFX Artist and filmmaker, Sean Cunningham we go into detail about the process used on the 1990's action movie True Lies for the missile sequence - featuring some of the earliest uses of Nuke digital compositing at Digital Domain as well as an early version of SideFX Houdini (Prisms). We talk about his role supervising on Strange Days and working on Oh Brother Where Art Thou with the first use of full DI on feature film. We discuss how...

We go all the way back the 1990's in this 2 part interview with Sean Cunningham, a veteran of the VFX industry whose credits as an FX Artists include films such as True Lies, Strange Days, The Fifth Element, Godzilla, Oh Brother Where Art Thou and who has directed and produced independent feature films in his own right. This journey takes us from the excitement of the Commodore Amiga, missed proms, the inspiration of T2 and the founding days of James Cameron's Digital Domain studios. We...

In this episode, Kofi chats to Filipe Magalhães, Realtime supervisor at NVIZ about Unreal engine and all things realtime. We do a deep dive into Unreal engine in the use for  previs, VFX, and Virtual production, compare it to Unity, and retrace Filipe's journey into the industry. Following up on that, we discus the education, diversity and representation in the VFX industry, neurodiversity and more. A very well packed episode, not to be missed! As always, if you liked this episode,...

On today’s episode, we have Jamie Bakewell in the hot seat to discuss all things previs and postvis, starting from his journey into the industry , to the decisions which led to the creation of his Previs studio in the midlands  - Bigtooth Studios. Jamie’s incredible first job with Aardman, soon after graduating in 2009 from Staffordshire University led him to work on The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, spiralling a great friendship with Pawl Fulker, co-owner of Proof Inc, (before...

This week Daniel caught up with Layout Artist who has 7 Oscar Nominated films, as well as an Emmy and a Goya  under her belt! Many of our Spanish speaking audience may already be familiar with Carolina as she runs an incredibly popular VFX and film Youtube, blog and Twitter account as Okingrafia. Carolina is a Lead Layout Artist at Scanline, most recently on projects like Free Guy, Moonfall and Eternals. Her career spans the Globe and major studios such as Dneg in London, Scanline in Canada,...

In this episode, we conclude our two-part episode with Michael Morgan, a U.K. based senior character animator and animation mentor about his journey into the industry and working with some of the most highly respected studios in the world. Michael has over two decades of experience in the VFX industry, and has contributed to some of your favourite movies and characters on the big screen, ranging from Marvel's Black Panther, Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 2, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Venom,...

In this episode, we chat to Michael Morgan, a U.K. based senior character animator and animation mentor about his journey into the industry and working with some of the most highly respected studios in the world. Michael has over two decades of experience in the VFX industry, and has contributed to some of your favourite movies and characters on the big screen, ranging from Marvel's Black Panther, Guarians Of The Galaxy: Vol 2, Star Wars: Clone Wars, Venom, Pacific Rim: Uprising and...

In this episode we meet with Arpita Venugopal, Head of FX at One of Us and a highly accomplished Houdini Artist. We talk about her career in FX and how it has increased her appreciation for the beauty in the World. She gives advice for showreels and applications based on her role as a Head of Department and in recruitment. We discuss managing artists, her favourite projects, her plant-based Instagram @platefulofbliss  and what makes SideFX Houdini so powerful in the field of FX in...

In this episode we chat to Maik Pham Quang, a Matchmove lead at Framestore London, about his career progression, as a runner, through to becoming a matchmove lead, with a decade's experience, to transitioning and changing departments to pursue his interest in the lighting department as a lighting TD. Maik tells us about how it is leading and managing teams, managing pressure and expectations, fitting into a new department, and more. We hope you enjoy the show! Maik's IMDB Chapters: 00:00 -...

In this episode we complete our rundown of 2021. Daniel and Kofi discuss some of the themes raised in the episodes, as well as clips. Topics include VFX Editing, Previs, Realtime and Unreal Engine, discrimination and racism in the industry, independent filmmaking, Nuke, Blender, Unreal, VFX software development, Costume Design, VFX Editing, game cinematics and more! Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:00 Previs and PostViz( EP10 with Paris Marin:...

This has been a rollercoaster year for many of us and The VFX Artists Podcast is no exception. A toddlers decision to play with toy cars at 3am changed the fate of 2 VFX artists who met up to reflect on how far the podcast has come in less than a year. With guests ranging from Matchmove Artists to Compositors, VR Developers to Stunt Performers, Character Modellers to VFX Supervisors, On-Set Data collectors, a Black Widow and more. Originally planned as a single episode we cover a lot of...

This week, on The VFX Artists Podcast, we speak to Beaumont Loewenthal about his journey to the industry and delve into his path to VFX assisting and editing at some great studios, on some very familiar feature films, to becoming a VFX editor on Star Wars Andor at Lucasfilm. In this episode, we discuss routes to entry into the VFX industry, and discuss the differences between an editors role compared to a VFX editor, editors assistant and VFX editors assistant's role on both production and...

This week, on The VFX Artists Podcast, my curiosity with how movies are made and brought to life, brought me to a discussion with London based film director, writer and producer Marcus Flemmings. On this episode, I find out about Marcus’ background and journey to becoming a film director, talk about his new film Blonde Purple, out on November 30th, and discuss realities of inspiration, competition, originality, ego, mistakes and more, in the life of an indie film maker. Marcus’s latest film...

This week we talk with Christy Anzelmo, Chief Product Officer at Foundry and before that Director of Product for the Nuke family of projects. We take a tour of her career, beginning in the fashion industry before moving in to VFX, her role in leading development on one of the most widely used compositing softwares in the industry, and on the uses of Foundry products outside of VFX in product design, architecture and even car configuration. We talk about the rising importance of machine...

In this episode, we chat to Floyd Billingy, a U.K. based realtime supervisor and environment artist for the games and VFX industry about his transition into the industry, how he became an environment artist and a realtime supervisor, as well as how black artists perceive and feel about working in the gaming and VFX industry. Floyd's career is colourful, and it's led him to be part of artists who have brought us some great cinematics and video games for some incredible AAA games, such as...

This week we meet Christopher Nichols, veteran VFX Supervisor and Director of the Chaos Group Labs. Chris’s career in computer graphics spans over 20 years, beginning in architecture and quickly moving to major motion pictures and later commercials at: Digital Domain, Sony Pictures, Method, Sway Studios and others.  As this is Daniel’s first time hosting the show it’s lucky that Chris is himself a veteran podcaster - helming CG Garage (where Kofi and Daniel are also appearing as guests) in...

In this episode, I chat to Simon Legrand, realtime Supervisor at Untold Studios in London about his journey into the VFX industry. During this discussion, Simon shares his unsugarcoated journey and story of the realities of the VFX industry, worth listening to. We talk about some of the pros and cons of working in the VFX industry, and touch on topics such as overtime work and realties of how that and the industry culture can sometimes be dangerous for the mind frame, and in some...

In this episode, I have an incredibly detailed chat to the founders of the Black Costume Network, Rianna Charles and Jodie-Simone Howe about how their role as costume designers and makers, work in the film and TV industry. During this discussion, I get to find out about their individual journeys/paths into the industry, discuss the difference between the fashion industry versus costume making and designing for the film and TV industry, as well as find out more about what the Black Costume...