Escape Students Visit New Deal Studios

As part of their classroom course with us, our students (who we affectionately refer to as escapees), get a chance to visit working studios to get a taste of what they will be faced with when they start working in the VFX industry. We took our first bunch of escapees to New Deal studios last week, and rather than giving you my thoughts on how the visit went, I asked Greg Pilon - who is taking our Compositing for Production course - to give us a quick summary of his visit.

Here is what Greg had to say about his visit:

My name is Greg Pilon and I just moved from Arizona to attend the Escape Studios compositing track here in Santa Monica. A few years back, I saw an online video about a company based here in LA that did an unbelievable miniature shot for Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight” in 2008. I was blown away with the technical knowledge and detail that went into pulling off this amazing chase scene in a miniature tunnel. At the time, I thought that this would be an amazing company to work for.

So, I was ecstatic to hear that Susan O’Neal at Escape had booked a tour for us to take an exclusive tour of New Deal Studios. And it lived up to the hype. David Sanger, Head of Production at New Deal, graciously spent a couple of hours of his time showing us the whole facility and explaining their workflow on how they deliver these crazy sequences for the biggest movies (too many to list). To add to that list, they had just finished wrapping the shoot for a much-awaited sequel film coming out this year with a respected director, which I am sure will be off the hook.

For me, the really exciting part between what I saw in an online video in 2008 and actually standing there at New Deal is that with Escape’s training I can actually have a conversation with David from New Deal and pretty much know all the principles he’s describing in their workflow. 

I am really excited about the career opportunities after I leave Escape and the possibility of getting to work with people like David Sanger on the biggest productions out there. If I had to describe New Deal Studios in one word, Legit.

A miniature helicopter crash from "I Am Legend"

From inside New Deal, looking out

A miniature used as an establishing shot in "Deck the Halls"

Escapees outside of New Deal Studios

Escapees listen as David Sanger explains

If, like Greg, you dream of working in VFX and want a piece of the action, why not come on one of our Open House days? It will give you a chance to check out our studios, talk to advisors, and you might even get a chance to bump into our students. We are running one on February 4 with industry veteran Pam Hogarth from LOOK Effects. If you attend this Open House day, you will qualify for 30-day free access to our Maya Essentials online course.