CG Garage

Joining Chris for this week's podcast are old pals and seasoned professionals Leighton Greer and Paul Ghezzo. Having met Chris at VFX studio Sway, Leighton and Paul have worked for Rhythm and Hues, Zoic and Scanline. Today, they've been reunited at Technicolor, which produces visual effects alongside traditional post-production fixes for shows including Star Trek: Picard, Westworld, Snowfall and B...

VFX veteran Ari Rubenstein has quite a story to tell. After spending a few years in unrelated fields, he gravitated towards visual effects, where a cloth sim experiment landed him work on The Matrix Revolutions . He went on to work at Blue Sky Studios, the company behind animated movies including Horton Hears a Who! , Epic and Rio . At the same time, Ari has indulged his creativity and embraced ne...

Chaos' Key Account Group are unsung heroes of the CG industry. They understand the trends of the VFX, arch-viz and design industries; they're happy to be woken up at 3AM on Christmas morning to help customers solve problems—and they help gather feedback to help shape Chaos products. Heading up the Key Account Group is the dynamic and energetic "Mother of Dragons," Albena Ivanova. After studying bu...

Chaos Group is no more; long live Chaos! In this week's podcast, Richard Pay from design agency Uniform and Chaos' own Melissa Knight talk us through the year-long process of reinvigorating the computer graphics company's presence to reflect the increasing diversity of its products and customers.  Rich explains why a brand is far more than just a logo, and how Uniform has united Chaos' previously...

This week's podcast guest is a true visionary in the CG world. Ash Thorp came from a humble background and perfected his artistic skills via a year-long stint at film title specialist Prologue. Since then, he's contributed to Ghost in the Shell , Ender's Game and Captain Marvel , while pursuing his love for cinema via personal projects including Ghost in the Shell homage "Project 2501," electric F...

Christian Debney's incredible career began awesomely and has only become more awesome: his first job was building lightsaber props for Star Wars: Episodes I and II . After learning 3D for his own short films, he created VFX for Farscape , directed music videos, made animations for the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, set up a VFX firm and second-unit-directed little-known but much-loved Aust...

Andrew Murdock is a man of many talents. His career began in a recording studio, alongside Chris Isaak, and he went on to join Mondo Media to work on gaming projects including The Daedalus Encounter and Westwood's Blade Runner . After founding his company, Lots of Robots, he created his own short films, beginning with "Rocket Pants," while producing scientific animations for National Geographic. T...

Over the past 30 years, Habib Zargarpour has helped create some of the most innovative and iconic VFX shots in cinema and pioneered virtual production. Beginning with The Mask's eye-popping protagonist, Habib went on to instigate Twister and The Perfect Storm's freak weather conditions, race pods for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and use game-engine technology to build The Jungle Book...

This week's podcast guest is Robert Durnin, a talented and agile technical director who can turn his hand to just about anything. He's perfected pipelines for movies including Pan's Labyrinth , The Mist , The Amazing Spider-Man and Tron: Legacy , and polished in-engine cinematics for Batman: Arkham Origins and Crysis 3 . He's also helped build content for the Leia 3D holographic display and worked...

Intopolis aims to turn video game conventions on their head. Players assume the role of an art historian from the distant future, tasked with finding patterns in detailed, otherworldly artworks. In this podcast, the extraordinary talent behind the game, Kirsten Zirngibl, gives a fascinating glimpse into how she's translated her imagination into a tangible, explorable world. Kirsten discusses every...

In a little over a year, Mondlicht Studios has made a global name for itself in CG advertising projects. Its large-scale, award-winning images for Netflix series literally wrap around buildings, and it also provides animation, retouching, AR and VR services. Here, co-founders David Schaefer and Dmitriy Glazyrin tell Chris the story behind the studio. You'll find out about the technology David and...

Bilali Mack has always wanted to tell stories. Originally hailing from West Africa, Bilali was at Emerson College in Boston when he realized it was easier to make movies with computers instead of cameras. After graduating, he worked on Coca-Cola and BMW commercials, where he developed an affinity for Flame, Autodesk's VFX and finishing software. Today, Bilali is taking his experience to the next l...

Is there anything Alessandro Cangelosi can't do? Over the past 20 years, this versatile generalist has contributed to games, movies, documentaries, film studio idents and commercials for everything from computer accessories to tourist destinations. To handle this wide array of work, Alessandro uses software including 3ds Max, Houdini and V-Ray. In this podcast, Alessandro tells Chris how he likes...

