Cebas interviews: 
FX Veteran, Allan McKay, Hollywood's blue-eye boy!

Allan McKay needs no introduction. With 20 years of experience in Hollywood and winning many awards in visual effects along the way, Allan McKay is now busy imparting his knowledge to the next generation and spends a lot of his time mentoring VFX newcomers.

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Allan McKay - VFX Reel 2013 from Allan McKay on Vimeo.

  

Cebas: Allan, Welcome to Cebas! We are so happy to have you share your insights with us today. When did you first started teaching FX TD Transformation? And what was the genesis of it? Tell us more about how and when you decided to combine your career in production and in coaching talents?

Allan: Thanks to 20 hour days and no breaks - I have a studio Catastrophic FX where we focus a lot on digital pyrotechnics and destruction as well as heavy duty schedules and hungry clients. I’ve learned over the past 20 years in production that one of the key ability’s any artist can benefit from is to have the ability to create their own custom FX tools and automate many of the processes they do day in day out.

That is how I’ve managed to succeed through many steep deadlines on Transformers and other film projects. I review a lot of reels daily both for my studio but also for many other larger studios when I’m hiring teams for productions – and time and time again I see people who have learned FX but haven’t really gotten a good grasp on A) how to really take a shot through to completion and B) many technical skills.

I designed a technical director course last year which was a major success, but more aimed at overall studio pipelines. Since then I decided to develop a mentorship program for artists who want to learn typically what is expected of them when they move into an ‘FX Lead’ position where they need to be great at FX but also be able to script and develop tools and pipelines. It’s an 8 month program with live interactive classes, and weekly assignments, we all work together as a team throughout the course, interacting online in a private forum and all helping each other develop high-end production FX shots as well as coding tools and doing a lot of the type of tasks that if you can do it, you’ll be a shoe in for studios like Industrial Light + Magic or Weta etc.

Here is a link for more information : http://www.allanmckay.com/course_fxtdt
 

Cebas: Allan, were you from Australia? How did you make career moves to where you are now? Did you start off in Hollywood as a FX artist? Was yours a typical career?

Allan: I started my career a lot younger than most typical artists in the industry. I was 14 years old and eager to learn and had no internet or other resources. I literally self taught, and back then in 3DS DOS! It was much more work to pick up. In 1996, I got my first big break working on Half-Life video game, and eventually I got my break into commercials and then film by 2000. I was a Snr. Technical Director at one of Australia’s biggest studios, and then I moved to Los Angeles in 2003 as an FX Lead and eventually began supervising on set by 2005 as a Visual FX Supervisor. I launched my own studio shortly after that, employing 30 artists and working on many high profile projects both as a producer and supervisor, as well as being on the ‘box’ doing FX whenever I could find the time. By 2009 I decided to break free of the studio life for a bit and shifted my focus in a few areas, one was freelancing as an FX TD because it’s always been my passion and I love getting to lead teams but I also did the work myself. So I went to ILM and many other studios working on Star Trek 2, Transformers 3, Flight and so many other great projects! I’ve been working on many of my dream projects, even this week I’ve had some really amazing projects from my childhood that inspired me to get into visual effects - revisited -- and it’s so exciting to have the opportunity to be on these projects.

These days I’m still supervising and working on projects, but I feel like it’s been a dream come true to go from a 14 year old kid in Australia with no money or real hope to achieving such a big dream of doing fx in Hollywood, on set! And to hit a lot of the marks I set for myself. So, for the past two years, I’ve shifted focus more to typically spending half the year working on a lot of really big projects, and the other half, focusing my time in helping others reach their career goals, as well as technical goals. It's another big dream!

I’ve put together multiple high-end mentoring courses which typically go from 4-8 months each, with constant face time with my trainees over live classes and calls, and constant interaction with the goal of getting their skills up as fast as possible in key areas that should put them in high-demand within their industries. At this point it’s more about giving back and getting to see other artists grow and hopefully reach their career goals and dreams!
 

Cebas: With your incredible skills mentoring like the CGSociety.org 'Destruction Dynamics' (of course, with thinkingParticles as well), are there any other areas of work you have used thinking Particles, besides the film industry? Did you find good avenues for creative work in the advertising field as well?

