The Allan McKay Podcast

Nikolai Lockertsen, a Norwegian Concept Artist, Matte Painter, Illustrator and Art Director, has worked on more than 30 features films, as well as many commercial and television projects. Some of his films include Trollhunter and Kon-Tiki . He has previously worked at studios like Gimpville, Filmkameratene and Storm Studios. Nikolai is also a pioneer in iPad art: He does all of his artwork -- incl...

Freddie Wong is a Director, CEO and a Co-Founder of RocketJump Studios, a YouTube channel that has gained nearly 8 million subscribers since its inception in April 2010. Named as one of Hollywood's brightest stars by Forbes magazine, Freddie is the most subscribed video director on YouTube. The channel's flagship series Video Game High School now has over 50 million views. In 2013, the series was...

Image Engine is a high-end visual effects studio based in Vancouver, BC, that specializes in creature design and animation for feature films and television. Founded in 1995, the studio has worked on films like District 9 and Chappie , Independence Day: Resurgence and Jurassic World ; shows like X-Files and Game of Thrones (Seasons 5 and 6); and much more. In 2010, the company was nominated for an...

Patty Rangel is a Virtual and Mixed Reality artist, as well as a leader in hologram technology. An MFA graduate of CalArts, she has attended the GSP Program in Exponential Technologies at NASA's Singularity University. She is also a featured Technologist / Futurist of the USC World Building Institute FRONTERA project.   Some of Patty's previous projects include: the Centennial Olympic Games, the V...

Scott Stokdyk is an Academy Award winning Visual Effects Supervisor. During his two decades of experience in visual effects, he has worked for big studios like Digital Domain and Sony Pictures ImageWorks. Some of the groundbreaking films on his resume are: Titanic, Contact, Starship Troopers, Hollow Man, Fifth Element and three of the Spider-Man movies. Scott's work on Spider-Man 2 won him and his...

In this Podcast, Allan McKay speaks to a live audience about his experience of starting out in visual effect -- and becoming a successful business! While answering his listeners' questions, Allan shares some badass tips on: - Time management and productivity hacks. - Breaking into the business. - Secrets to a kickass reel. - Networking, branding, marketing -- and other tools for becoming a success...

Main Road Post is a visual effects production studio based in Moscow, Russia, since 2006. The studio has produced visual effects for many international films, including Wanted, Stalingrad, The Night Guard, Attraction . It has also worked on the Opening Ceremony for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. A year ago, the company implemented Scrum, a team-based workflow that a lot of Silicon Valley compa...

In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Laura Vanderkam, the bestselling author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, I Know How She Does It, 168 Hours and several others. A graduate of Princeton University, she worked as a journalist before becoming interested in the subject of productivity. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and man...

In this Episode, Allan McKay interviews Philippe Leprince, Senior Field Engineer at Pixar Animation Studios. He currently works as an Engineer on the RenderMan Software. Philippe has a Lighting and CG background and has worked at Framestore and Double Negative, and many other big studios. Among his many credits are feature films like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Framestore); The Dark...

Dennis Mejillones is a Senior Character Artist at Bethesda Game Studios. He is responsible for creating models for characters like Sole Survivor, Preston Garvey and most all the robots in Fallout 4 . During the course of his career, he has also worked on Skyrim , Call of Duty: The First Modern Warfare, Borderlands, Shadows of Darkness. Independently, he created the characters of Undead Warrior and...

In this Episode, Allan McKay interviews Catherine Sas, an Immigration Lawyer at Sas & Ing Immigration Law Center in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is the leading immigration practitioner according to Lexpert, Who's Who Legal and Best Lawyers in Canada. Catherine has been voted Vancouver's Best Immigration Lawyer every year from 2012 through 2016. In this Episode, Allan and Catherine discuss the proced...

Edwin Braun is the CEO and co-founder of Cebas Visual Technology, the developer of Thinking Particles for 3DS Max, as well as other plugins. Cebas' software has been used in a number of influential films such as Lost in Space, 2012, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Harry Potter .   In this Episode, Allan McKay talks with Edwin Braun about his co-founding the company with Achim Smailus in 1988, in...

In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Wirginia Romanowska, a VFX Lead for id Software. Wirginia's extensive experience as FX lead at id software on Doom, as well as working on many other major titles around the world. Wirginia shares many insights into her experience. After graduating with a Masters Degree in Engineering from a university in her native Poland, Wirginia's first job was working on...

