The Allan McKay Podcast Emmy Award Winner | Speaker | Mentor | Visual Effects Expert
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Allan McKay is an award winning Visual Effects Supervisor and Technical Director in Hollywood - join Allan as he interviews many of the leading experts in Hollywood about their careers, pitfalls and what they took to succeed, while also gaining a lot of core knowledge to help build your career, money and success and skills to make the biggest impact in your career AND in your life!
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445 - GEN V - VFX Supervisor Karen Heston
Karen Heston is a VFX Supervisor on feature films and episodic tv. They began their VFX career at commercial houses in NYC on the night shift; while finishing their MFA in computer art by day.
Starting as a Flame artist, they led VFX teams and engaged with creatives from storyboards to finals. On-set supervision and taking projects from pre-production through post remains their passion today. Karen’s projects include titles like GREEN LANTERN, BEASTS OF NO NATION, OCEAN’S EIGHT, and most recently GEN V.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews VFX Supervisor Karen Heston about their creative journey as a VFX Supervisor on GEN V, the spinoff of THE BOYS; as well as their experience studying cinematography at NYU, switching to visual effects, the learning experience as a the main vendor on Cary Fukunaga’s BEASTS OF NO NATION, and so much more!
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/445. -
444 - Film Producer Josh Rosenbaum - Waypoint Entertainment
Josh Rosenbaum is a Producer at Waypoint Entertainment.
Josh majored in Business Administration at the USC Marshall School of Business and minored in Music Industry through the USC Thornton School of Music. Before he joined Waypoint Entertainment, he worked as an Agent Trainee at William Morris.
After joining Waypoint Entertainment in 2015, he worked his way up from being a Production Coordinator to now a Producer. Since joining Waypoint, he worked on titles like THE FAVOURITE, CUCKOO, MID90S, HOSTILES.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Producer at Waypoint Entertainment Josh Rosenbaum about his start in the entertainment business at William Morris; why relationships and strategy are the most important tools in building a career; how a production company chooses VFX vendors; why AI will never replace storytellers (including VFX artists); the behind-the-scenes of CUCKOO (to be released in 2024) – and so much more!
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/444. -
443 - “NO CGI = INVISIBLE CGI” - VFX Supervisor Jonas Ussing
With 15 years in the VFX business, Jonas Ussing has supervisor credits on several feature and television titles, including the Netflix series THE RAIN. Jonas has furthermore earned nominations for an Emmy and a Danish Academy Award.
In 2012, Jonas was nominated for an Emmy for his work on INSIDE THE HUMAN BODY. In 2014, he directed a short film ZOMBIEHAGEN which he also wrote.
During 2023, Jonas launched his own YouTube Channel The Movie Rabbit Hole. He released two videos that have immediately gone viral in the VFX community, in which he talks about the collective publicity stunt in Hollywood on the subject of “NO CGI”. He does a deep dive into those projects that claim they used “no CGI” in the making, like TOP GUN: MAVERICK, BLADERUNNER, FAST 5 and STRANGER THINGS.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews VFX Supervisor Jonas Ussing about the dangerous marketing rhetoric encouraged by studios about “No CGI” in films like TOP GUN: MAVERICK, BLADERUNNER, FAST 5; the inspiration behind Jonas YouTube Channel The Movie Rabbit Hole and the viral videos on the subject; the reaction of the VFX community to his content; surviving Hollywood Labor Strikes of 2023, whether VFX artists will ever get unionized – and so much more!
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/443.
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442 - Infinite-Realities Founder and Director Lee Perry-Smith
Infinite-Realities (IR) specializes in digital humans. Founded in 2007, IR has been developing static and motion scanning systems for over 15 years.
Lee Perry-Smith is the original Founder of Infinite-Realities. As CEO, he has led various large scale project developments. He has a deep passion for human scanning and the ongoing pursuit of the perfect digital human.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Founder of Infinite-Realities Lee Perry-Smith about his passion for digital humans and scanning technology, the inspiration for his launching of Infinite-Realities; his first feature film project STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS; 3D Gaussian Splatting, 4D capture, Artificial Intelligence – and so much more!
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/442. -
441 - Writer, Producer & Head of Writing at Vancouver Film School Kat Montagu
Kat Montagu is the Head of Writing for Film, Television and Games Program at the Vancouver Film School. She has taught for over 20 years in VFS’s Writing and Film Production Departments. Her Career Launch class has prepared countless VFS graduates to work on feature films, in the writers’ rooms of tv series and in video game studios. Kat has been named a VFS Instructor of the Year three times.
Kat is also the author of the best stilling book The Dreaded Curse: Screenplay Formatting for Film and Television. This twist on the how-to guide demonstrates best practices through a riotous story of two witches loosely inspired by her own family history, and is used to teach screenwriting at film schools and universities globally.
She is also the Senior Story Editor for Crazy8s and produced many short films and co-produced indie feature film THE PRODIGAL DAD.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Kat Montagu, the Head of Writing at the Vancouver Film School – as well as Writer and Producer – about finding passion for writing, the importance of the emotional journey in every story, what makes for a compelling story, why every department in film and tv production is involved in storytelling; as well as her own writing and teaching career at the Vancouver Film School.
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/441.
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440 - Kriscoart YouTube Channel Creator Kris Truini
Kris A. Truini was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and was raised in Italy until the age of 15. There, he first discovered his passion for film when he was 8 years old and has been making videos ever since. With little to no help for his first videos, he had to explore and learn as much as possible on every aspect involved in completing a film from start to finish. He acquired a good knowledge of software such as 3DS Max, After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere, Final Cut Pro X, FL Studio, along with other 3D applications, tracking programs and non-linear editors.
At the age of 15, he left his parents to go continue his school studies in the United States. He began to make tutorials and short videos posted on YouTube in the channel Kriscoart Productions. In the summer of 2010, he attended a film school at Maine Media Workshops.
After graduating high school in 2012, he moved to Florida to enroll in Full Sail University. There he continued to make videos and short films. One of his directing teachers offered him the position of Director of Photography, Editor, and Music Composer for his short REVERSE. His next short SPECULUM was a Finalist at the 2013 StartFest Florida Film Festival.
Kriscoart currently has over 436 Subscribers.
In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews Kris Truini, the Creator of a successful YouTube Channel Kriscoart, about the inspiration for his Channel, the importance of building a supportive creative community, how to get over creative blocks, the future of AI, why both self-doubt and perseverance are part of the creative process, and so much more!
For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/440.
Customer Reviews
Phenomenal Podcast!!
Honestly loving Allan’s insight to the VFX industry. I wish I would have found this early in my career.
Dope!
Loving this ✊
Great
This is a quality content! I never listen to podcasts, but I never get bored listening to his! Everything minute is so full of valuable information. #VFX1