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Hi, I’m Josh, a 2D compositing student graduating this year from Escape. The thing that makes me passionate about VFX is seeing how it's all made and how each little bit of the puzzle comes together to make the final product. Watching CG and comp breakdowns is the best bit for me. After some consideration, I’ve decided I'd like to start my career in a roto/prep department. It seems the best place to get some good experience under your belt.
Specialisms:
2D
Comp, Roto Prep
SHOWREEL
GET TO KNOW JOSHUA
What was your inspiration for pursuing a career in VFX?
I don’t have a story about how ‘I’ve been interested in VFX since I was a kid and I grew up always wanting to be a compositor.’ After secondary school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I saw that a local college was offering a course in VFXand the rest is history. As soon as I started looking at the breakdowns of my favorite films, it made me want to be able to make stuff like that. I think the biggest one for me was the Lord of the Rings behind the scenes documentary - it's just incredible what Weta pulled off in the early 2000s.
What hobbies do you have?
I have a few unorthodox hobbies, blacksmithing being the main one. Currently me and a friend are saving up to build our own forge, but in the meantime, working on smaller pieces is doable with a blowtorch and a roofing hammer.
Archery is admittedly something I started because I thought Legolas from the Lord of the Rings was cool, but I've been shooting at my local archery club for a good few years now.
Karate is a much more recent hobby of min. I joined because my brother, who is a brown belt, wouldn't stop trying to beat me up. I’m only a red belt right now, so I still don't stand much chance.
I build PCs for fun and I've been doing it since 2016 - I've built/upgraded about 9 PCs total now. It's great to know what's going on under the hood of the machine that's powering the VFX I'm doing.
How would your peers describe you in 3 words?
Quiet, Reliable, Friendly
Do you have any industry experience? If so, please give a concise explanation of the experience.
Unfortunately I don’t have any experience within the industry via internships or anything like that, but I have had the opportunity to work on 2 external projects as a 2D Artist, Odd Socks being the most recent., whereI was involved with cleanup and rig/pole removal. I have also attended multiple Escape seminars throughout the 3 years I've been here, so I believe I've got a good appreciation of how work is done in the industry.
How would you describe your contribution to your group project?
In our group project, Game Heist, my contribution was as a 2D artist. I was responsible for all aspects of prepping and compositing on 4 (later 3) shots. On this project, I had a shot that required double comp: a screen replacement and the CG integration. The screen replacement was on the opening shot of the film, so it had to be up to a high standard. The tracking was very finicky towards the end of the shot and it came down to manual frame-by-frame tracking to make it accurate. Overall it was a great project and I really enjoyed working on it.
What lessons did you learn from undertaking your project that you'll take with you into your career?
Murphy's law: what can go wrong will go wrong, a good axiom to live by when it comes to student projects. It's inevitable that, at some point, something isn't going to go the way you want it and it’s happened a few times working on group projects, but every time I've found out how important it is to push through to the end and get the job done, because most of the time it’s no where near as bad as you thought it was.
What would your ideal first role in the industry be?
As I said previously, I’d like to start in a Roto Prep role, but I wouldn't be opposed to being in a Junior Comp role either. Both would serve to develop my skills though, I would prefer to join a studio that specializes in advertising as the work is a lot more varied compared to a feature length project. It would allow me to experience a wider range of tasks and challenges further pushing my development as an artist
What's an achievement from the past 3 years that you're proud of?
Definitely the most proud I've been in the last 3 years was when our VFX group project, Theseus and the Minotaur, won two awards (The London Film awards: Best Super Short and Eastern Europe Film Festival: Best VFX) It's the first time, as an artist, that something I’ve worked on has been awarded. It was an amazing project and definitely the height of year 3 so far.
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