Mingling with fellow creatives.

Hi Tobias and everyone,

If I could swap places with anyone - it would be with John Knoll. That one sentence alone tells you what a massive VFX fan I am. I'm also aware of folks like Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, John Dykstra - and Ray Harryhausen before them.

For the last eighteen years I have been a 'frustrated special effects artist' - settling for single frame fake pictures - or composites as I now call them. I imported myself into screen grab frames from movies and made it look like I was part of the scene.

I have always been fixated with 'special effects' ever since I started going to the cinema seriously in 1982. It all started with E.T. The Extra Terrestrial...

Eventually I discovered glorious After Effects. Creating video VFX is what does it for me now. It gives me a genuine buzz. I've been known to punch the air when I've had trouble getting something to work - but when it finally comes together it's a 'YES!' moment. Despite the fact that what I'm currently doing is fairly basic compositing, it's still making me smile and giving me a buzz when I've got the shot looking what I consider, fairly realistic. I REALLY enjoy the process.

The other two programs in my arsenal are Premiere Pro CC and Blender. Isn't it just utterly BRILLIANT that Blender is entirely free? I'm so respectful of that and grateful.

My style is: Animate a TurboSquid 3D model and import over footage. In other posts to follow via the appropriate forums I'll embed some videos.

There's a couple of people who have really helped me get going with this - they are Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot and Surfaced Studios' very own Tobias! Thanks guys! As I say - it's my 'thing' now. It's what I want to do.

Just as a side issue - that Nuke nodes thing - it messes with my head! I'm not ready for that yet - I'll have to stick with Ae layers for the time being!

Thanks also for these forums - it's going to be so nice to hang with fellow creatives.

- Chris.
London, UK.