befores & afters

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Tom Cowles, Social Media & Community Manager, at Action VFX, about the use of Action VFX assets on Godzilla Minus One.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert about 'Dune: Part Two', including on the opening eclipse moments, the sandworm riding, the attack on the spice harvester, how Giedi Prime was made, the battle of Arrakis, and how the Fremen’s blue eyes were achieved. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to 'Gladiator' visual effects supervisor John Nelson about the original film from 2000, including that very famous Steadicam shot of the Gladiators entering the Colosseum, the Rome builds, the amazing tiger fight, and the forest battle in Germania.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' visual effects supervisor Angus Bickerton, and to Ian Mackinnon, stop motion supervising producer, and Chris Tichborne, animation supervisor -- covering sandworms, the plane crash and more!

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Erik Henry about the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, including the use of ILM StageCraft, and the creation of many CG creatures.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Urban Bradeško, founder of DoubleJump Academy, about launching a VFX training company and what it took to get there.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Matt Estela about Houdini, CG Wiki and his path from VFX into...a different world.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Longlegs' visual effects supervisor Edward Douglas about the horror film and some VFX you might not have noticed.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Joseph Bell, who has collated data on the world’s largest VFX hubs and VFX studios, the global distribution of VFX skill sets and more in his Visual Effects World Atlas.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Dark Matter' visual effects supervisor John Heller about crafting the different versions of Chicago in the show.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to DOP Eric Adkins on the 20th anniversary of 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', a film that was almost entirely shot on bluescreen.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to visual effects supervisor Mark Russell about the Doug Liman film The Instigators, and its mix of car chases, explosions and even addition of water onto actors.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Wētā FX visual effects supervisor Wayne Stables about his studio’s work on season 2 of 'House of the Dragon'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to artist Jakub Kaźmierczak about his concepts and environment previsualization and the Reallusion tools he used for the Netflix series '3 Body Problem'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VIEW Conference's Maria Elena Gutierrez about what to expect at this year's event, including the just announced presence of Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez.

Ian Failes chats to virtual production supervisor and visual effects supervisor Jim Geduldick about the state of play in all things VP, including LED walls, on-set work and the future landscape with machine learning and AI.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VFX recruiter Simon Davies, from Digital Arts Xchange, about the current challenging visual effects and anmation employment environment. Simon shares some advice for artists right now looking to get back into the industry, and about getting a VFX job generally.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet about season 4 of 'The Boys.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Jim Rygiel about his time at Digital Productions on 'The Last Starfighter', which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and still resonates as a groundbreaking achievement in CG and VFX to this day.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Digital Domain CTO Hanno Basse about Masquerade3, the latest incarnation of DD's in-house facial capture tool.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Lindy De Quattro about Brad Peyton’s 'Atlas'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VFX supervisor Chris Lawrence and animation supervisor Arslan Elver about their work on director John Krasinski’s 'IF'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Pixar visual effects supervisor Sudeep Rangaswamy about 'Inside Out 2', including about new character rigging and particle approaches, using RenderMan, simulating that crazy memory orb avalanche, and more.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to RISE visual effects supervisor Andreas Giesen about the Amazon Prime Video series, 'Fallout', including that opening nuclear set of explosions.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Chad Wanstreet, the visual effects supervisor on HBO’s 'The Sympathizer' about the crazy private lounge scene that features multiple characters played by Robert Downey Jr., with impressive face replacement work, plus many other scenes in the series.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Ripley' visual effects producer Joseph Servodio and visual effects supervisor John Bowers about the 'murder boat' scene, environments and *that* wig.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to HaZ Dulull, co-founder of HaZimation and the director of the indie CG animated feature 'MAX BEYOND.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Jabbar Ray Saaknee Raisani (who is an Executive Producer, Director & VFX Supervisor on the show), and Marion Spates (a VFX Supervisor on Airbender) about Appa, Momo, the badger mole and the ostrich horse.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Oliver Cubbage about the Hulu series, 'We Were the Lucky Ones.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Wojciech Zielinski about season 2 of Halo The Series. We discuss lots of different aspects of the VFX work, including shooting the battles, carrying out on set stunts, delivering creatures and also environments.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Lawmen: Bass Reeves' visual effects supervisor Jon Massey about the set extensions, Civil War scenes and more in the show.

