Enter the Frame
Blog of a VFX freshman
This is my story, my life, unedited and straight up. It is the best of my experiences and insights that I learned as I go through the weeks and months of my first full time job in the VFX industry as a Matte Painter and Compositor.
Stay tuned for updates every few weeks about my time at Framestore.
Breaking into the VFX industry is crazy hard for most people; including yours truly. It’s a lot like the Colosseum where you have to fight to the death. The victor gets the spoils of war; AKA the job.
So how do you make it? How do you get there? How do you overcome the odds? There’s one way; being extremely lucky. Another is being extremely lucky and highly talented. Or you might have a connection with someone somewhere in a studio and at the right time they’ll call upon you to shine and deliver. The way I got in was not easy. I had the longer, tougher route, and a fair sprinkle of luck.
For the last 8 months I’ve been working my ass off at home painting every day. Many times I went a couple of days with little sleep; my good friends Stefan and Benjamin (both in Europe) were messaging me telling me to go to rest. I challenged myself and my skills with every portfolio piece, churning out matte paintings over and over and learning from those around me.
I have wanted to become a matte painter for years and I had finally quit my job working in a restaurant to practice and pursue my dreams.
“This chapter in my life was the most difficult decision mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.”
In less than a month after quitting my job, I moved out of my apartment and back in with my parents. The original agreement was to stay there for 4 months (till January 1, 2018), then I was to be booted out — off to New York or LA with or without a job. Fortunately, they allowed me to stay till they moved into their new house, giving me a valuable 6 months more time. But, with not having a job, finances were greatly limited. I had to get food stamps, file unemployment and I stopped my phone plan for a few months just to save costs. My parents were supportive of me pursuing my dreams, but they were very skeptical about me being able to land a job. They researched about matte painting and learned that it’s one of the most difficult visual effects jobs to get. Every job posting I saw (even junior positions) called for 2+ years experience in film or TV, and internship positions required at least having a BFA. I had no BFA and little experience. The only experience I had was freelance matte painting work for commercials and a feature film “Hover.”
My parents suggested going to Minnesota University for general education classes and to go back to graphic design because there’s more jobs in the field and it would be easier to attain. I find design work comes naturally to me and I’m reasonably good at it, but it just doesn’t inspire me, so I stuck to my guns. Luckily I had some great mentors and, with the help of Conrad Allan; the CEO of MattePaint.com, I landed an internship at Framestore in New York in June 2018.
I applied to every job possible, to studios all over the world.
Over the months since quitting my job, I would message Conrad and a few other artists asking for feedback daily! It probably bugged the shit out of them, but they lent me their time. It is their feedback combined my hard work that I was finally given a big break. I am now in my 4th week at Framestore!
While living with my parents, I applied to every job possible to studios all over the world. At one studio, I applied to be a coffee delivery runner, another was to work in their mail room, being a receptionist, junior runner, and even a janitor. A big majority of the time I didn’t hear back or I got a emails saying my skills did not meet their standards. I guess they were looking for first-class cleaning skills!
I kept challenging myself; any new piece I make, has to beat the most current and all previous work made.
One person at a studio suggested I look at a different career. I had won a few interviews for roles as a runner, and junior, but I lost out to someone with more skill and experience. I refused to let this stop me!!! I kept applying, I kept refining my work over and over, I kept staying up late at night working, I kept challenging myself; any new piece I make, has to beat the most current and all previous work made. I probably remade my reel 20 times! Not only because I feared not getting a job but also because I wanted to learn and be able to eventually be able to wake up every day knowing I do what I love for a living.
Starting the internship, I knew I’d be doing a lot of basics. Unless you’re a pro player, you’ll always start out as the “dishwasher” of the team. As a junior matte painter you’re doing a lot of plate clean up, basic set extensions/patches, element replacing, texturing 2D elements, gathering reference, roto, and learning the foundations of certain programs required for the job (don’t under estimate this last one!). I wasn’t too surprised on what was asked of me, but I still worried about the quality of my work. I never want to be given a bigger task and not be able to deliver. I don’t expect to be handed a full shot and deliver it 100% perfect though. There’s a lot I still have to learn and I will make mistakes along the way.
I was worried they would expect me to learn a bunch of 3D packages and to be able to master them in a short time. I was also worried there would be someone over my shoulder all the time watching every move and measuring my performance. This hasn’t been the case. It’s been very enjoyable, challenging yes, but I’ve felt very welcome and have learnt a tonne already.
Every fortnight or so I’m going to be updating how I’m going, what I’ve learnt, what my expectations were and how they’ve changed and, if I’m allowed, I’ll cover a little on what I’m actually doing here. Life is very busy now though and I’m still painting every night after work, so bear with me and follow the publication so I can help you learn from my mistakes and share my experience.
Extra Notes — Only for the genuine!
I want to be real on how I got here. I want to be up front and cut the bullshit about why and how I got here. It’s not meant to be egotistical or selfish or to sound like I’m a know it all; because I’m not. Putting my mental, physical and emotional body in a set and oriented goal allowed me to figure out things I needed to do to change my life and go the direction I want to.
1: Knowing my time management is important. Some artists ask how much time they should spend working … blah blah. That’s the worst question to ask! Spend as much time as you want or need to in order to be able to achieve the goal you set yourself. As Nike says; “JUST DO IT.” Figure out what your daily life and weekly life is like. From that, you can determine what to cut out; for example gaming all day or watching TV every night.
2: Work your ass off. You never want to fail because you didnt work hard enough. As every father says; “No Pain, No Gain.” I spend all day every day painting, masking, matching images, etc and then going back and redoing previous works when I’m out of new ideas.
3: Figure out what it is you need to do for your portfolio. Every piece in my portfolio, I took specific steps to learn how to do those special tasks required as a junior; set extension, plate cleanup, relighting, matching image resolutions of which helped make all my portfolio pieces.
4: Talk to those who are better than you! You become part of the crowd you follow. The artists I ask for criticism are the ones I think are the leading ones in the industry ranging from mid-level to experts like Conrad Allan, Maxx Burman, Stefan Bernscherer, Evan Langley, Mike Johnson, Christopher Gonzalez and many more. People like this will take time to invest in you because they see something in you like they did in me. I’m not sure what it is, but its something and I’m thankful that they do. Because they believe in me, it adds fuel to my motivation.
So how did i get here? By being the hardest worker in the room. How are you going to get here?
Stay Curious, Stay Humble.
