The Allan McKay Podcast

James David Hattin is the Founder and Creative Director of VFX Legion. James oversees every aspect of the visual effects process for episodic television shows and feature films, from start to end, and provides clients with 20+ years of skill and experience as a lead creative and Visual Effects Supervisor. Prior to launching VFX Legion, James spent three years as senior compositor and compositing/d...

Martin Hall is a VFX Supervisor with 30+ years of experience in visual effects. Trained in the traditional fine arts, he found visual effects to be the perfect synthesis of art, technology, and business, while being the most collaborative of all creative endeavors. Among his numerous film and television credits include, LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS, VENOM, GAME OF THRONES, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, WINNING T...

André Luis is the Co-Founder, CEO and creative force behind Trojan Horse was a Unicorn (THU), one of the world's leading transformative experiences for digital artists and creative professionals.  In 2013, he came up with the idea to create THU as a result of wanting to do things differently, be useful to society, and have an impact on people's lives. With a background in Industrial Design and Mar...

A veteran facilitator with over 25 years experience in VFX and animation, Jep Hill is an Executive Creative Director at Alkemy X, an award-winning global creative company at the intersection of advertising, brands and entertainment. The company is a creative partner for the biggest names in film and television, such as Fear of the Walking Dead, Wednesday, The Whale, Westworld, Power, Dear White Pe...

Barnstorm VFX is an Emmy-nominated studio behind the visual effects on Amazon Studios' THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, HBO'S SILICON VALLEY and CBS' STRANGE ANGEL. Barnstorm's team embodies the pioneering ingenuity, daring creativity and freewheeling spirit of the first aviators. Founded in 2011 with the original location in Los Angeles, Barnstorm VFX now has a second office in Vancouver, British Colu...

John Romero is an award-winning game designer, level designer and programmer whose work spans over 130 games, 107 of which have been published commercially, including the iconic works Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM and Quake. He has worked in the mobile, hardcore, mid-core, casual and MMO space.  John has co-founded eight successful game companies including the likes of id Software, Gazillion Entertainment...

As Global President & Chief Operating Officer at Digital Domain, Lala oversees the company's global VFX services and operations. As part of her duties, Lala partners with production management, finance, production accounting, recruiting, artist management, technology management and operations to steer Digital Domain to success. She communicates closely and helps to coordinate work between DD's glo...

Gabriel Aguiar is a YouTube Creator and a Unity Expert. Focused on his work in Blender and Unity, Gabriel's YouTube Channel currently has over 100K followers. He also provides assets for game developers on his Patreon. In 2021, Gabriel launched a game studio Golden Bug Studios in Coibra, Portugal. The studio is currently working on a project called Rabbit's Tale. In this Podcast, YouTube Creator a...

In his book THE ALCHEMIST, Paolo Coelho talks about a Personal Legend. So many people give up just moments before they reach their own Personal Legend. After a while, if you aren't getting the desired goal, it's hard to convince yourself not to give up. It's especially hard when other people are telling you to give up.  Insecure people lash out at people who are more accomplished or ambitious, or...

Crafty Apes is a full service, boutique VFX company based in Culver City, CA & Atlanta, GA. The company was launched in July of 2011 by three visual effects veterans Jason Sanford, Chris LeDoux and Tim LeDoux. Believing that strong 2D compositing is the backbone behind quality visual effects, Crafty Apes was formed to primarily offer high-end compositing services for feature films and television c...

Frank Petzold is an internationally acclaimed Director and VFX Supervisor, and he's been working in film for over 25 years. Whether working in film or television, Frank creates cutting edge visuals. Before stepping into the world of directing, this award-winning VFX Supervisor enjoyed a successful career in Germany as a Director of Photography, specializing in shoots with visual effects components...

Some people argue that you can't make more than $50K in VFX. Others compare their lives to the curated lifestyles on social media and demand to get paid more. It really comes down to your WHY: Why do you need more cash? The quickest pay rise you can give yourself is figuring out your budget. It's better to figure out your finances and take control of your money. And if you still want to earn more...

