The Allan McKay Podcast

Chad Wanstreet is an amazing artist with a very vast background, we dive into a lot of really great subjects as we discuss his background coming from architecture to working on many high profile car commercials in Detroit to relocating to Los Angeles to work for Blur Studio. This is a subject for me really interested me, as relocating anywhere, especially with a family of your own is a very big de...

This is one of the most critical episodes so far in our journey to grow our career and multiply our successes. Something so critical yet overlooked, is defining our name and our niche and building our brand. Associating ourselves in a way that will resonate with others and key ways to introduce ourselves that will stay with your audience and grow your job prospects. This episode we learn to make o...

This episode is a look back at my year and what I accomplished, as well as a lot of very valuable lessons I've learned along the way, including areas I failed and what I have taken from that. A lot of valuable information I've taken from this experience and how I can apply this to 2015. The most valuable piece is a overview of the 3-6-3 mindset which is how I personally have owed a lot of my succe...

So this episode definitely is 'off the cuff' but there's a lot of really vital information for those of you who do want to travel the world and want to understand where to start! I will say this is definitely just scratching the surface, and unfortunately being the week of x-mas and with a product launch underway I've only really had time to hit record and go for gold! But I do want to hear your t...

Midway through the month! Lots of episodes flooding out on a lot of very important subjects! This episode is all about learning the power of negotiation and becoming comfortable discussing money with employers, how to get a raise and how to position yourself so they pitch to you. This episode I'm sure to some is taboo as people typically don't talk about money or negotiating skills very often. How...

This episode is very focused on more our core habits, how to build a 'ritual' to start out your day so you wake up productive and know exactly what you need to get done and go about doing it by batching your tasks intelligently and adding time constraints to all of your tasks so that you're able to track your succes, eliminate bad habits and be more aware where your time is actually going. We all...

This episode I have been excited to discuss for some time - and have shared a lot with my discussion with Todd Sheridan Perry in Episode 9 about his experiences on working from home in Seattle. I have had so much personal experience both launching my own visual effects studio of 30+ people and working on many feature films, as well as working remotely for myself from my home both in Australia and...

This episode dives into some of the core concepts of writing a strong cover letter or email to reach out to studios for work. This can make the difference between whether your email actually gets read and if your reel gets seen, and how to have invisible threads that help you promote yourself without sounding like you're bragging. Check out the show notes at http://www.allanmckay.com/11/ and leave...

This month is all about change - we're going to band together and commit to our goals for 2015 and begin to build a roadmap to how to achieve even our most unattainable goals. This month is your chance to make change and to go after your hopes and dreams and measure your success as all of us will will be provided the tools throughout December. Every few days a new episode will be up giving you the...

I jumped at the chance to talk with Todd about this subject, as it's one I plan to cover later this month! Todd has major success working on projects ranging from The Lord of the Rings all the way through to X-files, Final Destination 5, 2012, The Mist, and dozens of others. He's a major source of talent nad also having worked in this industry for over two decades! The best thing by far, is that a...

This is a great interview with extraordinary artist John Brennick for his contributions at studios like Weta and Digital domain and other studios around the globe on many high profile films including Dawn of the planet of the apes and The Hobbit 2. This is a really fun interview that covers a lot of really great insight into both burn out and finding passion in your work. Check out show notes (the...

This episode comes with a lot of key advice for those wanting to get their foot in the door of the Visual Effects Industry (or any industry for that matter). Where going with the flow and doing what everyone else does will simply limit your opportunities and most likely you'll be lost in the crowd. Thinking outside of the box and taking the initiative to do things differently will maximize your op...

This episode is with Sean Ritchie who is a vfx artist working for Stargate Studios in Georgia primarily tied to the hit tv series The Walking Dead. We gain a lot of insight into Sean's background leading up to entering the industry as well as how's growth and experience over the past few years primarily working on Walking Dead and various other projects - Sean is an extremely talented artist yet s...

This is a bonus episode that made it in where Carlos Anguiano and I discuss his studio platform and it's major successes. This is a great episode, another very technical one and I wanted to squeeze it in as Carlos and I discussed so much content over the past few episodes I couldn't let this valuable information go. Anyone who runs a studio or is interested in running a more efficient studio pipel...

This episode is part one of a multiple series on job interviews and crafting your communicaiton skills and obtaining what you want from your job prospects. This episode is important especially for those who have difficulty easing into interviews and 'freeze up' as we go a little out there and look at many of the mindsets and how to overcome them - keep an open mind as episode 4 takes us on a bit o...

This episode covers more the technical side as Carlos and Allan dive into being a technical director and the benefits and impact it can have on your career, even if you're more on the creative side of the industry! reference links: http://www.tdtransformation.com http://www.losart3d.com http://www.allanmckay.com Allan interviews Carlos Anguiano, a Character and Pipeline Technical Director working...

For the latest episodes visit http://www.allanmckay.com Allan McKay is a visual effects supervisor and technical director and high profile mentor in Hollywood working in 3D, both in video-games, feature films and tv commercials. Allan works with many of the leading visual effects and 3D animation studios and speaks at Autodesk University, SIGGRAPH and various conferences worldwide! This is an epis...

For the latest episodes visit http://www.allanmckay.com Allan McKay is a visual effects supervisor and technical director and high profile mentor in Hollywood working in 3D, both in video-games, feature films and tv commercials. Allan works with many of the leading visual effects and 3D animation studios and speaks at Autodesk University, SIGGRAPH and various conferences worldwide! All interviews...

For the latest episodes visit http://www.allanmckay.com Allan McKay is a visual effects supervisor and technical director and high profile mentor in Hollywood working in 3D, both in video-games, feature films and tv commercials. Allan works with many of the leading visual effects and 3D animation studios and speaks at Autodesk University, SIGGRAPH and various conferences worldwide! Join Allan McKa...