Five Minutes With Kat Harris
We caught up with Katherine ‘Kat’ Harris, Engineer/Technical Designer at Magnopus about the immersive industry, what inspires her, and her mantra for life.
“Five Minutes With” is a regular feature that gives you an insight into some of the greatest minds in the immersive industry, all within the time it takes to grab a cup of coffee.
Katherine Harris Mojica is a Technical Director and VProd Lead responsible for coordinating the art, engineering, robotics, and scene assembly teams to test previz and techviz shot viability. Kat works in both Unity 3D and Unreal Engine, and she runs virtual camera sessions and develops tools for production. She was part of Epic’s Real-Time Fellowship learning the latest film techniques in virtual production for Unreal Engine and has applied those learnings to the Magnopus pipeline. Before pursuing virtual production, she honed her skills for six years at Microsoft developing virtual and augmented reality tools and experiences. And she was also the first woman in the world certified on Unity Engine.
What’s exciting you the most about the immersive industry right now?
With the immersive industry, almost everything about it is exciting. However, there are probably two areas that I like hearing about the most. One is the democratization of technology and learnings. There are a ton of resources like videos and blogs to help teach people how to create their own XR applications, not only that but most phones can support XR apps. Snapchat does an amazing job of this, through Lens Studio. You barely need to know how to code to create really high-quality fun experiences. Getting more people to see the potential of the platform will move it from its still very niche circle to a larger one.
The other is higher and higher quality of real-time engines for lighting and materials. Not only does this allow for hyper-realistic content, but it also means that less powerful chips can run really beautiful and particle-intensive scenes. Right now in the virtual production world, we are getting a variety of tracking solutions and stunning visuals that opens the door to new ways of filming or revamping old ways of filming.
What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
Just do the things you want to do, even if you think you’ll be terrible at it; cause over time you’ll get better. Also, invest in NVIDIA, and start a Youtube channel.
What and/or who is your source of inspiration?
Hmmm…good question! I get inspiration from a variety of different sources. Talking to peers in the industry, consuming fiction/sci-fi content, Tiktok. I realized that inspiration is different for everyone, not everyone gets super passionate about things and that’s okay. However, I’m not one of those people. Getting inspired too often has its own challenges, where you want to drop what you’re doing for the new idea. Over time I’ve learned to just channel on a thing that I know can cover a variety of different passions, that way if my passion switches the skills I learn can be transferred easily.
What is your favourite thing about what you do for a living?
Getting to bring stories to life and working in the film industry.
Just for Fun!
What are you reading/listening to right now?
Gideon the Ninth. The cover has an amazing tagline: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” It’s my go-to “wanna have a good time” novel and mixes sci-fi and fantasy really well also crossing into a who-done-it murder mystery dinner adventure.
What’s the mantra you live by?
Just do the thing. Just. Do. The. Thing. Even if you’re tired, you have doubts, or don’t know where to start. Just start.
If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?
More Virtual Production… but for my own random shorts and trailers that I’d love to do. I also voice act on the side so I would have more time to do that.
Whilst you’re here, is there anything you’d like to plug?
Follow me on Twitter @KatVHarris
