CG Garage

This week's podcast tells the fascinating story of Doug Wilkinson, who worked with Chris on Tron: Legacy and is now head of CG at global creative company Buck. Inspired by Jurassic Park, Doug helped create cutscenes for video games before moving from Boston to LA to join effects companies including Digital Domain, Sway and Buck.

Doug recounts his numerous adventures in visual effects, including creating a David Fincher-directed Heineken ad starring Brad Pitt, working with Joe Kosinski on car commercials, and his latest work, including Apple's "Share Your Gifts" spot. Doug also shares his thoughts on the CG industry's future, talks about how Buck balances creative freedom with technical innovation and reveals surprising connections to Chris' friends and co-workers.

Over the past 15 years, Matan Abel has worked on lots of cutting-edge VFX projects, including the game Call of Duty, numerous car commercials and movies such as 2012, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last Airbender, Red Tails and Fast & Furious 5. Now, Matan's getting into real-time via John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum's virtual pre-production and The Mandalorian's virtual sets.

In this podcast, Matan tells former boss Chris how his laid-back approach and honesty have helped his career trajectory. He talks about how he loves lighting tail lights despite knowing nothing about cars; overcoming cultural, linguistic and time barriers when he worked in China; and the practical and financial reasons behind the rise of real-time in movies.

NFTs — or Non-Fungible Tokens — have hit the headlines recently after digital artist Beeple sold a JPEG for $69 million. But there are many questions about this new way of selling art: Is it a scam? How easy is it for artists to make millions with NFTs? What does "fungible" even mean?

In this podcast, digital artist and returning guest Sally Slade tells Chris everything she's learned about NFTs in seven days. She talks him through turning one of her artworks into an NFT, beginning with buying cryptocurrency Ethereum to "minting" her artwork and listing it online. Sally digs into some of the ethical and environmental concerns about the NFT process and discusses what it could mean for the future of art and filmmaking.

Joining Chris for this week's podcast are old pals and seasoned professionals Leighton Greer and Paul Ghezzo. Having met Chris at VFX studio Sway, Leighton and Paul have worked for Rhythm and Hues, Zoic and Scanline. Today, they've been reunited at Technicolor, which produces visual effects alongside traditional post-production fixes for shows including Star Trek: Picard, Westworld, Snowfall and Bridgerton.

Leighton, Paul and Chris reminisce about work they've done in the past, including Scion ads for demanding directors and the physics of power sliding minivans. More importantly, the trio shares the important lessons they've learned from one another. Leighton and Paul also discuss some of their upcoming projects, including Firefly Lane, Reservation Dogs and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as Technicolor's acquisition by the increasingly large Streamland Media.

VFX veteran Ari Rubenstein has quite a story to tell. After spending a few years in unrelated fields, he gravitated towards visual effects, where a cloth sim experiment landed him work on The Matrix Revolutions. He went on to work at Blue Sky Studios, the company behind animated movies including Horton Hears a Who!, Epic and Rio.

At the same time, Ari has indulged his creativity and embraced new technology via short films. Ari talks enthusiastically about how he's always chosen creative paths, his deep-rooted love of music, and how individuals across the industry and around the world have helped him bring his visions to life.

Since this interview, Blue Sky Studios has closed its filmmaking operations. Nimona, which was slated for January 14, 2022, is no longer being released.

Chaos' Key Account Group are unsung heroes of the CG industry. They understand the trends of the VFX, arch-viz and design industries; they're happy to be woken up at 3AM on Christmas morning to help customers solve problems—and they help gather feedback to help shape Chaos products.

Heading up the Key Account Group is the dynamic and energetic "Mother of Dragons," Albena Ivanova. After studying business at university, Albena honed her skills in film production before joining Chaos. Albena discusses the unusual ways customers use Chaos software, reminisces about epic parties for clients and talks about her newest recruit—Chris Nichols himself.

Chaos Group is no more; long live Chaos! In this week's podcast, Richard Pay from design agency Uniform and Chaos' own Melissa Knight talk us through the year-long process of reinvigorating the computer graphics company's presence to reflect the increasing diversity of its products and customers.

Rich explains why a brand is far more than just a logo, and how Uniform has united Chaos' previously fragmented elements into a more cohesive and colorful whole. Melissa also talks about the advantages of simply being called Chaos, the huge amount of work that went into the rebrand—and reveals a planetary secret hidden in the new logo.

This week's podcast guest is a true visionary in the CG world. Ash Thorp came from a humble background and perfected his artistic skills via a year-long stint at film title specialist Prologue. Since then, he's contributed to Ghost in the Shell, Ender's Game and Captain Marvel, while pursuing his love for cinema via personal projects including Ghost in the Shell homage "Project 2501," electric Ferrari concept "Evinetta" and short film "NONE."

Ash offers invaluable advice on avoiding creative blocks, the importance of collaboration, getting great performances out of actors, and dealing with criticism and social media. It's an honest and inspirational discussion and, touchingly, Ash hasn't lost any of the humility he had at the start of his career.

Christian Debney's incredible career began awesomely and has only become more awesome: his first job was building lightsaber props for Star Wars: Episodes I and II. After learning 3D for his own short films, he created VFX for Farscape, directed music videos, made animations for the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, set up a VFX firm and second-unit-directed little-known but much-loved Australian comedy Swinging Safari. Phew!

Now, Christian is putting his 20-plus years of experience in the movie industry to good use as VFX supervisor on sci-fi thriller Ascendant and as director of three films (one in VR) and a documentary. In this podcast, Christian talks about his career so far and shares tips and anecdotes about how he's learned to create great work within budgetary and time constraints.

Andrew Murdock is a man of many talents. His career began in a recording studio, alongside Chris Isaak, and he went on to join Mondo Media to work on gaming projects including The Daedalus Encounter and Westwood's Blade Runner. After founding his company, Lots of Robots, he created his own short films, beginning with "Rocket Pants," while producing scientific animations for National Geographic.

Today, Andrew still creates his own short films and he's recently joined forces with 3ds Max creator Gary Yost on his "Inside Covid-19" VR project. Andrew discusses his independent approach to his projects' sound and visuals, his passion for Chaos Cloud and tyFlow, and Automatron, his character animation plugin for 3ds Max