Ian Failes chats to Marvel visual effects supervisor Christopher Townsend about season 2 of 'Loki'. In particular we jump into all aspects of time slipping, spaghettification, the loom and the invisible visual effects in this season.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to lead visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman about two Star Trek shows: season 2 of Strange New Worlds and season 5 of Discovery. For Strange New Worlds, we dive into the creature effects for the Gorn. Then for Discovery, we start with the amazing sand runner sequence, the Itrinok creatures and the Breen ship.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to '3 Body Problem' visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier about the Netflix series, including about ship slicing, the VR game, dehydration of bodies, and that chrome VR headset.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Framestore visual effects supervisor Josh Simmonds about the Adam Driver film, '65'. We get into the ‘role’ of VFX in helping to craft a story.

Ian Failes chats to Chris Nichols, director of special projects at the Chaos Innovation Lab, about Chaos’ Project Arena. This is an upcoming toolset that lets artists move V-Ray assets and animations to LED walls.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to director and VFX artist Adrian Bobb about making his short film 'The Fore-Men'. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Imageworks visual effects supervisor Jason Greenblum about 'Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor and Disney Imagineer Tim Landry, looking back at this experience at Dream Quest Images, including on 'The Crow', and later at Walt Disney Imagineering. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Paul Katte from Make-up Effects Group about 'The Matrix' and his team's practical effects for the pod baby, the bug effects for Keanu's torso and an arm break effect.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Alessandro Ongaro, the visual effects supervisor 'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire', about prep'ing the huge film, the extensive previs, traveling to multiple locations for shoots and reference, and how specific scenes were crafted.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Yeti creator Colin Doncaster about his career in VFX and software development via his company Peregrine Labs.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Bruce Hunt, second unit director on 'The Matrix' about the helicopter rescue and crash, involving real stunt photography over Sydney, and the miniature greenscreen chopper explosion shoot as well.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to FMX project manager Mario Müller about this year's VFX and animation event happening in Stuttgart in April. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Ryo Sakaguchi, the production visual effects supervisor for the Japanese Netflix series 'YuYu Hakusho', about new volumetric capture tech from Eyeline Studios used on the show.

Ian Failes chats to stunt coordinator and second unit director Wayne Dalglish, and to action designer and stunt previs artist Christopher Clements, both from Sandbox Action Design, about that spaceship hallway oner in 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3', which was the set to the tune of the Beastie Boys No Sleep til Brooklyn.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to REALTIME visual effects supervisor James Coore to discuss the 60th anniversary Doctor Who special ‘Wild Blue Yonder’.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Framestore visual effects supervisor Bob Winter about his studio’s work for 'Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire'. This included the bird-like creature the Bennu, which is at one point ridden by the character Tarak. Plus we compare that with the creature Harmada.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to the managing partners of Dream Machine FX--Brendan Taylor from Mavericks, Brian Drewes from Zero  and Chris Spry from Fin--about the way their collective works.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Screecher’s Reach' director Paul Young and art director Almu Redondo about the 'Star Wars Visions' animated short.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to the VFX Oscar nominated team behind the visual effects of Ridley Scott’s 'Napoleon': production VFX supervisor Charley Henley, MPC VFX supe Luc-ewen Martin-fenouille, ILM VFX supe Simone Coco and special effects supervisor Neil Corbould.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Scott Fisher, the special effects supervisor on Chris Nolan’s 'Oppenheimer.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to DNEG visual effects supervisor Mohsen Mousavi about 'NYAD' and the water sims and meticulous body tracking/matchmoving and comp work required to make ocean swim scenes possible.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to David Silverman about his history with The Simpsons, Monsters, Inc. and more.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Ted visual effects supervisor Blair Clark and ViewScreen supervisor Brandon Fayette discuss the making of the new Peacock television series and how the real-time tech ViewScreen was used to allow live-action actors to interact with a digital character during filming.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to director Magdalena Osinska and producer Danny Gallagher about Aardman’s stop-motion short film made for the Star Wars Visions anthology series.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Wonka' production VFX supervisor Graham Page, Framestore VFX supervisor Robert Allman and Framestore animation supervisor Dale Newton about the fully digital Oompa Loompa played by Hugh Grant.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Hugo Guerra about the process of designing and directing a promo for the ZEISS CinCraft Scenario camera tracking system, using virtual production techniques and more.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats all things practical effects with Richard Taylor from Wētā Workshop, including their animatronic creature suit for horror film 'The Tank'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Ryan Urban about the video for band Big Time Rush’s song Weekends, working with director Michael B Chait.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to make-up effects designer Nick Dudman about Trollocs and Fades is s2 of 'The Wheel of Time'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Jonathan Privett about Netflix’s Life on Our Planet, including the challenge of live-action plate shoots and building many creatures.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'The Wheel of Time' visual effects supervisor Andy Scrase and visual effects producer Brian Shows.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VFX supervisors Kelly Port and Matthew Butler, who began in the early days of Digital Domain and have since risen to become senior production VFX supes. They reflect on DD's 30th anniversary with many cool stories about the studio.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to El Guiri Studios creative director Rodrigo Blass and DP and lookdev supervisor Jonnie Catalan about the stunning 'Sith' short featured in the Star Wars 'Visions' series.

