It has been suggested that the purpose of this post may be to “attack” universities. I thank the university gentleman for his remarks and concerns and offer the following. Quite to the contrary, this article is part of a much larger discussion which will ensure universities and other kinds of institutions improve programming to the point that they can deliver really excellent career training.
You want to find the top visual effects school and you’ve stumbled across CG Masters with all it’s ‘attitude’ and ‘philosophy’. You’re wondering if it’s real or just a bunch of marketing nonsense. CG Masters claims to be the first school to implement “2nd Generation Training”. It’s reasonable to ask exactly what is meant by that and to expect some rational explanation. A solid explanation requires a little history lesson. So here it is.
Here are a few tips to help you pick a school that will get you more than just an empty diploma or degree. We expect you to hold us to these same standards while researching. Go on. We can take it.
Hey there Producer. Ever wonder where your profit margin went on that CG-heavy visual effects / animation project? There’s a good chance much of it went to over-engineering; wild, crazy, out of control over-engineering, overbuilding and overthinking. How did this happen?
I once heard a VFX producer say “I sure miss the days when artists slept under their desks.” Some time later, I heard another one say “Artists are like light bulbs. When they burn out, I replace them.” How did things get this bad?
These rules are for crew submitting to VFX dailies, not for the people running them. The people running dailies already know better and don’t need a lecture about it. Unfortunately junior artists are almost never given a talk about how/what/when/where to submit work to dailies and it takes them years to figure out on their own. This is not only sad, but expensive.
Nicholas Boughen is possibly the most experienced and capable visual effects instructor in the world. His career in the entertainment industry spans 33 years, the most recent 15 years in visual effects production creating work for 27 films, four T.V. series and countless commercials.
Leader, Follower, Phoney
Working in the entertainment industry, and specifically the film visual effects industry presents many challenges, not least of which is dealing effectively with people who use a variety of strategies to make them successful.
“You only get out of school what you put in.”
This statement has always perplexed me. It puts 100% of the education responsibility on the student and none on the school. If you were to express this in math it would look something like this:
But First, a context. A Brief History of Visual Effects Digital Visual Effects is a funny and awkward industry. It hasn’t been around very long compared to, say, the film industry. It is still young and therefore, like a teenager, in a constant state of change….