So one subject commonly coming up is all about hardware! Inside of the FX TD Mentorship, Troy Buckley who's part of my team, helps out a lot of people building hardware specs and figuring out what hardware they should buy depending on if they need generalist work done, or simuatlions etc. So you have the ultimate bang for your buck. Troy's originally a student of mine IN the FXTD Mentorship, but h...

This episode dives right into a subject that we all are probably guilty of not applying. Eyes glazed over during book consumption, clicking away on Facebook while watching tutorials, or playing around on our phone during lectures. How do you watch, read, listen to information and absorb it, retain it, and apply it? This episode is focused on a lot of core fundamentals Allan applies to his learning...

Jeff Okun is a Visual Effects Supervisor who has worked on wide-ranging effects in award winning films such as Blood Diamond, Stargate, Sphere, Red Planet, Deep Blue Sea, The Last Starfighter , and many more. His career spans for nearly four decades. In addition, Jeff is Chair of the Visual Effects Society, a global community of visual effects artists and businesses. Jeff was fundamental in starti...

Episode 77 - Interview with Action VFX NOTES   For complete show notes visit http://www.allanmckay.com/77/   ActionVFX ( www.actionvfx.com ) is a website that provides stock footage for visual effects, from smoke plumes to fire, from sparks to explosions. Before the company was launched in 2016, its CEO Rodolphe Pierre-Louis, along with Joe Camarata (Marketing Manager) and Luke Thompson (Operation...

Andrew L. Schmidt is a Director of Trollhunter (DreamWorks Animation). With a 20-year experience in the industry, he has a long list of credits to his name: The Iron Giant, Monsters, Inc; Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and many more. Andrew has worked at studios like Amblimation, DreamWorks, Warner Brothers and Pixar. Guillermo del Toro's Trollhunters is his first directing credit.   F...

On this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Jason Scheier, a Conceptual Illustrator who has worked with a number of studios including DreamWorks Animation, Warner Brothers Feature Animation and Walt Disney Imagineering. His projects include Kung Fu Panda , Rise of the Guardians , The Croods , Battlefield 4 and many others. A graduate of CalState, Fullerton, Jason has also studied media arts and animat...

In this Episode, Allan McKay interviews Joaquin Baldwin, a CG Layout Supervisor for the Walt Disney Animation Studios, as well as a photographer and animator ( www.joaquinbaldwin.com/ ). Joaquin has been working for Disney since 2010 where he's been a part of films like Zootopia, Moana, Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph and many more. Joaquin's short animated short films Sebastian's Voodoo and Papiroflexia h...

Pixologic are the developers of Emmy award winning Z-Brush, the industry standard for sculpting and surfacing in 3D. Throughout this episode Allan talks with Paul Gaboury and Sol Blair about some recent announcements from Pixologic, as well as much of the in-depth history of Z-Brush and the CG industry. Loads of great insights and core knowledge shared, as well as lots of great laughs!   For in-de...

Allan McKay interviews Mike Blum, an Emmy-nominated director who has won awards as a director, writer and producer. Prior to opening his boutique animation studio Pipsqueak Films, Mike worked as an executive and a supervisor at Walt Disney Feature Animation for over a decade. His Disney animation credits include Chicken Little , Lilo & Stitch , The Hunchback of Notre Dame , and many more. Mike's c...

Some of us make the mistake of thinking we can just 'go it alone' and not need guidance from others. This episode we break down the importance of mentors, but also how to find them. In addition, going beyond this and starting to target mentors in many parts of our life and career, building a braintrust to help as stay motivated, and give key advice, as well as help us see when we're F!@#'ing up an...

Episode 70 - Ash Thorp Interview Allan McKay interviews Ash Thorp, a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, and creative director for a multitude of media, including feature films, commercial enterprises, and print.   Ash has worked on graphics for Ender's Game and Total Recall , as well as contributed to the design concepts for Spectre , Prometheus , X-Men First Class , Call of Duty and others. H...

Andre Cantarel is a LA based CG Supervisor originally from Germany, he's worked on films such as 2012, Whitehouse Down, Independence Day Resurgence and dozens of others. He has a ridiculous attention to detail in his work, and it shows on everything he touches. This episode discusses everything from Andre's work history, to behind the scenes on many of the projects he's worked on, his early career...