Compositor (Freelance)

WHY VFX?
I was inspired by my favourite childhood films ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘ET’, ‘Tron’, ‘Bladerunner’, and ‘Indiana Jones’. The visuals in these films were magic, and I wanted to be part of that. I genuinely look forward to going to work every day.

FAVOURITE PROJECT:
‘The Hobbit’ was incredible to work on. Weta Digital is an amazing company, with some of the cleverest people in the world working there, as well as some of the nicest. I loved it!

FAVOURITE MOVIE ONE LINER:
‘This is Spinal Tap’ is full of some of the best lines ever. My favourite would be; “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.” A friend at FuelVFX, reminded me of the line a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been chuckling to myself ever since.

ABOUT:
VFX loving Leo Neelands has traversed the globe on a ship built of his much sought after VFX expertise. From MPC to Cinesite, Fuel VFX to Weta Digital. He truly has a number of serious motion pictures under his belt. It only takes one glance at his IMDB profile to see that his back catalogue is nothing short of impressive. We recently caught up with escapee Leo, to find out about his journey into this realm.

In 2005, after a number of years working as a Drug & Alcohol Worker, a career change beckoned, and the creative platform that was VFX was calling his name. After undertaking a HND course at South Nottingham College, his skills were recognised by a tutor there, who advised him to make his way down to London. Some industry based friends coerced him into furthering his skills, eventually streamlining them at Escape Studios.

ADVICE:
Be brave - I was terrified when I started at Escape. I was a yokel from the midlands moving to the hub of the film industry. I wasn't confident that I was going to be able to meet the standard required, but Escape was a great place to be; very relaxed and fun which put me at ease, but also very focused on the industry and on gaining employment. It felt like a serious course and was an inspiring place to be. It made me want to learn more and work harder. I don't remember thinking or talking of much else but VFX for a couple of months... in hindsight, I may have been a little boring to be around in that period!

Enjoy your career - I've met a lot of lifelong friends through this industry, so I am rather lucky to have lots of fun in and out of work with them. Myself and Jon Van Hoey Smith, (a compositor from MPC) started a band a couple of years ago, after realising we tapped our angle poised desk lamps with our wacom pens in a pleasing way whenever a ska tune came on.

Don’t expect family and friends to understand - I would tell them about the 700gb per frame deep rgba file I had to grapple with on The Hobbit. It was a scary monster of a thing to deal with, where in technology is moving faster than the hardware capabilities.  In response, they would look at me with empty expressions, and ask me what the cider was like in New Zealand… it was great by the way!

COMPANY: Junior NUKE Artist at The Mill

FAVOURITE MOVIE ONE LINER: “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” Gladiator

BEST PROJECT YOU’VE WORKED ON: It’s hard to pick just one; every project has its own merits and challenges. The Heineken ‘Bond’ music video was pretty cool—we got to work on lots of advanced stuff like bluescreen keying, and it was exciting to be part of the buzz surrounding the James Bond franchise.

WHY VFX? When I first watched ‘The Matrix’, I was intrigued by bullet-time, and ended up building my own bullet-time rig as part of my dissertation at University. This led to my interest in post-production, and took me to Escape.

ABOUT: Starting out as an engineering student, Simon was keen for any opportunity to dabble in filmmaking. It was whilst utilising his University’s bullet-time rig that his interest in pursuing a career in the film industry was first sparked, leading him to study one of Escape’s Compositing classes in 2011. Much to our pleasure, he just couldn’t leave, taking up post as one of our esteemed Studio Assistants for over a year.

Always on hand to help out in our Compositing classes, Simon was a true asset to Escape Studios, contributing content for our free online tutorials, and at one point even stepping in to cover one of our tutor’s evening classes. He also contributed a series of posts to the Escape blog, declaring his undying love for NUKE and sharing his wealth of knowledge on the program. Making the most of his 4-hour daily commute to the studio, Simon spent this time testing the portability of NUKE on his MacBook Air.

In terms of how his training at Escape has prepared him for his first VFX role, Simon says, “… it gave me the opportunity to really get to grips with the tools used in the industry, as well as the chance to develop my strengths as an artist, amongst a collective of like-minded individuals.”

ADVICE: Simon’s advice to anyone wanting to get into compositing is to “… try develop an understanding of how life is seen through the eyes of the camera, and to always study composition—even if it’s just going out for a walk and observing what is around you. But overall, the most important thing is a willingness to work hard.”

It brought a tear to the eye to see Simon leave, but everyone at Escape wishes him all the very best for the future—there’s no doubt he’ll make an invaluable addition to the team at The Mill. Huge congratulations to Simon as he steps ever closer towards the career he truly loves.

Roto Artist at Double Negative

Batman – Dark Knight Rises, Total recall, and now the new Bond film, what can I say, a dream come true!

A dream come true indeed! After an overdue stint on our professional Compositing course at the beginning of 2011, it’s fair to say that ever since, Carlos Conceição has grabbed the bull by the horns and furthermore, tamed it into his very own four legged chauffeur.

Now living in London and working in the heart of the VFX industry with Soho’s Double Negative, Portuguese born Carlos Conceição has worked with some of the largest names in the business on some truly ground breaking cinematic projects. For Carlos though, working in the VFX industry was not always so straight forward.

“Back in the days when I decided to enter the VFX industry, I searched the internet for options, inside and outside of Portugal; Escape Studios was the best option out there in terms of reviews and general opinion”

Although Carlos was aware of Escape Studios at this time, finances were a considerable factor in his career progression, being fresh out of University in Europe, a move to the UK was a huge decision…

“In the end I chose the Portuguese option and went into Architecture Visualization, and worked there until I decided that I wanted to progress in my career further…then came the Escape dream again… fortunately I got the chance to do the course, and it changed my life. It's not easy getting to the top of your career in Portugal and then starting all over again in the UK… back home, I was a senior ‘Arch Viz Artist’ and a Master Class Teacher, but there is nothing compared with the Film industry.

After completing a professional Compositing course at Escape Studios, Carlos found himself almost immediately knees deep within the industry..

The Foundry, Electric Theatre Collective and his current employers - Double negative, are all firms who have made use of Carlos’s extensive skillset over the last year. One of his favourite projects was during his time at the Electric Theatre Collective…

”I went to Electric Theatre Collective to work on a cool project with the Sesame Street characters. There were also some other escapees there from my course. Those days were amazing, the team environment was flawless and ETC is such a great place to work”

Today’s escapee is brought to you by the letter S, that’s S for SUCCESS… sorry we just couldn’t resist…

Since then it’s been peak after peak for Carlos, who has recently been working on the new Batman motion picture Dark Knight Rises, due for release later this month, and the new Bond film Skyfall, amongst other things.

We asked Carlos what advice he would give to any prospective escapees hoping to do the same, following their career dreams into the VFX industry.

My advice to the new students should be, learn from the best, Escape studios teachers are the best, but try to be creative somehow, try to get new footage, try and understand how to film, how to make photography, and why not do a bit of directing and producing? I did it with my military friends and it was so fun, the result got me my dream job!

The veracious combination of personal determination and extensive resources provided here at Escape can propel you to unimaginable places. For obvious reasons we can’t provide a link to the Dark Knight Rises (!) but you can see Carlos’s show reel here. Have a look and see what starting off in the business is all about.