Alexandra B.
About me
| Alexandra B. | |
| Theatre, Film and Television | |
| Postproduction with Specialisation in Visual Effects | |
| Undergraduate | |
| 2012 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Junior Compositor | |
| Milk VFX | |
| United Kingdom | |
| 2014 |
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A day in the life of a Junior Compositor in the United Kingdom
My career history
Graduated from the MA in Postproduction, specialising in Visual Effects in 2012 and moved to London. Got a job in Subway for the first couple of weeks while I was looking for work. Found a job as an edit assistant at a company called Myriad but I wanted to be in VFX not editing, so when Prime Focus rang 3 weeks later and offered me a job as a runner I took it instantly. I spent 8 months as a runner there whilst also doing a lot of training and working on jobs with the compositors. I then got promoted to Junior Nuke Artist for 5 months and then got offered my current job at Milk VFX working on Doctor Who as a Junior Compositor.
Where I hope to be in 5 years
I hope to keep working up the ladder to get to senior compositor, possibly VFX supervisor, work on a film in Hollywood and one day maybe have my own VFX company.
My advice to students considering work
To get your foot in the door in the visual effects market, one of the most important things is to be sociable, networking is a massive part of this industry! Any events you see that are relevant to your chosen career, go, drink wine and talk to people, either to get advice or just make contacts!
If you get a job as a runner in a company, stay late to train, and go and sit with the artists if you can sometimes in your lunch break so you can get to know them and they will get to know you and potentially start giving you shots to work on. While still at university, do your degree obviously, but join societies, particularly ones relevant to the industry you want to go into - they look good on your CV!
If you want to get into film and TV, try and work on your own projects in your spare time and get a bit of a show reel together. It doesn't matter if it's not amazing when you're first applying to jobs, but it shows enthusiasm which is what employers want to see.
What I do
Rotoscoping, clean up (tracker/object removal), keying, compositing. Basically preparing any shots for the senior compositor to come and do the magic with!
Skills I use and how I developed them
Extracurricular skills:
Most skills I started off learning in my MA course, the software Nuke and rotoscoping techniques etc. Some came from doing the student TV station, YSTV. A lot of skills came from working on shots with the compositors whilst I was a runner at Prime Focus. Unless they were really stressed out and busy they would always take the time to help me out and show me new techniques/developing current techniques. A lot of skills were developed simply by trial and error, try something, it doesn't work, so try it another way. And of course, doing your own stuff on the side, it can be a lot of fun if you do it with other people, you learn a lot and it's more things to potentially put on your show reel.
What I like most
Everything (99% of the time)! The people, the work, the projects, the flexibility, the social side to the job (generally vfx is a sociable and friendly industry). You spent a lot of time in work so you get to know people quite well and you can have a laugh together while working hard!
What I like least
The industry is unstable. It's never guaranteed you will have a job which can be stressful when you know you have to pay rent etc!
Next steps...
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