Allan: I have used Thinking Particles here and there since the version 1.0 and, much more extensively on Blade Trinity and various other films when Thinking Particles 2 came out. In recent years, Thinking Particles has become the backbone for my creative juice and my artists' Destruction Pipeline as well. I have built many custom and proprietary tools around it and invested much of my time in customizing it to be streamlined with my needs and those of my artists. In more recent years I have used TP extensively on everything from Star Trek 2, Transformers 3, The Equalizer, Flight and also for the highly acclaimed super bowl 'God of War' commercial ‘from Ashes’ which involved the lead characters' entire world turning into ashes and breaking apart in a very dramatic sequence.

I use many different software packages, and so my opinion isn’t biased but I will say Thinking Particles is one of the most powerful and flexible pieces of software I have come across, for me – especially for destruction – it’s the foundation of most visual effects pipelines I see. Pretty much every big disaster movie coming out this year (including many of the ‘bigger studios’) utilize thinkingParticles for a lot of their destruction shots. It’s powerful in many other areas too.. but I usually get calls always for destruction!
 

Cebas: I have seen your intro to the workshops / online programs that you are currently running with several reputable 3d schools, and there is your personal Technical Director Transformation online, which is in high demand and a long waiting list. Can you shed some light for say, a 3D freshman or an FX Artists with some years of experience how to approach those courses that you offer?

Allan: I honestly believe whether you’re a freshman (ie. New to the industry) or you’re a mid-to-senior-level artist (ie. 5+ years) you can still take a lot away from learning. These days all my courses involve personal interaction with the students, because at some point you may have questions, you’re going to get stuck, and more importantly if you are serious about your career – you’re going to need a mentor or someone to help you as well as nudge you along. As I mentioned, I review a lot of reels and job applications, and I can tell who’s done what tutorial, and I think there’s a lot of core information they can miss out on, so as long as you’re hungry to learn, you’re going to gain a lot from these courses (as well as anybody else’s out there who offers the same amount of attention to their students – there are many great 3D courses on the web).

I have students who work for the big studios, I also have students who come from Maya or other packages, and others just starting out, and as long as you have someone to help you when you get stuck, there’s never going to be a challenge you can’t tackle. This is such a fun and challenging industry, and that’s what makes it so unique, there are literally limitless possibilities as to where your career and your imagination can take you. You just need to have the passion to learn and someone with the experience, the patience and the drive to teach you.
 

Cebas: to elaborate more on the Technical Director Transformation program where emphasis in on learning scripting, which brings an FX Artist to a higher level playing field, can you tell us how important this is in FX production processes? Do you feel that thinkingParticles 6.0 have a major role to play here?

Allan: The concept for this course was how production can save money and still create a big FX impact, and that is by scripting. I am an artist, I do not consider myself a ‘coder’ and most of the more successful artists I know - all write tools themselves as well. Scripting eliminates time wastage and there is less chances for human error by automating tasks, and it gets to the point where an FX scene that could have taken me weeks only takes me hours. Typically, once I have tools in place, most of the work I do then will be actual creative work. I touch a shot only to creatively make tweaks to a shot, everything else is automated to the point I do not need to babysit my renders or change a render path or find assets on a network. The idea of artists being able to customize 3DS Max in production to become the software ‘they want it to be’ has changed how I work entirely, it’s like 3ds Max is developed specifically for me now.

I wanted to share this experience with others because many people have the mindset that they aren’t good at math, that they don’t know or worry over the codes or that they’ll never understand that ‘stuff’. We have had hundreds of artists come through the course with zero coding experience, all sorts of people with all types of backgrounds, and after the first few lessons they are saying things like “I never in a million years thought I could do this stuff, and it’s so easy!”. I love it!

