The State of The VFX Industry in 2024, with VFX Comp Supervisor Ruth Meridjen | TVAP EP59

In this episode, I chat to VFX Comp Supervisor Ruth Meridjen about the state of the VFX industry in 2024 and the impact of the pandemic on production.

The slow ramp-up of production and the greenlighting of projects are discussed. The future of the industry and the role of AI in filmmaking are examined, with a focus on the limitations and regulations surrounding AI. The importance of storytelling and the need for more unique and diverse stories are emphasized, as well as the need for VFX to support the story rather than overshadow it. The conversation covers topics such as representation in movies and TV shows, attitudes towards AI in the VFX industry, the impact of AI on job security, adapting to changes in Nuke, balancing work and learning, Ruth's journey in the VFX industry, and addressing burnout in the VFX industry.



The VFX industry has faced challenges due to the pandemic, with a slow ramp-up of production and the greenlighting of projects that may not have been approved in normal circumstances.

AI has the potential to impact the industry, but regulations and laws are still being developed, and the role of AI in reproducing human artistry is limited.

The industry should prioritize storytelling and the creation of unique and diverse stories to engage audiences and avoid repetitive content.

VFX should be a supporting cast member to the story, enhancing it without overshadowing it. There is a need for more diverse and inclusive representation in movies and TV shows.

Attitudes towards AI in the VFX industry range from excitement to fear of job loss.

While AI may pose risks to certain jobs in the industry, it is unlikely to completely replace artists.

Staying updated with software upgrades and new workflows is important in the VFX industry.

Finding a work-life balance and setting boundaries is crucial to avoid burnout in the industry.



00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage
01:18 The State of the Industry in 2024
04:44 Slow Ramp-up of Production
05:29 The Future of the Industry and AI
07:29 The Role of AI in Filmmaking
09:32 Regulations and Laws around AI
11:15 The Limitations of AI in Reproducing Human Artistry
13:09 The Future of AI and the Flattening Curve of Progress
14:08 The Impact of AI on VFX Processes
15:11 The Quantity vs Quality Dilemma
18:30 Audience Fatigue with Repetitive Content
19:25 VFX as a Supporting Cast Member
20:24 Playing It Safe and Lack of Unique Stories
21:29 The Need for More Diverse Stories
21:33 Representation in Movies and TV Shows
23:08 Attitudes Towards AI in the VFX Industry
25:18 The Impact of AI on Job Security
26:23 Adapting to Changes in Nuke
29:32 Balancing Work and Learning
32:39 Ruth's Journey in the VFX Industry
37:21 Addressing Burnout in the VFX Industry

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When I embarked on my compositing journey, Ron Brinkmann's book, "The Art and Science of Digital Compositing," proved to be an invaluable resource. It provided a wealth of visual information and included a DVD with footage for hands-on practice.

Even today, this book remains a seminal work and continues to be relevant for artists, thanks to its emphasis on developing the skill of visual perception. Therefore, it was a tremendous honor to have Ron Brinkmann as a guest on our show. 

He served as the Compositing Supervisor at Sony Imageworks for films such as Speed, Contact, James and the Giant Peach, and more. 

Interestingly, despite being widely recognized for his expertise in compositing, Brinkmann initially started his journey in the field of 3D as a demonstration artist for Wavefront. (Wavefront later merged with Alias and played a significant role in the development of Maya, a renowned software). 

Subsequently, Brinkmann co-founded Nothing Real with his colleagues and created Shake, a compositing software that held sway in the industry for many years, particularly in high-end compositing. (I believe it was most recently used by DNeg for their work on Inception). 

 : The Art and Science of Digital Compositing book 

 : How Ron would Design a Compositing Software Today 

The Man Who Wrote the Book On Compositing with Ron Brinkmann  | TVAP 56

This week's guest is co-founder of FXGuide, arguably the first and foremost podcast and blog in our field. He also co-founded FXPhd which was my route into the industry so this was a massive honour for me.

We dive deep into Neural Rendering (which Mike has been involved with since 1999) machine learning and practical applications within visual effects and filmmaking.

We then discuss the ethics of machine learning and art, why there won't "a metaverse" and some of the most likely applications of AR and VR.

This raises some general points about the application of new technology which it would be well of us to heed.

Machine Learning, AI and Compositing with Mike Seymour | TVAP EP55

This week we catch up with a rising star in the industry, Rishabh Laheja, a Junior Digital Compositor at MPC. 

Realizing that a career in IT was not for him. Rishabh began studying nights and eventually putting together a compositing showreel with the help of working industry teachers and mentors he reached out to via Linkedin.