Ian Failes talks to Floating Rock Studio about its launch into original IP with KYORYU, an Unreal Engine made short that features genetically re-engineered dinosaurs which have survived humans and become the dominant species.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to the Goodbye Kansas team behind their trailer for the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, which features a digital double CG version of Idris Elba.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to MPC production visual effects supervisor Jason Billington and animation director Matt Everitt about the film 'Strays'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters looks back at the tech and artistry at PDI from the 1998 CG-animated film 'Antz' with VFX supervisor Ken Bielenberg.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Foundation' VFX supervisor Chris MacLean about season 2, including the Demerzel scenes, Spacers, the Bishop’s Claw Beki, the Stone Eaters, spaceship scenes, the big battle in ep 9, de-ageing work, facial scramblers and so much more.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Framestore VFX supe Nicolas Chevallier and head of creatures Pierre-Loic Hamon about the Framestore workflow from actor capture to final character.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Mike Fink, a veteran visual effects supervisor who won a VFX Oscar for The Golden Compass and was also nominated for Batman Returns, looking back at key moments in his career, including the incredible bamf'ing effect in X-Men 2.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to The Third Floor’s Casey Schatz, who was simulcam supervisor on 'The Way of Water', but also responsible for several other virtual production aspects of the film.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Mohen Leo, the production visual effects supervisor on 'Andor'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Tom Turnbull about the Tim Burton series from Netflix.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to production VFX supervisor Grady Cofer and production animation supervisor Hal Hickel about season 3 of 'The Mandalorian', including the use of StageCraft, practical effects and digital effects for Grogu and IG-12, and the final jetpack battle.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'The Nevers' production visual effects supervisor Johnny Han and Accenture Song visual effects supervisor Emanuel Fuchs about the incredible Shockdog.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to beloFX visual effects supervisor Oli Atherton and CG supervisor James Roberts to discuss their work on 'The Last of Us', including incorporating Unreal Engine into the VFX pipeline.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Unity's Natasha Tatarchuk about the announcement of the Unity Wētā Tools Division.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to on-set visual effects supervisor James MacLachlan about season 3 of 'Ted Lasso', the stand-in pitch used for filming and the stadium and crowd replication VFX used.

On the 30th anniversary of 'The Fugitive', Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to visual effects William Masa, then at Introvision, about the VFX 'front projection' and miniatures shots with Harrison Ford in the spectacular train and bus crash sequence.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Dune' special effects supervisor Gerd Nefzer, an interview previously carried out for SPARK FX. It seems timely in this current wave of discussion on practical and digital effects in modern movie-making.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Todd Sheridan Perry about the incredible Boots Riley show, 'I’m a Virgo', which needed to feature a 'human' character 12 to 13 feet tall.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to special effects coordinator Matthew Stratton about his miniature plane explosions and full-scale explosions for the Michael B Chait film, 'Wolf Hound.'

