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

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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