Launching his new career exactly in the middle of the Covid lockdowns. Rishabh won a remote role at MPC Bangalore and has already worked as a compositor on huge shows such as Prehistoric Planet and HBO's House of Dragons.

As he says in the opening, "It's a rollercoaster ride, you may want to buckle up!"

As always, if you liked this episode, please 👍 like, 📝 comment, 📢 subscribe, and 📣 share!

You can click on up below links to get the courses of some brilliant instructors.

📣 Keagan Harris Patreon: patreon.com/keaganharris
📣 Josh Parks Masterclasses: https://www.compositingpro.com/nuke-masterclass-courses/
📣 FXPhd: https://www.fxphd.com

Our own interview with @joshvfxify : https://youtu.be/tgqlS2BswZ0

Listen to all episodes on our website
https://www.thevfxartistspodcast.com/

Watch our other videos
📣What does it take to be a lighting artist? with Jasmine Katatikarn | TVAP EP49
https://youtu.be/ikFiHXeDP1M
📣Behind The Desk with Hugo Guerra | TVAP EP47
https://youtu.be/jGJruJHOx2g

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00:00:00 : Intro - What to Expect
00:01:24 : There's a Tipping POint for Every Artist
00:02:19 : I Didn't Know How to Get into VFX
00:02:45 : Why Compositing?
00:03:20 : Getting in Touch via Linkein, Josh Parks
00:03:47 : Online Courses
00:05:18 : Keagan Haris Patreon and Marseile
00:07:42 : Studying While Working in Another Industry
00:09:51 : London Siggraph , Bring Your Own Comp
00:12:10 : First Freelance Job
00:13:31 : Finally Getting Into The Industry
00:15:03 : The Rookies: Dragon Personal Project
00:17:51 : Bangalore and Mumbai
00:22:58 : Work Life in India
00:26:43 : Being Creative in School
00:34:38 : Indian Work Culture
00:42:00 : Advice for Other New Entrants

Launching a Comp Career in India | Rishabh Laheja | TVAP EP50

This week we caught up with Courtney Pryce. Industry veterans will know him from his years as Creative Specialist at Foundry.

Courtney worked with UK Film and TV industry Union, BECTU, to put together a suggested rate card for freelance and contract staff in VFX. We get to engage with the methodology and consequences of open disclosure of the often taboo subject of the pay scale.

Courtney also engaged strongly with the industry-wide discussion of racism sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. We don't shy away from tackling the issue of racism and nepotism in the workplace and there is a forthright but ultimately optimistic discussion.

Nevertheless, we never lost sight of Courtney's key skills as a solid professional compositor and reactive as he shares a wealth of knowledge that will benefit artists of all levels and from all backgrounds.

You won't want to miss out on this discussion!

00:00:00 : Intro - what to expect
00:18:17 : The Role of a Creative Specialist at Foundry
00:20:06 : When you're too comfortable
00:24:00 : Freelancing "Year Zero"
00:27:01 : Having kids as a freelancer
00:31:01 : Burnout
00:34:52 : VFX 

: methodology and controversy
00:43:41 : Black Lives Matter and Racism in the Industry 
00:54:25 : Projects most proud of. 

Creativity, Money and the Freelance Career, with Courtney Pryce | TVAP EP 48

Behind The Desk with Hugo Guerra | TVAP EP47

Behind The Desk with Hugo Guerra | TVAP EP47

Hugo Guerra, Director, VFX supervisor, and creator of Hugo's Desk.

In this episode, Kofi chats to Hugo about his career in the VFX industry. Uncovering decisions and steps that have made Hugo the Director and Supervisor he is today.

With an incredible industry footprint, Hugo has a huge voice across the VFX industry, and I felt it quite relevant to learn more about the man behind the glasses, or as our title says, 'Behind The Desk'.

In this episode, we discuss the creative and VFX industry in Portugal, and Sweden, remote working, industry overtime, Hugo's VFX journey in London during his time at The Mill, mistakes VFX artists to make when looking for work, steps they could take to protect themselves from being taken advantage of, best video games, movies, series of 2022, industry-wide issues, how we could tackle them, and many more.

It was a packed and insightful discussion worth listening to the end, as well as one to be shared!

A massive thank you to Hugo for his time and for being such a gem to the industry.

As always, if you liked this episode, please 👍 like, 📝 comment, 📢 subscribe, and 📣 share!