In this special sponsored podcast from Reallusion, we talk to James Martin and John Martin from Actor Capture, about their special brand of visualization and motion capture offerings.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Asteroid City' miniature unit supervisor Simon Weisse about both props and models crafted for the Wes Anderson film.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VFX supervisor Eric Durst about his early career in commercials for brands like Pepsi, Volkswagen and Polaroid where many major innovations took place in digital compositing, motion control and even morphing. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to the co-founders of Left Angle, Alexandre Gauthier-Foichat and Francois Grassard, about their new compositing and motion graphics tool, Autograph.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Steve Dabal, creative director at The Family, about indie sci-fi romantic comedy 'Molli and Max in the Future' which was made with the help of some fun practical effects and in-camera VFX with an LED volume.

In this special Reallusion-sponsored episode, we’re chatting to John C. Martin from Reallusion and Jeff Scheetz from Monkey Chow Animation Studios about the 3D motion content pack, 'Run for Your Life', available for Reallusion’s ActorCore.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'The Last of Us' visual effects supervisor Alex Wang about orchestrating the massive VFX effort on the show, including crafting post-apocalytpic environments, the clicker creatures, and working with and building giraffes.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Scott Pritchard about 'Andor'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'The Handmaid’s Tale' visual effects producer Stephen Lebed and visual effects supervisor Brendan Taylor.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to writer and director Chris Perry about his short, Little Bird, which used a number of bespoke tools for rigging characters, and for crafting a stylized look and feel in Unreal Engine.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Halon Entertainment co-founder Brad Alexander about the studio’s postvis work on 'Cocaine Bear'.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to 'Matilda' production VFX supervisor Simon Stanley-Clamp, who also hails from Cinesite.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats Star Trek: Picard visual effects supervisor Brian Tatosky about the final episode of the series and that insane Borg and Enterprise-D encounter.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to FX artist Urban Bradeško, aka the Explosions Guy, about the sparse GPU accelerated volumetric fluid solver, Axiom, which comes from Theory Accelerated.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to FMX Project Manager Mario Müller for a preview of the FMX conference coming up later in April in Stuttgart.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats oto Ingenuity Studios founding partner and VFX supervisor David Lebensfeld about the Showtime series 'Let the Right One In.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Anthony Ganju, one of the co-founders of Move ai, the markerless motion capture company which has developed software to extract human moton from video footage.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chat to filmmaker Adam Valdez about his short film made with Unreal Engine, Brave Creatures, including how the new Path Tracer rendering mode was used.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to His Dark Materials production visual effects supervisor Russell Dodgson, who hails from Framestore, about working on all 3 seasons of the show.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Adrian De Wet and visual effects producer Eve Fizzinoglia about the making of 'Slumberland's' big VFX shots, including the companion pig, the flying goose and the cuban hotel. We look at how each was planned, shot and executed. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to director Hjalti Hjálmarsson whose latest project is Blender Studio’s 14th open movie, Charge, which features a highly realistic human main character.

Cinesite visual effects supervisor Ben White about his studio’s work for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, involving the Boston chase scenes.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to visual effects supervisor Colin Strause about the CBS drama series 'Fire Country.'

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Paul Santagada, who was visual effects supervisor at FuseFX on Henry Selick’s stop-motion film Wendell & Wild.

This week on the befores & afters podcast, we’re chatting to visual effects supervisor Frank Petzold about All Quiet on the Western Front, which is VFX Oscar nominated this year.

VFX supervisor Rob Legato looks back on 25 years since the James Cameron film was released. (And yes we talk about Propeller Guy!)

A special guide on all the places to find befores & afters VFX and animation content: beforesandafters.com web articles, the print magazine and this podcast! 

This week on the befores & afters podcast, Ian Failes chats to director Miguel Ortega about his African fable of sisterhood, envy and ancient evil made with Tran Ma called The Voice in the Hollow, and made with Unreal Engine.

Ian Failes chats to Gavin Fox, Henry Trotter and Lauren Anderson from Framestore about something a little different than visual effects: designing the 'Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination’ exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to artist, designer, and photographer Scott Eaton--well known for his work in anatomy and digital figure sculpting--on his use of A.I. in his own art, and his take on where A.I. in art is going. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to VFX supervisor Jeff Okun about his work for 'The End is Nye' -- the series where Bill Nye is placed in some crazy end of the world scenarios.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to BlueBolt VFX supervisor Angela Barson and head of 3D Nic Birmingham about the invisible effects in 'The Northman'.

befores & afters chats to Outpost VFX visual effects supervisor Richard Clegg about the moment Galadriel, Elrond and Celebrimbor forge the Three Rings in Prime Video's 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.'

