The Allan McKay Podcast

Andrea Goh is a San Francisco based Technical Director and Layout Artist. Her curiosity has driven her to acquire multiple sets of skills: rigging, scripting, sculpting, pipeline, assembly and layout. After studying at an art college in her native country of Malaysia, she pursued an additional degree at the San Francisco Academy of Art. After graduating, her first job was as Layout Artist in the C...

The Academy Award®-winning cineSync is the world's most trusted remote review and approval system. Used by film and television productions worldwide, cineSync guarantees that everyone sees exactly the same frame at the same time. cineSync integrates with industry-leading tools such as Shotgun, Ftrack and Aspera, ensuring a fast, synchronized and streamlined remote collaboration experience. In this...

The Black Swan Group is a consulting company that trains its clients how to be successful at negotiating. They help achieve exceptional results in business and personal negotiations using hostage negotiation skills. The Group was co-founded by Chris Voss, the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It , and his son Brandon Voss.  Prior to writing this bestsell...

Cameron Smith is an award-nominated visual effects artist who is also a Lead Compositor at Weta. He first studied computer science at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia before transitioning into programing and visual effects. He first began doing visual effects for tv commercials and short films. Over the course of his over a decade-long career, Cameron has worked for studios like Cutting Edg...

Justin Leduc is a Toronto-based web developer and 3D digital artist. In July 2018, he's captured the attention of millions with his 3D animation monster keeping watch over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, the video has gone viral, earning over 15 million views. In the second part of this two-part interview, Justin talks about his future projects -- post his first viral video -- and the new plat...

Justin Leduc is a Toronto-based web developer and 3D digital artist. In July 2018, he's captured the attention of millions with his 3D animation monster keeping watch over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then, the video has gone viral, earning over 15 million views. In the first part of this two-part interview, Justin talks about his journey from starting out to putting in his 10,000 hours; about th...

Your career is a journey. So is learning: It takes time! But when learning a new skill or software, or language, many people get overwhelmed because their metrics for measuring success are off.  You need to front load your learning. Things are hard in the beginning, but it gets easier the longer you stick to it. And you do get better! You need to challenge yourself by doing -- not by overwhelm. Le...

One of the key things, as we go through our careers -- is having the right mindset.  It's the mindset that allows you to pick up a new skill. If you're present with what you're doing, if you aren't afraid to get your hands dirty -- all of that plays into how successfully you're going to learn. But you have to put in the work, in the trenches. Getting there is not the same as climbing it! That's wh...

A lot of you are still stuck in convincing yourselves that your Dream Job is attainable. But you do know that you have this passion -- and that is your fire! If you have a feeling that something is missing and you want to fill that hole -- this is the Episode for you!  Changing the mindset -- is STEP ONE in the right direction! You have to live and breathe what you want to do. You have to pay your...

Terryl Whitlatch is considered to be one of the top Creature Designers and Animal Anatomists working in the field today. In a career spanning over 25 years, Terryl's film credits include Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars:The Special Edition, Jumanji 1 and 2 , Men in Black, Brother Bear , Alvin and the Chipmunks, Curious George, Beowulf and many more. She has worked for ILM, Lucasfilm, Pixar...

The most common question artists ask is: "I want to start working in Visual Effects but I'm 35 years old, I have kids, I'm married. Is it too late to go after my passion?" When you're older, you do have those responsibilities and dependents, so starting out is different. It involves more risk. So the more important question becomes: How do you do this switch careers intelligently? In this Episode,...

Chris Bailey is a Productivity Expert and the bestselling Author of two books about productivity: The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction . Chris writes about productivity at www.alifeofproductivity.com and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive, without hating the process. Chris was born in Red Deer, Alb...

We all know that the most important thing is our demo reel or our portfolio. It's proof of our skill and ability. But what's more important than all of these things combined? What has more clout than your reel -- are your RELATIONSHIPS. In this Episode, Allan talks about building long-lasting professional relationships -- in an effective way -- and more importantly, how to do it all the time.  For...

