Hasta La Motion!

Hello, all. I’m looking for some advice regarding applying for a VFX position for the first time.

I live in Denver, and my current dayjob is in IT, but I’m planning on moving to LA at the start of next year to finally pursue VFX as a career. I’ve worked on effects for student films, shorts, and hobby projects, …, for years, but the only real dayjob I’ve had relating to the industry was as a Lightwave animator doing forensic animation for trials a few years back. (And wound up being more of an inhouse tools and scripts guy when they realised I could do more than just basic 3D.)

But, I’ve also been involved in a lot of local film production outside the scope of VFX. So, do you guys think that it makes sense to include experience doing things like lighting on student films on a resume when applying for VFX work? What about acting? Currently, my only IMDB credits are for on-screen work rather than technical work.

To my mind, it seems like it makes sense to push the fact that I have production related experience, and I’m not just a guy who has had an IT career. But, I doubt that including a full acting resume as a second page to an IT resume is the best way to do it. What do you guys think? Would love some feedback on the subject as I slowly start preparing myself to hit the ground running next year.

On a vaguely related note, is there any value in creating a ‘tools reel’? In the rare cases when I have free time, I sometimes play around with writing small graphics related programs. Conceivably, I could write something just functional enough to do a few shots with my own code as the primary comp tool. Of course, any tool I might write would be much less sophisticated than something like Nuke, so the resulting reel would probably turn out much less impressive than an ‘artist reel’ done with professional tools. For somebody looking for comp / tracking type positions, would that type of extra reel just be a distraction? Or could it help get a foot in the door on a technical side such that one could eventually move to a more artistic role?

Hello everyone. This is my first post on vfxtalk and I am not realy sure wheter, to put this question in the beginner or professional Talk (I post it here, cause the answer might com from a professional :rolleyes:). I study animation in first semester, and just found out about the great possibilities of matchmoving and 3d. Now my question is(the real question is asked after I explained what I have done so faar), I filmed (some camera movement), standing in an alley, looking on a street (so I got high walls on both sides next to me, and an open end, where the street is passing by). I import the footage into Boujou , 3d-track it and get into my 3d app (maya) , create a car driving on the street. Next step I load it into my compositing app.. And this is where my question appears. How do I mask out the walls on the right and the left, so I see the car driving on the streets only (and not overlapping with the walls)???? One answer I could think of is rebuilding the walls in 3d and not render them out….but is there an other way?????? Thanks a lot and sorry for my english and bad explanation:)

About me: I’m finished my schooling but I haven’t gotten a job yet so I don’t have any industry experience, but I am working on a reel. Recently I got a job from a small media company, to do some editing and basic compositing. After meeting up with them I was told I was recommended for some comp work on a short film they are producing (body part removal, and colour correction are all I know about right now.) As I have never done any freelance work of any kind I am curious to know what I should be charging for this work.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

when i was reading about a cast in a movie on IMDB i noticed that there was Particle FX Artist and Particle Effects Artist, i don’t understand the deference between them.
any idea ?

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie in this helpful forum.
I am 22 and have an IT support background. I have always been amazed by the vfx in movies and video games. (I like all those fantasy landscapes, like in Pirates of caribbean, Lord of the Rings,…)
I would like to change of field and work in the vfx one.

I am a "very very bad drawer", and I do not know anything concerning lights, shadows,… but am hard-worker if I know where to go.

Right now I have been learning photoshop for a few days with DVD training that I borrowed (I don’t if it is the best thing to do).
And then I am thinking to learn after effects (still with dvd training).

I read several posts and threads, especially Faridzareh’s one (give me hope), but am very confused with all those terms that see everywhere(roto, TD, cg,…). And then all those programs: Nuke, Combustion, boujou, houdini,….

Should I keep going with photoshop and then after effects or should I start with in a different manner?

Congrats and best of luck to all of you!

Manukkain