A special VFX Insight edition of the befores & afters podcast with Reallusion VP of marketing John Martin who discusses AccuRIG. AccuRIG is Reallusion's application designed for fast and accurate character rigging. It lets users turn static models into animatable 3D characters which can then be used in a bunch of DCC programs like iClone, Unreal Engine, Unity, Maya, Blender and more.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Marcus Ottosson, CEO and founder of Imbalance, which makes Maya animation physics plugin Ragdoll Dynamics.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to ACCESS:VFX founder Simon Devereux and new European chapter head Chris Kiser about their latest efforts to improve diversity in the VFX industry.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Rob Bredow, SVP, Creative Innovation, Lucasfilm and Chief Creative Officer, ILM, about the latest on StageCraft and other virtual production workflows at the studio.

This week on the befores & afters podcast, Ian Failes chats to VFX supervisor Kevin Baillie about the virtual production methods utilized on Robert Zemeckis' Pinocchio.

This week on the befores & afters podcast, Ian Failes chats to Milk VFX about the film, Me Time, and specifically the mountain lion sequence in that film in which Kevin Hart’s character happens to run into a mountain lion and its cub in the desert.

This week on the befores & afters podcast, Ian Failes chats to MPC visual effects supervisor Ben Jones about the VP to VFX workflow on Robert Zemeckis' 'Pinocchio', especially in relation to Geppetto's workshop, where Pinocchio first comes to life.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Electric Theatre Collective's Greg McKneally about the Pharrell Williams, 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator music video for the song 'Cash In Cash Out', and its CG zoetrope.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to  Wētā FX crew members on the VFX for the third act battle in Thor: Love and Thunder. You’ll hear from Wētā FX CG supervisor Jo Davison and compositing supervisor Tim Walker.

Ian Failes chats to DNEG Animation about their approach to the 'pushed' and stylized look in Scott 'Kid Cudi' Mescudi's 'Entergalactic'. On the podcast are visual effects supervisor Archie Donato, animation director Kapil Sharma and digital producer Chrissy Metge. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Ron Bedard from Industrial Pixel about the 3D scanning company's beginnings, including early boat scanning work. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Rose Duignan and Hal Hickel, who both appeared in the 'Light & Magic' documentary, about the early days of ILM, the practical-to-digital transition, and the latest innovations at the studio.

Scott Mann from Flawless discusses the use of the AI tool TrueSync to redub some scenes in his film, 'Fall', where a few F-bombs needed to be changed for the film's classification.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to FuseFX visual effects supervisor Tommy Tran about season 3 of 'The Orville', including on new ships, creature designs, and the de-ageing work on Dolly Parton. 

RSP visual effects supervisor Dan Bethell talks to Ian Failes from befores & afters about his studio's work on Thor: Love and Thunder, including the opening scenes, baby Thor, and the final shot.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Carlo Van de Roer and Stuart Rutherford from Satellite Lab about their in-camera lighting and imaging technology used on the two most recent Thor films. 

'Resident Evil' VFX supervisor Kevin Lingenfelser breaks down all the major creatures in the Netflix series in this chat with Ian Failes from befores & afters.

We talk to Pixar's Dylan Sisson about 'Teapot Meets Potzilla', a homage to Marv Newland's 'Bambi Meets Godzilla' made with RenderMan's Stylized Looks.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Framestore's Stuart Penn and Chris Hurtt about Khonshu (the bird skull god) and Taweret (the hippo god) in 'Moon Knight'. 

This week on VFX Futures, Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Pixar effects supervisor Bill Watral about 'Lightyear'. We cover everything from light speed, to ship exhausts to the huge amount of sparks required on the film (yes, there's A LOT of sparks. A LOT.).

Ian Failes from befores & afters asks Perception's Doug Appleton and Seiji Anderson about their main on end titles crafted for 'Moon Knight.'

NVIZ Head of Visualisation, Janek Lender, discusses 'Morbius'. We talk about a couple of the central sequences, including on subway station.

Ian Failes from befores & afters is joined by Fredrik Limsater, CEO and founder of ftrack, to discuss some of the big changes that have occurred at ftrack lately, including the acquisition by Backlight.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Hugh Behroozy and Mohsen Mousavi, former VFX artists from Scanline, who are now working in the gaming space at Blinkmoon. 