Thinking Particles definitely has a technical mindset. It’s built around the foundation of programming in the sense that it uses rules and conditions to control everything you do. I love this, because in the past scripting particles (which is typically what you had to do in the 90’s and early 2000’s) would require heavy amounts of trigonometry and math, which for me ... hurts my brain! Thinking Particles lets you have access to all of these, but you can visually build it all. You have the building blocks (literally, they’re called nodes) to define almost anything. I personally think this is how everything in 3D outside of animation should be as it means you have total absolute control but while creatively and visually defining it all. Thinking Particles for me means that I can develop a lot of power on the back end and then, I can expose it all to the tools I develop on the front end, this way artists do not necessarily need to worry about the complexity of their set ups (nor share with other team members their tools), they can build tools and make it as easy as clicking a button or changing some values and see all the power come to action ‘under the hood’.

https://www.allanmckay.com/

Cebas: how do you find the latest release of thinkingParticles 6.0? What enhancement do you find tP 6.0 has when compared to earlier versions? Did it fulfill or went beyond your expectations?

Allan: I speak honestly and confidently when I say Thinking Particles is one of the most powerful pieces of software out there. I say software because it goes beyond being a plugin, it is a fully capable node based system able to pull of almost anything.

I’ve yet to see a release of TP that hasn’t had a fantastic amount of new features and been a ‘game changer’. The introduction of fluids, ropes, soft bodies, all of the things that you typically do not associate with a standard particle system because they are so complex and usually a special solver is used for them, now to have it all as part of one big and very dynamic system, I’m really excited to see how people use all of this. Because it’s the sort of freedom and power that it just takes one or two artists who are ‘crazy smart’ to come along and use them for something they’re not designed for, and come up with a completely new visual trend. I also think the price change will make a huge difference, plus the subscription platform, it means we have access to the latest and greatest features frequently and instantly. So all round, I am super excited.

Cebas: They are quite a number of ‘horror’ stories from production companies in Hollywood that closes down after one big project, because they did not make any money, compared to the studio or film distributor. With this in mind, Allan, give us an idea of what is true and what is untrue for a FX artist career path.

Allan: OH! I honestly try to keep away from these subjects, yet recently especially with my podcast I’ve talked to a lot of authorities on the subject and if I were to lay an opinion down, it would be that the industry is shifting, just like all industries do. The lay-off’s are really unfortunate, I’ve had a lot of close friends lose their jobs at Dreamworks and Rhythm & Hues and even smaller studios which typically don’t make the headlines. I’ve always pushed for artists to have more of a business mentality, only because the more we are proactive in taking control of our careers, the more we can at least think ahead and keep on our feet.

We need to learn to adapt and change when industries are shifting. It doesn’t necessarily mean having to ‘go where the work is’ it can simply mean finding an area in your industry and a niche that you can carve out for yourself to make you stand out more. I will use the TD course as an example, not for the reason of promotion but for instance if you’re an artist that can write tools, script and automate tasks, pipeline stuff, whatever – outside of what you already do, that is something that will make you stand out as having a unique ability, whatever it is you think your niche needs to be – these are the sorts of things that can help you stand out from the crowd. Keeping up with the latest technology also, so that way, when someone needs an expert in a new piece of software that nobody knows, you can corner a piece of your market this way by saying “I know X software” when everyone else is still just trying to learn it.

Niche yourself rather than generalizing too much I think is a great way to stand out, and that’s what you want when you’re applying for work and staying employed that is to stand out as a pro in a certain, very specific field.
 

Cebas: coming back to movies and blockbuster, Allan, please tell us something about your favourite movie(s) production FX that you had worked in, or is currently on? Hints on your next big movie project :)

Allan: some of my favorites are probably ‘Transformers 3’ which I had to blow lots of stuff up in a very short amount of time, I am proud to say I had Michael Bay tell me my explosions are too big in some of my shots, which I feel like I need a T-shirt printed out saying that as he doesn’t say that too often! But Denzel Washington’s movies ‘Flight’ and ‘The Equalizer’ as well as ‘Superman Returns’. I believe all of these because they were so challenging all for different reasons, but also because the teams I worked with were all so amazing that it was just 100% progress…..the entire way, no setbacks. I think that is really what can make an enjoyable experience when everyone is just doing amazing miracles each day and you feed off the energy of the people around you.

