Visual Effects Artist - Alan Clappison - Presentation Thoughts

Guest: Alan Clappison 

I was quite surprised that someone who had worked on many famous films such as the recent sci-fi film, The Martian, which was distributed to local cinema’s such as Vue (where I watched it), came in to Coulsdon College out of his presumed busy schedule to teach us about what it’s like working in the VFX sector in the Film industry. This was extremely intriguing for me as I was deeply interested in what techniques and programs he uses for his work and learning about the route he took to break into the film industry as a whole. Alan had explained the various types of 3D modelling programs that he uses, since I’m familiar with the program ‘Cinema4D’, I know that they use this in the film industry. However I was quite mistaken as when I had asked Al, he told me that the program ‘Maya’ was the default program that they use in the VFX industry; though Cinema4D isn’t completed blown out the water.

Guardians of the galaxy was another film that he worked on and had detailed how tedious it was to render out using hundreds of computers and showed us a clip of the development and animation of the CGI created characters. Finally he made a presentation about different aspects of Visual Effects and what different skill sets and techniques industries require such as the Video Game industry or even just commission editing for businesses. His speech and presentation was well laid out and I liked how we got the free opportunity to ask him questions throughout his time in class.

[Guadians of the Galaxy 3D concept - Autodesk Maya]