Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/28735
Evolving Post Studios young artists coming through who are already trained on this stuff. I am getting reels from kids who are just getting out of school that probably rival our very first reel in 1996, so that has changed things drastically.” Having a deeper freelance talent pool to choose from has helped as well. Myers recalls that back in the mid ‘90s you had to hire artists on contract be- cause not many artists were trained on the newer tools. “You didn’t have as many people who could animate and composite at a high level.Today, it’s a level playing field in terms of great talent Fifteen-year-old Ring of Fire composited this real sitting horse into a jacuzzi for this Metro PCS spot out of The Richards Group. client wants and not over-reaching in terms of what they can and cannot do.“We play to our strengths; we are not directors, we are not editors.We support filmmaking.We do visual effects, integrated CGI and animation. That is what we do, and because we’ve stayed true to that, it hasn’t diluted us or our efforts or our focus.” Myers acknowledges that technology is much more accessible these days and that has changed the landscape of the industry and the talent in some ways. “There are and people who have had access to the tech- nology we use.” Another change that Myers has seen is a more sophisticated client.“What they ask for and their knowledge base is more ad- vanced,” says Myers.“They have a more de- veloped eye.We get involved way early on, developing shooting boards and things like that.We are a lot more part of the process than we used to be. Schedules and budgets have been compressed.You adapt to that. We had to get faster and better.” Ring of Fire prides itself on being “incred- ibly service oriented and pragmatic about trying to create solutions every step of the way.We want to do great and have fun. That’s why we all got into this in the first place. It was, ‘Look at all this crazy stuff we get to do!’There is still an aspect of that, but there are pressures of a down economy and smaller budgets and tighter schedules, but we are still trying to have fun.” What about the trend of outsourcing and runaway production? “It’s a big factor in fea- tures,” says Myers,“but for commercials and TV, you need to turn on a dime. If an agency comes in and you need to crank out three vi- sual effects commercials in eight days, you need to throw a bunch of people at it and work on the fastest tools available… and a lot of times that’s supervised. I don’t think the outsourcing workflow is conducive to that.” Myers sums up:“We always try to play to our strengths and keep our knives sharp as far as what is available to us technically. But as far as supporting filmmaking, that doesn’t change. Good is good. You have to con- stantly push yourself not to make compro- mises at any level.” 46 Post • April 2011 www.postmagazine.com