25. März 2020 Johannes Wolters

Allan McKay: How CoronaVirus will affect Visual Effects (VFX) in 2020

I wanted to talk about the Coronavirus and how it is affecting us in VFX/Visual Effects and how that effect things in the coming months.

(apologies for the sync issue – I guess Google Pixel doesn’t keyframe the codec as much as it should).

I think we are all a little bit concerned about where things are at with our jobs, as artists over the coming weeks and months.

My honest opinion (and this is just my opinion) is EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK.

I’m more concerned about other business owners, who own restaurants, bars, that rely on people coming in, and have been slosed. Or that have to show up, and congregate around other people amongst all of this.

Obviously, the most important thing for all of us right now is to stay healthy, and help those around us to remain healthy as well. And stay secluded.

But I want us to turn this from a negative, into a positive. I know a lot of us say we never have enough time to do the things that are really important to us. Whether it is to learn a new skill, or to work on a new demo reel or portfolio.

This is a time for you to make the most of your idle time, to better yourself for the long term. But also as a way to distract yourself from everything that we are experiencing.

Pick up a book, do a course, or set some goals and start to learn them on YouTube or many of the other free resources online.

Whatever it takes.

This can be an opportunity for you to wait out the storm, and have something to show for it when it’s all over with.

Others, may want to work.

And we are fortunate enough to be in an industry where we can.

Some studios and jobs this week are in turbulence. Because things are chaos, but everyone needs tv, everyone needs movies, games, and all forms of entertainment.

Our industry is never going to go away, and I’ve found in times like this, it’s one of the industries that does stay consistent.

Right now I know plenty of artists working on movies, I just spoke with all the major studios and it’s business as usual. Just, a lot of artists are either being spaced out in the office (I think that’s a bad idea) or working from home (good idea!).

The guys at Infinity Ward, are continuing on Call of Duty, just from home.

Autodesk, all working from home.

I think long term, some good will come from this. Because studios are forced to build pipelines and put practices in place to allow for remote working. And as it proves itself, there will be those opportunities to work from home more so in the future.

The fact that major studios are continuing to work on Disney movies like Black Widow and others, that are typically requiring the highest security standards – shows that we can continue to work and use this time to make money from home, doing what we love.

Or, we can use this time to learn and invest back in ourselves.

Keep those distractions, and morale high, keep smiling, keep laughing and keep caring for yourself and those around you. But also try to turn this into a positive, and show you came out the other end of all of this with something to show for it.

Stay safe my friends, and stay healthy xo

Allan.

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert