Project: News of the World (2020)
My Role: Senior Compositor, Sequence Lead
Company: Outpost VFX
Time on the project: 6 Months

After a year in the far east supervising, I was in search of a creative refresh. Still in the mood to explore, unexpectedly, I found myself back where it all started; Bournemouth.

I did my masters degree in Digital Effects at Bournemouth University. Last step before joining the world of visual effects. I had heard about Outpost VFX before, a relatively young company that had set up shop in one of the most beautiful cities in the UK thanks to amazing beaches and summers you can only dream of.

When the opportunity for joining them in their first journey into taking charge of an entire feature film came up, and hearing Ian Fellow, who I knew from the Framestores days, was VFX supervising, I did not need to think too much.

Being back to Bournemouth reminded me of why I got into VFX in the first place. The passion for movies, story telling and creating compelling images with likeminded people. This job can get too technical sometimes making you forget that we are artists and it was good to be reminded of that.

I, alongside veteran compositor Nick Seal, led a sequence involving a complete CG environment work. Night, rain and water! Many challenges to be dealt with and joyfully conquered. For a young company and in their first effort in taking on such a big scale project, I was very impressed with what everyone was able to achieve. I can’t give enough credit to Ian Fellows for his creative leadership of the Outpost team. Composure, patience and a natural problem saver.

Unfortunately, this coincided with covid-19 pandemic. We were lucky to be able to complete the project but Outpost, like many others in the industry, suffered the consequences of halted productions and cancelled projects. There is a lot of talent here and I do hope they will recover from this downturn and I have no doubt that they will, specially after people get to see the impressive work done on this movie.

I left Bournemouth and Outpost with good memories and hoping to return to take on another challenge.