CG Garage

Almost every major recent and upcoming film and TV series has had THE THIRD FLOOR involved in the visualization stage — and beyond. Recent productions include Avatar: The Way of Water , Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania , and The Mandalorian season 3. This week, Co-founder and CEO of THE THIRD FLOOR, Chris Edwards, reflects on his 20-plus years of experience in the VFX industry. He also discusses...

Philipp Wolf has always had a passion for storytelling. He began his career in journalism, then helped shape stories for the reality TV show Big Brother before moving into visual effects production on movies and TV series, including Game of Thrones, Ghost in the Shell, and The Predator. Today, Philipp works at DNEG in Montreal, where his credits include Dune, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Alt...

The Martini Giant is back! It's been almost five years since Chris and fellow VFX artists and frequent CG Garage guests Daniel Thron and Erick Schiele created the Martini Giant podcast to indulge in their love of all things cinematic and argue about Star Wars. This week, Dan and Erick return to their roots and talk about what they've been up to since they last visited the CG Garage. Which turns ou...

James Blevins has been involved in pretty much every step of the filmmaking process, from driving vehicles to virtual production. Films he's contributed to include Waterworld, Armageddon, Pleasantville, and, most impressive of all, Space Jam. He's also worked at some of Hollywood's biggest studios, including Disney, Netflix, Amazon, and LucasFilm for virtual production on The Mandalorian. In this...

Andrew Schmied has established himself as an authority on all things related to computer graphics. He's helped companies, including Samsung, Apple, and Microsoft, explore technology and drive innovation. He's also a counselor and AI special interest group leader for the RealTime Society, which hosts a community and conference dedicated to the future of CG. In this conversation with Chris, Andrew s...

Becoming VFX supervisor on HBO's The Last of Us has fulfilled a lifelong dream for movie and game fan Alex Wang. In this podcast, Alex tells Chris about his journey to this hugely prestigious position via his work on movies including The Day After Tomorrow, Sin City, Tron: Legacy, Deadpool, Fast & Furious 8, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, and Terminator: Dark Fate. Alex also shares s...

Much has changed since Mike Seymour last guested on the CG Garage podcast almost six years ago. Not only has the VFX sage and digital humans expert become Dr. Mike, thanks to his doctorate from the University of Sydney, but the entire industry is facing a seismic shift thanks to neural networks and artificial intelligence. Or is it? In this podcast, Chris and Mike consider the idea that the latest...

Jonathan Egstad knows Nuke like few others. He started working with the compositing software at Digital Domain, where he developed a 3D subsystem and bagged an Academy Award, before moving to the pioneering animation studio Image Movers. Subsequently, he joined Dreamworks Animation (formerly PDI) to help integrate Nuke into its compositing pipeline. In this podcast, Jonathan demonstrates the rare...

Meats Meier is a unique combination of artist and technical director. Not only does he create incredible biomechanical pieces with ZBrush, but he's also advanced VFX via projects including Hellboy and The Day After Tomorrow . More recently, Meats has art-directed virtual production for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Netflix's upcoming live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender . In this balanced con...

Chris has interviewed many VFX supervisors and directors on the podcast, but it's rare to meet someone who does both. Not only does Yuval Levy direct (and creative direct) commercials for the likes of BMW, Ford, and Microsoft, but he's also VFX supervised a wide variety of Hollywood films, including The Adjustment Bureau , Smile , and Tower Heist . Yuval and Chris dive deep into the world of car c...

Andrew Bardusk is a humble legend of the VFX industry. He started as a dustbuster on movies, then moved to compositing for Medium and Once Upon a Time and effects supervision on Arrow . Today, Andrew serves as visual effects supervisor on DC's Legends of Tomorrow . Andrew talks about how streaming services have revolutionized Zoic's wheelhouse of episodic work and how demands for 4K HDR content ha...

Digital humans are back on the podcast! This week, Chris is joined by (real humans) Culley Bunker and Richard Kidd, a pair of VFX veterans who have given stars the beauty treatment and worked on dozens of movies. They're part of the team that formed Prototype, a new company that specializes in creating digital humans, using machine learning to perfect them for cutting-edge projects. Chris, Culley,...