TWIN ( http://twin.work ) are directing duo brothers Jonathan and Josh Baker. Born in Australia, they studied design graphic design, motion graphics and eventually Live Action, while doing filmmaking in their spare time. They moved to the U.S. in 2007 and have made a name for themselves directing short films and commercials. Their first feature film KIN premiers on August 31st, 2018 in theaters in...

This Episode came from a Survey that Allan McKay held on the subject of: What's holding you back? This Podcast is more of a tough love. In it, Allan McKay tackles the answers on the subjects of resistance and obstacles like: - Lack of experience; - Lack of time; - Lack of discipline; - Not having the connections; - Not speaking English; - Living outside of the industry. So dig past the BS you're t...

Ryan Connolly is a filmmaker and a founder of Film Riot, an online resource and community for filmmakers. Ryan is also the owner of production company Triune Films where he produces weekly online content and films like Tell, Losses, PROXiMITY , and most recently -- BALLiSTIC . Ryan first studied filmmaking and storytelling at Full Sail University in Florida. After graduating, he started working at...

Over the course of your career in Visual Effects, you will have several types of reels: from your Student Reel, to a Generalist Reel, to a Specialist and Supervisor and Studio Reels. Every reel will have a specific purpose. The evolution of your reel depends on where you want to go in your career. In this Episode, Allan McKay goes through the evolution of your Demo Reel -- and all the different ty...

Realtime UK was founded in 1996 by Tony Prosser who had a desire to create some of the most exciting marketing films in the world. It's an ambition that has been shared with Director Ian Jones and Art Director Stuart Bayley, who thrive on collaborating with our the studio's clients on discovering new ways to make their vision a reality. Realtime UK continues to create original work in games, comme...

A lot of us wait until a job is over and we dust off our reel and start applying for jobs again. A good metaphor here is: You want to build your well before you're thirsty. Don't wait until the desperate moment when you need a job. You can be the greatest artist in the world. But if no one knows you, why does that matter? It's important to build and nurture authentic relationships in the business....

The big question is: Should I be a generalist or a specialist? That's one of the most common questions I get. It applies to every creative industry: games, film, design. This is something you should relate to: Should you niche to a specific subject or should you raise your hand to every job that comes along because you're a generalist? By specializing, the advantage right away is that you're in a...

Kevin Baillie is a Co-Founder and VFX Supervisor at Atomic Fiction, a VFX company with studios in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Montreal. His career began when he joined Lucasfilm's JAK Films division at the age of 18, as a pre-vis artist on Star Wars Episode I. After Lucasfilm, Kevin supervised at ImageMovers Digital and helmed VFX at the Orphanage on critically-acclaimed movies such as Hellboy,...

Bobby Chiu is an Artist, Teacher and Motivator. He started his career in digital art at the age of 17, designing toys for Star Wars and Pixar. One of his first jobs as a Character Designer was on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland . After that, he worked on films Men in Black 3 and Alice Through the Looking Glass . Bobby shares his talent through teaching up-and-coming artists, making tutorials and...

Kathleen Ruffalo is the Crew Manager for Framestore. She is in charge of recruitment, management and team development at both the Los Angeles and Chicago offices.  After years of production experience, Kathleen joined Framestore in 2012. Since then, she has become an integral part of growing the creativity and culture within Framestore. She casts a wide array of skill sets that match the industry'...

Brad Alexander is a co-founding partner at HALON Entertainment, a full-service visualization company that provides a state-of-the-art platform of cutting edge technology, to bring their clients' creative vision on screen. Brad has worked on such legendary features as War of the Worlds, Transformers, World War Z ; as well as spent 4 years as a CG Supervisor on James Cameron's Avatar .  Prior to co-...

Founded in 2002 by partners Berj Bannayan, Allan Magled and Mike Mombourquette, Soho VFX began as a boutique studio. From the beginning, the studio's specialty was the production of high quality photo-realistic visual effects. In 2005, Soho VFX landed itself a leading visual effects role: the creation of the elastic Mr. Fantastic in Marvel's The Fantastic Four . Since then, Soho VFX has helped sup...