‘Superman returns’ we did the intro shot of pulling out of Krypton around the sun as it implodes and then blows up destroying Krypton. At the time it was 700 million particles! I’d created (along with Oleg Bayborodin, Chris Pember and so many other amazing artists) we pulled that off in a little over 3 weeks - start to finish - all CG about 3,000 frames as one continuous shot. Epic!!

My favorite of all time project for many reasons was ‘God of War’ for the super bowl in 2013. I came on initially during pre-production to figure out how we would shoot it and bounce ideas around and then VFX sup it alongside Jeremy Cox, and then I went to town on all of the Ash FX using Thinking Particles and FumeFX for all of the ‘Ash’, which if not for tP, I’d have no idea how to create those shots of Kratos’ entire world, including his daughter, turning to ash.. could even be possible without thinkingParticles.

Some of the sims were the most complex I’ve ever pulled off, sometimes taking a week to simulate the ash as it would break each piece down sometimes 5+ times from a solid human being to paper thin ash and dust embers. So to see that being played at the Super bowl in front of the biggest audiences in the world was such a rewarding experience! And my phone would not stop ringing with people messaging me about how cool it turned out, I loved it! That’s FX work for you :)
 

God of War : character body to 'ash' with thinkingParticles and VRay

 

Cebas: tell us about your favourite destruction scene (in any movie) that thinkingParticles have helped you make a breakthrough in terms of visual effects? Was there more than one? Hopefully, you have found thinkingParticles ceaselessly invigorating to your creative skills in those mind-blowing scenes!

Allan: my hat goes off to the guys who worked on 2012, because there were so much ‘destruction’ there that I believe resets my idea what was possible in terms of total destruction. I worked on several blockbusters myself but my contributions to some projects weren’t too big compared to other artists at many of the studios. Again, another movie I didn’t have a part in, but I loved seeing was ‘Iron Man 3’, which Scanline VFX pulled off a lot of great destruction too. Some of the movies coming out this year are just epic and all utilized much of tP’s destruction features. So it’s definitely a big thing in Hollywood right now!
 

Cebas: from your experience, how well did Cebas software integrate into your production processes?

Allan: perfectly, as I mentioned I think any successful tool needs to be open ended to be able to be scripted and automated. The fact I can talk to Thinking Particles via Maxscript means I can literally build a complex production tool and then hand it off to other artists who are less experienced, with a scripted interface that let’s them pick a vampire to burn, or a building to destroy, and let them use the tools as if the program was designed specifically for that purpose.

TP is as complex and powerful as you want it to be, so I think it’s better to ‘go big’ and have the access to all of its power rather than use other software that you are eventually going to hit a wall and have to go back to the drawing board with how to approach it. I’ll admit that just like any new and powerful software, it can be a little intimidating at first, but there is plenty of great training material and documentation out there to help you on your journey (and I’m always happy to answer questions too).

  
Cebas: what was one most difficult aspect of a memorable project in ‘Destruction Dynamics’ and how did you solve the puzzle /code? Did thinkingParticles helped you there?

Allan: my Destruction Dynamics workshop (CGSociety.org) was really fun and I’ve seen so many of my students go on to get jobs at ILM, Atomic Fiction, Ubisoft and other big studios which is so cool! We literally just blew things up all the time.

One of the big lessons was actually recreating ‘God of War’, so having a person turn to ash and blown away. But probably the most explosive was destroying a sky scraper with multiple massive explosions of fire, watching people do that and also the earthquake shot of a house collapse… there were lots. It was just destruction madness in that course! All of it was Thinking Particles and FumeFX and a lot of simulation!

Cebas: And what will be your WISH LIST for cebas software that it's not currently doing for you?

Allan: It’s not that it can’t already do it, but I am sure large scale oceans will definitely be the final operator Thinking Particles will conquer before it pretty much has the ‘everything stamp’. But personally, I love some of the position based dynamics and heavy viscosity I’ve seen in Siggraph papers for simulating clumpy sand and things like this. That to me just looks so cool and is so fun to play with!
 

(Readers who want more of Allan Mckay's story how he was as a young man and his journey to Hollywood, can read Allan's interview with CGSociety.rg)

 

Thank you Allan for your time and effort in doing this Testimonial for Cebas! We look forward to continued engagement with your FX work and Thinking Particles.