VICO SHARABANI is a Creative Entrepreneur, award-winning Creative-Director, Director, and Producer. He is also the Founder and CCO of The-Artery, a New York based media production company that creates high-end visual content for brands, feature films, commercials, digital experiences, art installations and more. As one of the most notable Flame artists in the world, Vico is the winner of the first...

ARwall is a group of indie filmmakers based in LA who are on a mission to democratize their virtual production tech that has previously only been accessible to major studios. ARwall is a virtual production, software and solutions company.  Since its founding 7 years ago, the company has been one of the pioneers of in-camera realtime effects. They've worked on projects for HBO, Disney and Discovery...

Wonder Dynamics is utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to develop cutting-edge technologies, innovate production tools and create original content for Film and TV Industry. A startup founded in 2017 by Ready Player One star Tye Sheridan and VFX expert Nikola Todorovic aims to lower the cost and level the playing field for visual effects. In 2021, the company raised $9 million in...

Move.ai develops patented AAA quality marker-less motion capture technology powered by computer vision and deep learning. Their software runs off any mobile device or camera, can capture any relative volume size and can be deployed in any environment on the planet.  It's been tested to be directly comparable to existing suit/optical based systems and generates standard data formats that can be exp...

The intense drama and riveting action in the newest primetime CBS hit series FIRE COUNTRY is accompanied by spectacular firestorms: The work of visual effects leaders CBS VFX which was selected by producers to create the namesake infernos and deliver other critical visual effects for the most watched new network series of the season. Led by VFX Supervisor Colin Strause, whose career includes such...

Ash Thorp is a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, and creative director for a multitude of media, including feature films, commercial enterprises, and print. Most recently, Ash worked on the concept for the Batmobile and the Batcycle, for the 2022 film The Batman directed by Matt Reeves.  Previously, Ash has worked on graphics for Ender's Game and Total Recall , as well as contributed to the d...

William Faucher is a 3D Artist, Unreal Engine Educator, CG Spectrum Mentor and a successful YouTuber. He is a deaf 3D Generalist who's been working in the entertainment industry for the past 14 years. Some of his titles include VFX / CGI shots in Marvel's Black Panther and HBO's Watchmen.  He created his YouTube Channel over 2 years ago and it currently has over 165K subscribers.  In this Podcast,...

Pindar Van Arman is an award-winning AI Artist who builds, codes and experiments with robots that paint in a variety of styles. Pindar was a winner of the Robot Art Competition for his home-made robots that use AI to paint artworks. He is best known for his robotic art project Cloud Painter, a sophisticated robot painter highlighted in videos below. Van Arman's exploration into robot art began by...

When it comes to job interviews, the number one thing to think about is putting yourself in the interviewer's shoes. The more you can think like them – the pain points they may have, their wants and needs – the more you are in tune with what they're thinking. It's all about understanding their needs and alignment. By understanding what they want, you're able to be the best fit. Going for an interv...

Important Looking Pirates (ILP) is a visual effects and digital animation studio located in central Stockholm founded in 2007 by Niklas Jacobson, Yafei Wu, Carl Hermelin and Eric Hermelin. The studio has more than 200 artists and have worked on big titles like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; and series like Westworld, The Mandalorian, Stranger Things, Lost in Spac...

Sir Wade Neistadt is a Freelance Animator, VFX Artist and YouTube Creator. Currently, his YouTube Channel has over 205K followers. In 2014, after his short film about a sick superhero brought him to the Cannes Film Festival, he completed Animation Mentor's Character Animation Program and got immediately hired at DreamWorks Animation as a Technical Trainer / Educator. Two years later, he left the s...

Christopher Zammit is a VFX Supervisor and Art Director. He's worked on many films like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Tomorrowland, Ghostbusters , and of course films in the Transformers franchise Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight .  In this Podcast, VFX Supervisor and Art Director Christopher Zammit ab...

It is amazing how far Artificial Intelligence has progressed just in the last year! No one could've predicted the speed of this innovation. A lot of artists are now worried about being replaced with machine learning. While AI can automate and speed things up, it is still up to us as artists to know how to use it as an extension of their ability. Before, we couldn't talk to computers. We could only...