Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542259
Dale Newton: I have to say "No Place Like Home" is the one in the film that stands out as the one I was most excited about. I think that required a lot of ingenuity to construct, and we worked a lot editori- ally to get the structure working early on. It's got a lot of characters in it—as in, there are a lot of shots that have upwards of 40 characters in them—which puts a lot of strain on our workflow. There were a lot of CG enhancements. I think when we're done in animation, we oen then look at the work that the other departments do—the lighting and comp—and I think the result is just amazing. I look forward to sharing it with the rest of the world. Do you have any creative advice or inspi- ration that you would like to share? Pablo Helman: I'd say if you really want to get into visual effects, I think what you need to do is look around you. Especially visual effects that have to do with photorealism. One of the things that we look at is where the lighting is coming from, where the shadows are, what makes a picture feel like a photorealistic thing. How the leaves are moving, how fast they're moving, what happens in the atmospherics. All that kind of stuff that I'm telling you—basically you already do it because you were born with those attributes. But you need to train your eye to take a look at that. If you can do that and work with peo- ple, I'll hire you. Dale Newton: Inspire yourself. I like to be open to all of the things that I enjoy. I've always loved watching movies. As a kid, I didn't nec- essarily have any particular idea that there were good movies or bad movies—it's just the movies that you enjoy! In VFX, we're mak- ing movies. So it's really good to know and love movies, and there's no judgment about which kinds you like. In fact, I think that's what makes this medium so democratic. As in, there's movies for all dif- ferent kinds of people. I've always loved art. I've always been interested in going to visit art galleries. If you like to draw, draw every day. As Pablo said earlier, it's about training your eye. So by looking at art, by being able to draw, looking at nature, and by loving film and knowing about it, the ins and outs of it, I think that would help to make you a well-rounded visual effects artist. 10 cgw o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 5