Listen to all episodes on our 

Building the Biggest VFX Asset Library in The World! ActionVFX CEO Rodolphe Pierre-Louis | TVAP EP46

Share Knowledge - Keep Learning with María Carriedo | TVAP EP43




You can find Hugo on the following platforms:




#thevfxartistspodcast #vfxpodcast #hugoguerra #hugosdesk




00:00:00 Coming up...
00:01:32 Introductions
00:03:11 Who is Hugo?
00:10:24 The Portuguese creative industry could be better
00:16:30 Reminiscing the London, Soho VFX industry in the 2000's
00:19:27 The unhealthy traits of the VFX industry - Overtime work
00:32:16 Chasing The Goal
00:37:05 How I ended up in the VFX & creative industry
00:39:37 Love-Hate relationship with the VFX industry
00:46:37 What I teach Nuke Compositors
00:49:49 What Junior compositors need to know when job seeking
01:02:41 Achieving targets on a creative journey
01:05:25 Films on Hugo's list for 2022
01:09:29 Where to find Hugo!
01:10:46 Thank you for watching! Subscribe!

I am pretty sure you've heard of Action VFX, I've used them in my own shots! So we managed to get the Founder and CEO on the show to talk about his career. It's a success story that very nearly wasn't!

This is a great one for any artists or filmmakers who are thinking of starting a business because Rodolphe has a lot of insight into how to turn FX talent into a business model, as shown by the widespread use of Action VFX elements in the industry. 

Join us and follow Rodolphe's journey from filmmaker to entrepreneur. After the interview I cheekily asked if I could get our subscribers a discount code and they very kindly agreed to a permanent 15% off for our listeners with the code "TVAP" !

This week it's been a real pleasure to meet Paul Miller and Marco Paolini - Software Developer and Product Manager behind the Oscar winning software, Boris Silhouette. 

Despite advances in AI, manual rotoscoping and invisible paintouts are still an essential bullwark of the VFX industry and not going away anytime soon.

We begin with their work on Elastic Reality (used on classic shows like Quantum Leap) a dtalk about how they have built Silhouette for artists who need to pain 100 stokes a second and export mattes accurate to better than a 16th of a pixel.

You can see some of Paul Miller's original design sketches for Silhouette

Recently Silhouette has expanded it's compositing toolset so we discuss their choices around this. Of course machine learning is something cannot avoid discussing both its promise and its limitations at the high end. 

In closing both Paul and Marco give some excellent career advice for anyone entering or advancing in the VFX and Software Development industries.

00:10:56 : Marco's Journey from Artist to Software 

00:14:01 : The Smallness of the Industry 

00:28:38 : The Decision to Add More Comp Features 

00:31:28 : Performance and Paul's Nightmares 

01:17:38 : Paul's Advice for Aspiring Developers 

01:22:41 : Marco's Advice for Getting into VFX and into Software 

(chapters powered by [Chaptered.app](https://Chaptered.app)) 

#Silhouette#Oscars#scitech#VFX#Podcast#rotoscoping#invisiblevfx As always, if you liked this episode, please like, comment, subscribe and share! Listen to all episodes on our website https://www.thevfxartistspodcast.com/

Powering Invisible VFX, with Paul Miller and Marco Paolini, creators of Boris Silhouette | TVAP EP44

On-Set in Extreme Environments with Jörundur Rafn Arnarson | TVAP EP42

Jörundur Rafn Arnarson returns after exchanging the frozen mountains of Iceland for the Deserts for his recent VFX Supervisor role on "Rise of The Witches". 

We talk about how extreme environments influence filmmakers, the route from Compositing to VFX Supervision, "bad CGI", helicopters and much much more. 

With a Supervisor whose body of work ranges from Icelandic indie films to Cannes Palm D'Or, Triangle of Sadness to Prehistoric Planet to franchise blockbusters Dr Strange - Multiverse of Madness and Game of Thrones, You won't want to miss this one! 

As always, if you liked this episode, please like, comment, subscribe and share! 

00:03:43 : Triangle of Sadness
00:13:42 : The most sought after commodity on-set
00:16:03 : The mindset of extreme environments
00:23:15 : RIse of The Witches - a Saudi Arabian epic
00:28:07 : Dr Strange and Prehistoric Planet
00:36:25 : Issues I have with CG
00:45:45 : Guiding big and small budgets
00:49:17 : I will always cut out VFX if I can
00:53:04 : "Bad CGI"
01:26:04 : Advice for filmmakers using VFX for the first time.

On-Set in Extreme Environments with Jörundur Rafn Arnarson | TVAP EP4

The ups and downs of life as a compositor with Josh Parks | TVAP EP37

This week we catch up with Senior Compositor and trainer, Josh Parks for a lively discussion of all things tech, industry and career related.

