Q1: Looking back to your first job in the industry is there anything you would do differently and what advice would you give to yourself?

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During my first gig I think one of the biggest mistakes I made was overselling myself, I was new and fresh with imposter syndrome and wanted to earn my place; so I never wanted to admit that I didn't know how to do something. This led to a lot of long nights of me fighting with my comps and researching online to solve my problem when I definitely could have asked a more senior artist for help and solved my problem right away. Most of the learning that we do in this career is simply just through the osmosis of working with other great artists.

Q2: What have been some of the most challenging areas or experiences in your in your career?

Challenging moments are an interesting thing to think back on. I can think of countless times where in the moment I was frustrated and just wanted to be done with something; only to look back on it and realized what I learned and took away from the experience. As I've become more senior some responsibilities like lookdev have fallen onto me. look dev for a client is one of the most rewarding but frustrating things about this industry. It can very quickly become a slog where your creative ideas are run dry just for them to choose version 03 out of 67 as their favourite. But at the end of the day when the project comes out, you can look back on it and know that you had ownership of something pretty cool.

Q3: Is a thorough understanding of compositing CG elements important for a Junior compositor role?

I think when you're just starting out that you should just be sucking up as much knowledge as you're able to. The importance of certain skill sets really comes down to the project and type of work that you're doing. In my first couple of gigs at smaller studios it was very rare that I comped CG. which led to me developing a really deep well of knowledge and tricks for 2D workflows.

When I was first learning Nuke I was really enamored with a lot of the fancy things you could do with 3D render passes; But I think a strong understanding of 2D fundamentals can really help fix a lot of problems that often arise when working with CG assets.

I've known junior artists who can make BEAUTIFUL full cg comps, but then they will get a note about fixing some edges or painting something out and then they struggle with what should be a pretty simple 2D task.

Q4: What are the main appeals of using Nuke in your workflow compared to other competitors?

Nuke's biggest appeal to me is that it is the tool that it is available in every studio :). Jokes aside It is built from the ground up to do ONE thing very well, and that is compositing. Very early on in my career I comped using after effects and I would often wonder what the big deal with Nuke was; but that was at a time when I was more of a generalist so having a tool that could do comp and motion graphics was really helpful. I would never try to do mograph in Nuke, and nowadays I wouldn't want to comp in After Effects.

Also, once you start managing larger shots and working with large teams of people. The other software packages just simply can't compete

This doesn't mean I think that you should limit yourself to Nuke however. at my current studio a lot of our CG pipeline is driven through Houdini, so I've made an effort to be pretty well versed with it so that I can help out and do simple CG tasks where needed (Poly reducing lidar, fixing UVs, proxy geo etc)

Q5: What are some of the key stand-out skills that help you progress through the industry?

The key standout skills that I believe help people progress aren't even the technical or artistic ones. Sure you need to get better over time and improve. But being easy to work with goes a LOONNNNGG way. Soft skills like time management, communicating with other members of your team, addressing client feedback; this kind of stuff is really hard to teach. I've spoken with supervisors that have mentioned that they would much rather a keen artist who is friendly and eager to learn over a senior who takes every note as a personal attack.

Other skills such as problem solving and critical thinking are a close second. Compositing at it's core is simply the art of problem solving under pressure.