'Anaconda' VFX supervisor John Nelson joins Ian Failes from befores & afters for a look back at 25 years since the unique film that saw animatronics and CGI combine.

Concept designer Ben Mauro joins Ian Failes from befores & afters for a discussion about Mauro's HUXLEY universe. We talk graphic novels, film projects and NTFs. 

In this sponsored episode, Cinesite Head of Assets and Visual Development Madeleine Scott-Spencer discusses the changing nature of the art department at a VFX studio, including the move to virtual production.

How Luma Pictures helped craft the VFX of the opening sequences of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'. Join Ian Failes from befores & afters and Luma Pictures VFX supervisor Brendan Seals as they discuss bluescreen wire stunts, hair keying and city building.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Tommy Pallotta, Head of Animation and Producer on Richard Linklater's 'Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood', about the evolution of the rotoscoped animation techniques on this and a number of previous projects.

'The Adam Project' VFX supervisor Alessandro Ongaro joins Ian Failes from befores & afters to discuss the film, including the spaceship effects, wormholes, time soldiers and the de-ageing work. 

Sam Nicholson from Stargate Studios explains the ocean plate camera array and LED wall shoot for the Taika Waititi show.

Ian Failes from befores & afters catches up with Pixar visual effects supervisor Danielle Feinberg to discuss 'Turning Red', including a look at the new animation tech used on the film called 'profile movers' for rigging and animating such expressive characters.

Former VFX artist and now truck driver Louis Katz shares his up and down and inspirational journey with Ian Failes from befores & afters. 

'The Wheel of Time' visual effects supervisor Julian Parry breaks down a battle that takes place in episode 4 of the show featuring the One Power. 

A round-table discussion with members of ILM's crew who helped bring Nivellan to life for s2 of 'The Witcher'. Ian Failes from befores & afters discusses with ILM the on-set performance by Kristofer Hivju and the fully CG head and face final shots, including the adaptation of ILM's Flux tech.

With the Super Bowl and its massive set of commercials being seen around the world just this past week, we thought it might be interesting to find out more about how a Super Bowl ad is made. Here's Untold Studios creative director Ben Cronin with Ian Failes from befores & afters discussing the VFX behind the Frito-Lay 'Push It' spot.

Sadly, a true pioneer in the visual effects industry passed away this week. Doug Trumbull was a real innovator, and someone passionate about the cinema experience. In this never-released audio, he chats with Ian Failes from befores & afters about the future of cinema.

With the new 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' now in cinemas, befores & afters goes back in time with the digital human VFX that Imageworks orchestrated on 'Spider-Man 2', led by VFX supervisor Scott Stokdyk. 

Alpha Studios founder Kaitlyn Yang shares her journey in visual effects, including the path to becoming a visual effects supervisor, supe'ing the recent 'The Shrink Next Door', and the state of play of diversity and accessibility in VFX.

In this sponsored episode of VFX Futures, we talk to Cinesite CTO Michele Sciolette, Group Head of CG–VFX Holger Voss and Group Head of CG–Animation Hank Driskill to discuss the future of visual effects and feature animation.

Mark Elendt and Brian Sharpe from SideFX talk to Ian Failes from befores & afters about the development of their new Karma renderer inside Houdini.

Ingenuity Studio's David Lebensfeld and Grant Miller, and AMGI's Colin Brady, discuss the making of Coldplay x BTS' 'My Universe', including the volumetric work and the required CG builds and final compositing.

Dane Smith, Vice President at The Third Floor, and Casey Schatz, Head of Virtual Production at The Third Floor, speak with Ian Failes at befores & afters about the particular tools and workflows used at the studio for visualization.

Jon Matthis outlines the FreeMoCap Project, aimed at using open source markerless motion capture software to create an easy 'in-click' pipeline for 3D kinematic reconstruction.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to Halon previsualization supervisor Ryan McCoy and Halon on-set supervisor Grant Olin about the previs of 'Free Guy'. 

Lollipop Shaders' Christos Obretenov and befores & afters' Ian Failes discuss the explosion of stylized rendering in animation right now.

'Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway' editor Matt Villa (ASE, ACE) joins befores & afters' Ian Failes to discuss the piecing together of early storyboards and animatics, live action plates and work-in-progress effects shots on the film.

