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SHOWREEL
GET TO KNOW MICHAEL
Can you describe the extent of any relevant work experience you might have?
I have had the opportunity now to work on several external film projects outside of Escape Studios. One such film I worked on was 'In Depth' under the producer, Stefano Ferron, as a compositor working within Nuke using techniques such as keying, despill and Unreal reader. This allowed me to practise and gave me an opportunity for learning early on in my experience with Nuke. Another film I worked on was 'Odd Socks' by director, David Ledger, as a prep artist, where I was responsible for clean-ups of puppeteers and poles. This gave me excellent opportunities in a professional workflow to create precise and accurate clean-ups while gaining a greater understanding of the pipeline, interacting with clients and delivering a high standard of work.
How would you describe your contribution to your group project?
In the project, Set In Stone, my role was as a 2D Compositor. Here I was responsible for one of the longer moving shots where I had to use a lot of 3D projection techniques and 2D tracking within Nuke to provide a clean plate ready for the CG Comp later on. As a part of the 2D team, I had close communication with my 2D lead, providing consistent updates and receiving feedback trying to come up with quick solutions to any problems we faced. An example is how we were experimenting with creating a shadow clean plate to make our CG shadows integrate more realistically with the shadows in our plate, and would run into consistent problems with making the shadow plate blend perfectly with the existing shadows in the shot.
What do you specialise in and what made you choose that specialism?
I chose to specialise in Compositing due to its more logistical workflow and its place within the VFX pipeline. I have always desired to be an extremely creative person but felt limited in more traditional areas and found my skills lie better in a technical and logistical setting. When I found compositing and a workflow based on this skillset I therefore instantly fell in love and found an extreme passion for compositing VFX. It was a brilliant way to combine my skills with the media that I love and since coming to escape it has always been my goal from day one, and since studying my skills have grown and improved so too has my passion for the work as well.
What would your ideal first role in the industry be?
My Ideal first role would be a Junior Compositor or a roto paint/prep artist working on any type of project including advertising, TV or film. I would be excited to get an entry-level role as a Roto paint/prep artist and intend to work my way up to a compositor role at the first opportunity. Either role will allow me to develop as an artist advancing my skillset, giving me valuable experience in the industry.
Which of your student projects are you most proud of, and why?
The project I am most proud of would be 'Save yourself', a team project during our final year at Escape. This project stands out to me because it was one of the first team projects as part of the university that we were able to work on individual shots giving us the responsibility to create high-quality work by ourselves. For myself It was also the opportunity I got to experiment, I was able to explore nuke particle systems to create smaller effects we didn't need a full 3D render for. Along with this I was able to play with any ideas I thought might enhance my shot, which ended up developing into me creating the atmospheric entry effects for the exterior of the ship. My team for this project was also fabulous, everyone was efficient and collaborative, giving feedback and ideas, which is what made it possible for us to create an amazing final project.
What’s a piece of media (film, game, animation) that changed the way you think about your discipline?
I've had a lot of media influence my desire to work in visual effects, Tron, and The Matrix. However, a recent piece of media that changed my perspective on it would be, Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was not a big studio like most blockbusters these days but a small group of artists not even completely familiar with some of the industry standard programs, that worked on hundreds of VFX shots with limited time and resources. The methods they adopted and the mindset they had while working on this film, make me reframe what I should be aiming for on personal and professional projects.
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