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July / August 2022

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riginally from Russia, Alexander Sokolov is an LA-based VFX artist who specializes in previs and post visualization. Sokolov has been working in the field since 2005, and has credits that include contributions to Stranger Things (Season 4), Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Jumanji: The Next Level and Terminator: Dark Fate. He recently took some time to share details of his career path, including learning 3ds Max while in Russia and his move to America. He also has advice for young talent. Are you an independent, or do you work with a studio? "Is it so common in the industry just to hire huge amounts of artists and ani- mators for a project, and it's totally fine. Technically, we are working here in LA on the short contracts just attached to the project, show or film, which usually lasts from three to six months. The huge block- buster requires probably half a year (of) work on the previsualization or post-visu- alization stages. I'm a freelance artist who works on a short contracts with several companies here and there." So a studio will secure a project and then staff it with the talent they need? "Exactly! Yes, because it is hard to pre- dict. Sometimes you need to extend it. On the last project, I was asked to join the team last autumn. The director was so happy with the impact on the project that the previsualization team made that he extended the pre-production stage almost twice. I was free nine months later and they still wanted to hire me on this project. Currently, I'm working on the final stage of finishing and polishing all this stuff, the third act of the film." Who are some of the studios that you are partnering with? I know one is The Third Floor, which specializes in previsualization. "The other big studio is MPC Technicolor. I like to work with them, and I did several recent projects with them, and there are several more. Since the amount of work in pre- and post visualization is so huge, Double Negative (Dneg) and Sony opened their visualization departments here in LA as well. I'm trying to work with different companies since, again, it's not super stable. Some of them have projects right now, and some of them can hire you or book you for half of the year. "The market is still growing, and the term 'previsualization' recently has changed to 'visualization.' In general, it shows how this is still growing. We are still trying to catch the possibilities of this field. I work with smaller studios as well. It's a relatively different experience working with the smaller studios rather than huge pipelines and huge monsters like MPC Technicolor. "I worked the last nine months with Opsis. They provide more flexibility and freedom. It's just different, and you adjust yourself. Since I'm a freelancer for almost 15 years, for me, it's even better and even more interesting. You control more things than in a relatively straight- forward workflow." Can you talk a little bit about your background? What led you to animation and previs? "In the university, I started design in gen- eral. It was late '90s and early 2000s, and almost immediately, I started to check the first three-dimensional package that appeared at that time in the market back in Russia. Back in Russia, it was 3ds Max, not Maya. Nothing else. For some reason, it was really popular package, and we had a few — not a lot — but few books translated in Russia, how to work in 3ds Max. I learned it and almost immediately became kind of a star in my local city. "It was quite unusual that somebody can do things in 3D back in 2000s. It was a very rare ability. Almost immediately I came to the game industry, and started to work with an indie company that helped me to make character animation, since games is mostly about the character ani- mation, and some tiny, bright visual effects. I learned it there. It helped me later a lot." Were you working in Russia? Was there a business in there for 3D? "Yes, I worked in Russia for almost 10 years. Again, the market was very young and I jumped from the game industry to broadcast design and motion design, and then to visual effects. The big- gest project in Russia that sped up the VFX industry appeared somewhere in 2003-2004. I was hired by a company that gained incredible success with the first big Russian blockbuster in 2004 — Night Watch. I was hired for the second part of this film, for the sequel, named Day Watch. "I (then) jumped to a VFX produc- tion house, and helped them with visual effects with particles and explosions and all that stuff. It was a pretty tough adventure, and I learned a lot. Eventually, I settled with previsualization, because it was the most interesting, and I had a lot of freedom." How did you end up in America? "That's another part of the story. I was really interested in how (directors) block scenes? How they do sequences, which I later previsualized. So I came to Los Angeles to study filmmaking to speak in a same language as a director. I studied filmmaking here in LA. But the problem was the amount of competition for a young director in Los Angeles. I decid- ed to jump back and work in my main profession, using all this experience that I had before. And with filmmaking experi- ence, I was now more able to speak with everybody in the same language. It's always a good idea to develop your skills and learn something new that helps you to work more efficiently. "As soon as I finished filmmaking school, I started to work with The Third Floor. They hired me even without an interview because, at the time before the pandemic, they were packed with projects. The only problem was that I still worked in 3ds Max, and everybody here worked in Maya. It was a challeng- ing period to transfer from 3ds Max to VFX ARTIST ALEXANDER SOKOLOV BY MARC LOFTUS THIS ARTIST RECALLS HIS START IN RUSSIA AND ULTIMATE MOVE TO THE USA O CAREERS www.postmagazine.com 30 POST JULY/AUG 2022 Sokolov

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