Starting out as "The wildcard choice" for MPC's training program, he has built an impressive career with credits including: Jungle Book, Transformers: The Last Knight, Ready Player One, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Lovecraft Country, Stranger Things and much more

We also talk about Josh's training materials and how building this from early in his journey in VFX has not only helped other artists, but also helped himself to grow as a compositor.

We also discuss Unreal, volume, machine learning and the future of the industry so you will want to check this one out!


00:00:05 : Introductions
00:04:33 : Machine learning and the black box
00:09:04 : The Mailing List
00:11:41 : How creating learning materials can help the creator
00:13:04 : Keying and Dan's worst interview ever
00:18:48 : Josh's route into the industry
00:22:15 : The ups and downs of life as a comper
00:37:18 : Ownership of art and Caravaggio getting client notes
00:51:00 : Unreal in Nuke
00:57:34 : 


01:07:12 : Outro and a bit of industry history

Rendered: 2022-07-24 20:30:49
Powered by [Chaptered.app](https://Chaptered.app)

Not Your Starving Artist, with VFX Generalist Vicki Lau | TVAP EP32

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 what kept her determined to pursue her goals.

As always, if you liked this episode, please like, comment, subscribe and share!




00:00:00 Intro
00:00:41 How I got into the VFX industry
00:07:50 Being a compositor for Postvis and finals
00:09:11 Volumetric and Stereoscopic compositing
00:11:19 Pros and cons of being a generalist
00:13:24 Pros and cons of being a postvis Compositor
00:15:57 Favourite shows worked on
00:16:32 Being an oriental woman in the VFX industry
00:19:01 VFX industry in Singapore
00:20:10 What drives you?
00:21:59 Teaching others
00:24:49 Why I wrote these VFX books
00:30:11 Benefits of putting your VFX industry experience into a book
00:31:20 Where to find Vicki's books
00:31:52 Words of advice
00:35:10 Conclusion



Becoming the Best Compositor You Can With Shonda Hunt | TVAP EP31

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 working more efficiently in Foundry Nuke, building trust and credibility with producers and supervisors and tips for continual learning and improvement.

If you are interested in upping your compositing career you will not want to miss this one!

00:54 : How I got started
04:52 : Tutorials and Books
06:07 : Depper understanding
09:19 : Freelancing vs staff
28:33 : Advice to up your game
30:33 : Don't be afraid to test things out
31:32 : Read read read
33:50 : Custom tools and gizmos
37:35 : Being a parent in the VFX industry
40:44 : WFH and childcare
44:09 : Growing as an artist while working from home
45:24 : The value of blogging
49:37 : Hard greenscreens please!
56:30 : The value of feedback
58:45 : Becoming the go-to person for hard shots

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 learning and USD in VFX, interoperability and finally we talk about working in software as a career path for VFX Artists.

Apologies for the occasional echoes in this episode - I had my headphones a little too loud.



00:00:00 - What to expect in this episode
00:01:36 - Introduction to Christy Anzelmo
00:04:10 - Career beginning and work in the Fashion industry
00:09:30 - Foundry Products in product design
00:12:00 - Use of digital in the fashion industry
00:13:30 - Starting working on Nuke
00:15:30 - How Daniel and Christy met at her first client facing meeting
00:17:30 - The diversity of the Nuke userbase
00:18:30 - Can Christy use Nuke?
00:20:09 - The Nuke team
00:21:02 - Product Management and working in the industry
00:24:30 - What Foundry does with that long survey they send you
00:26:00 - A feature added to Nuke as a result of the survey
00:26:40 - Cara VR and 360 video
00:28:00 - Unusual uses of Nuke
00:30:00 - Car configuration with Nuke
00:32:46 - Different priorities for different companies
00:33:20 - Shake to disconnect and Apple Shake
00:34:00 - Improving usability in professional software
00:36:50 - Looking at rival software and consistency
00:39:00 - Interoperability and less linear pipelines
00:41:30 - USD and “The Dream”
00:43:12 - Copy Cat and machine learning in Nuke 13
00:48:15 - Pre-trained tools in Nuke 13
00:48:50 - IP and copyright obstacles to machine learning

Christy Anzelmo: USD, Machine Learning, surprising uses for Nuke and Foundry software and a career VFX software | TVAP EP16

VFX Compositing for film with Prince Yiadom | TVAP EP07

In this episode, I have Prince Yiadom from Framestore London, to share his journey to becoming a compositor for film.

Prince's VFX industry journey begun very early on whilst he was still at University and progressed on to freelancing and eventually settling in with Framestore, beginning with Paint and roto, to progressing to becoming a compositor for the film department.

Compositing