Babak Bina has carved out an illustrious career in VFX — and now he's passing his knowledge onto a new generation. Originally hailing from Iran,  the band Tool's visuals inspired Babak to pursue graphic design in Toronto. He's gone on to work for visual effects studios Double Negative, Method Studios and Scanline VFX on movies and TV shows, including Game of Thrones, Black Panther and Wonder Woman...

CGI obviously has a big role in post-production, but in this podcast, Chris talks to concept artist Dwayne Burgess about how it's used before filming. Dwayne was inspired by theatrical design to pursue his career path, and after a fortuitous meeting on a B-movie, he worked his way up to art director at NBC Universal. Today, Dwayne is a freelance concept artist, creating renders for TV shows includ...

With over 20 years' experience in the industry, Shannon Wiggins knows how to get employed at the biggest VFX and games studios. Shannon's early brushes with behind-the-scenes effects from Star Wars influenced her to learn Softimage and Nuke, and work in roto and paint for companies including Digital Domain, ILM and Dreamworks. Today, she heads up placement and alumni relations at the Gnomon School...

Al Quattrocchi is a man of passion and talent. From a young age, he's honed his artistic skills via typesetting, movie posters and Grammy-winning album packaging. Along the way, he's been taught by Jim Blinn of Blinn-Phong shading fame, worked with poster artist Drew Struzan and shaken hands with musical legend Art Garfunkel. At the same time, Al has indulged his love for fly fishing, which grew f...

Versatile and talented software engineer Yining Karl Li has taken an unconventional but successful approach to his career. He sideloaded a graphics degree onto his business degree and he was inspired to create his own renderer, Takua, by Alex Roman's "The Third and The Seventh" and V-Ray's rendering quality. He's also made leaps and bounds with the development of Disney's in-house renderer, Hyperi...

You've probably seen Mike Campau's work without realizing it. Over the past 20 years, this digital artist has honed his style and techniques to produce eye-catching imagery for brands including Under Armour, Chevy and Specialized, and characterful portraits of Tracy Morgan, John C. Reilly and Dave Grohl. He also creates personal work to experiment with new techniques or skewer social media and pol...

CG Garage's 300th podcast features a true superstar of CG: 3D Studio and 3ds Max team leader Gary Yost. After working for an Atari magazine, in the mid 1980s, Gary became involved in software, eventually overseeing the development of 3D Studio from its early days as a DOS package to its limelight-stealing Windows release as 3D Studio MAX 1.0. He talks about how his five-person team (including one...

Returning podcast guest Lou Pecora was inspired by the Haunted Mansion ride, Star Wars, Sinbad and his love of taking things apart to pursue a career in VFX. His first work was creating morphs for Buffy the Vampire Slayer , and he's gone on to work on big-budget movies and TV shows at Digital Domain and now Zoic. In this epic discussion, Lou breaks down some of the challenges that he's faced recen...

This week's podcast guest, Scott Meadows, is the crown prince of previz. After graduating in architecture from Texas A&M University, Scott found his way into VFX as part of a two-man team working on the previz of Michael Bay's Bad Boys II in 2002 — and he's now Head of Visualization and Virtual Production at Digital Domain.  In this fascinating interview, Scott shares tales and tips from previz on...

If you're a big Japan-fan, you'll love this podcast. Joining Chris is Shuzo Shiota, CEO of Polygon Pictures, the long-lived and prolific Tokyo-based digital animation studio behind movies and TV series including Godzilla , Star Wars: The Clone Wars , Transformers: Prime and Big Hero 6: The Series . Shuzo and Chris discuss the impact of Japanese art on the west, from its breakthrough at a Parisian...

Recently released on Netflix, The Babysitter: Killer Queen is director McG's gory follow-up to his equally bloody 2017 comedy-horror, The Babysitter . Assisting with the blood, guts and mayhem this time is Crafty Apes, a rising studio that's crafted effects for movies and TV series including Stranger Things , Thor: Ragnarok and Birds of Prey . Joining Chris are Crafty Apes' Executive VFX Producer...

Want to be a more successful CG artist? In this podcast, returning guest Allan McKay shares crucial tips on how to market yourself, sell your products and boost your income. He takes down the myth of the starving artist, highlights the big mistakes people make on their showreels and even delves into the psychology of pricing strategies. That's not all: Allan also predicts the VFX areas to focus on...