Digital Domain VFX supervisor Nikos Kalaitzidis talks to befores & afters' Ian Failes about how the studio's deep learning face-swapping tool called Charlatan was used to replace lines on Channing Tatum's game character in the film.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats with REALTIME CG director Ian Jones and DI4D co-founder Dug Green about the 'Braking Point' cinematics in Codemasters' F1 2021, and the motion capture, facial capture and real-time work behind them.

Framestore's Theo Jones and Leo Hills join Ian Failes from befores & afters to discuss the studio's FIRA machine learning tech, used for the extension of proprietary simulation and rigging tools to real-time workflows.

Jim Geduldick from Dimension joins Ian Failes from befores & afters to discuss the current state of play of virtual production.

Modelmaker David Ross and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first ever use of a model or miniature in a film.

Animation supervisor Webster Colcord and Ian Failes from befores & afters dive deep into the history of all-CG photoreal characters on film, looking for the "first" one that appeared on the silver screen.

Visual effects digital artist Katie Morris and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first ever digital wire removal shot from a feature film.

Matte painter Liz Hume and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first digital matte painting done for a film.

Lola VFX's Trent Claus and b&a's Ian Failes discuss which film was the first to use a digital face replacement.

In this sponsored podcast, befores & afters editor Ian Failes talks to Foundry founders Bruno Nicoletti and Simon Robinson about the early days of the company, the first plugins sold, how the Nuke acquisition from Digital Domain happened, and other key milestones in Foundry's quarter-century history.

Motion capture performer and actor Marta Svetek and befores & afters' Ian Failes discuss where mocap first made it into a feature film.

General Lift's Joe Lewis and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first time motion control was used in a film.

'Birds of Prey' and 'John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum' picture editor Evan Schiff joins Ian Failes from befores & afters to discuss NLEs and digital film editing. 

What was the first composite done in Nuke at Digital Domain? That's what Ian Failes from befores & afters and Hugo Guerra from Hugo's Desk discuss in this episode.

MR.X lead FX artist Gus Sanchez-Perez and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first ever ocean simulation in a film.

Previs supervisor Margaux Durand-Rival and befores & afters’ Ian Failes discuss the first time previs was used for a feature film.

Stop-motion animator and video illusion creator Kevin Parry and b&a's Ian Failes ask, 'What was the first film to use stop-motion?'

CAVE Academy founder Jahirul Amin and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first ever use of chrome balls for a film. (Note: be sure to check the show notes for an update on what is discussed in the podcast)

Houdini artist Matt Estela and befores & afters editor Ian Failes reveal which film was the first ever to use Houdini.

DNEG's Gavin Graham and b&a's Ian Failes discuss the first ever cloud tank used on a film. 

Ian Failes from befores & afters and Paul Debevec, Director of Research, Creative Algorithms and Technology at Netflix and also an Adjunct Research Professor, USC Computer Science & USC ICT, discuss Light Stage 3 and its role in many Hollywood productions.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to model supervisor Robbie Scott from 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', to look back at the creation of the Hogwarts Castle miniature from the first film.

Looking back at the work of Stan Winston Studio for 'Jurassic Park', Legacy Effects co-founder Shane Mahan reflects on his work for the practical Dilophosaurus 'Spitter' dino in the film. 

In this episode of VFX Artifacts, Phil Tippett discusses the stop-motion character work for ED-209 in 'RoboCop'.

Computer graphics pioneer Alvy Ray Smith and befores & afters' Ian Failes discuss the invention of the alpha channel.

Ian Failes from befores & afters chats to software developer Paul Miller about the making of Elastic Reality, one of the 'hot' pieces of VFX software from the 1990s.

Ian Failes from befores & afters talks to Frank Gallego, who at Innovation Arts worked with his team, Manex Visual Effects and others to help design and manufacture the 121-camera bullet time rig used for 'The Matrix'.

Craig Hayes, one of the original developers of the Dinosaur Input Device (DID), tells Ian Failes from befores & afters how it came about on Jurassic Park.

You've found the new destination for the VFX podcasts previously known as VFX Futurs, VFX Firsts and VFX Artifacts....all of these are now part of the befores & afters podcast from Ian Failes!