2023 gets off to a flying start with this podcast guest: Evan Jacobs, who has become a critical part of Marvel Studios' VFX pipeline. Before joining Marvel, Evan created miniature submarines for The Hunt for Red October , herded digital cockroaches in Silent Hill , extended sets for Olympus has Fallen , and converted Alice in Wonderland and Conan the Barbarian to 3D . Evan talks about creating vis...

Taylor Moll has worked on a string of hit animated movies, including Happy Feet , Shrek Forever After , and Rise of the Guardians . Recently, she founded the feature animation department at London-based effects studio DNEG, whose projects include ​​Ron's Gone Wrong , Entergalactic , and the Unreal animated short "Mr. Spam Gets A New Hat." In this podcast, recorded at THU, Taylor shares some of the...

Visitors to this year's Trojan Horse was a Unicorn digital arts festival in Troia Portugal were wowed by Aoi Yamaguchi's opening performance, in which the artist created beautiful large-scale calligraphic figures in response to pieces of music. Chris caught up with Aoi and discovered more about the ancient art of calligraphy, including its range of 2,000-plus characters, the importance of the tool...

How do you make a modern theme park ride? Framestore's Eugénie von Tunzelmann has the answers. As the Head of VFX for the studio's rides department, Eugénie has contributed to some incredible rides, including the Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure. Eugénie talks about how her experience on movies including Interstellar and Batman Begins has fed into attraction...

Opening or closing credits have become a key part of the cinematic or televisual experience. In just a few minutes, these mini masterpieces have to convey the essence of the film or TV show in terms of its vision, music, and characters, and they serve a legal requirement in listing its cast and crew. Joining Chris this week is Karin Fong, who tells the story of how she became title designer for an...

Crafty Apes' Sean M. Ritchie and Chris Cook have seen changes in the VFX industry first-hand. The CG Supervisors both began their careers in architectural visualization before moving into VFX for movies and TV including The Walking Dead , Gravity , Once Upon a Time , Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 , and Dune . Now, Sean and Chris work at Crafty Apes, the prolific VFX studio that's delivered effec...

How has rendering evolved, and what does its future hold? In this podcast, Pixar's Dylan Sisson answers these burning questions, covering everything from Toy Story's and Renderman's beginnings in the mid-80s to the way Disney is now using AI to generate visuals, and even hone scripts and analyze audience reactions. Dylan also discusses his background in Macromedia Director and CD-Roms, how Moore's...

Break out the Martini, the CG Garage Podcast is 400 episodes old! To celebrate its quatercentenary, Chris has attracted a very special guest star: director Scott Leberecht, whose new documentary, Jurassic Punk , explores the impact VFX pioneer Steve Williams had on the movie industry via films including The Abyss , Terminator 2 , Jurassic Park , and Spawn . In doing so, Scott sheds light on the tu...

Could Muse's "You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween" become the soundtrack for the spooky season? The legendary rock band's song is packed with references to classic horror tales, and the music video brings the lyrics to life (or should that be death?) with a spooktacular trip into a deeply haunted house. In this podcast the video's director, Tom Teller discusses the creative process behind the pro...

What does it take to produce an animated movie? In this podcast, Chris meets talented and ambitious producer Jinko Gotoh, who has been a driving force behind pioneering, Oscar-nominated films including Space Jam , Dinosaur , Finding Nemo , The Illusionist , Klaus , and The LEGO Movie 2 . Jinko discusses her journey into movie-making, from being inspired by Lady and The Tramp and Astroboy to learni...

Strap in for a tour de force podcast episode. Mikal Vega's inspirational story begins in small-town Ohio, where he played Dungeons and Dragons and made movies with his grandma. After serving in the military, he received a break into movies via a role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon . From here, Mikal's combat experience and creative skills landed him directorial roles on mocap for games, includi...

This week's podcast guest is truly inspirational. By the age of 20, Zhang Jingna had won bronze for air rifle shooting at the Commonwealth Games and broken records in the sport. After moving into photography, she immediately picked up clients including Mercedes Benz, Canon, and Wacom, and produced fashion editorials for magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle. In this podcast, Zhang tal...

Taking part in a CG Garage podcast has been on Oliver Markowski's bucket list for some time — and with good reason. The self-proclaimed VFX geek has a lot to talk about in this lively and honest conversation with Chris, from his work on movies including Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 , Spectre , and Black Panther , to how new file formats and pipelines are ma...