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We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
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The Honest Filmmaker
How to have a Career in Visual Effects with Harry Potter Visual Effects Supervisor Christian Manz
#visualeffects #harrypotter #filmpodcast
Today I’m talking to Visual Effects Supervisor Christian Manz.
Christian has worked on big budget movies like Dracula untold, Nanny McPhee, he’s been Bafta nominated for his work on all three Fantastic Beasts movies and Oscar nominated for his work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
I asked Christian about working on big budget movies, the challenges he has faced, the iconic opening credits for Doctor Who (Matt Smith Series) that he created and advice for people wanting to enter the industry and have a career in Visual Effects.
I asked him things like; why he got into visual effects? His recommendations for getting into the industry. Are there roles in visual effects that are more in demand and have more opportunities? What does a Visual Effects Supervisor do? Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts - what would someone new to the industry not realise? Designing the iconic opening credits for Doctor Who. Killing Dobby - was he motion capture? How involved was the actor? Are there a things in visual effects that make Christian cringe? Does he spot mistakes? What old TV show or Film would Christian fix the effects on? The role actors play in selling the visual effect and what personal attributes you need to work in visual effects?
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HONEST, OPEN ADVICE ABOUT YOUR FILMMAKING CAREER
Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
Join the community: http://www.thehonestfilmmaker.co.uk
[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to visual effects supervisor Christian mens Christian has worked on big budget movies like Dracula Untold Nanny MC he's been baa nominated for his work on all three Fantastic Beasts movies and Oscar nominated for his work on the Harry Potter movies I asked Christian about what it was like working on big budget movies all the challenges he faced uh we talked about the iconic opening credit sequence for Doctor Who that he worked on and he gave me some advice for people wanting to enter the industry on how to get a career in visual effects enjoy so you're a visual effects supervisor can you tell me what movies inspired you to working visual effects um well it was movies and TV to be honest I think obviously the big one would be if somebody of my age um would be Star Wars yeah you know the first Star Wars film I think May I saw that on TV the first time I think actually but um but seeing that St story go over and not quite sort of what being sucked into that world and that that time obviously when I was watching it not having a clue that it all wasn't real etc etc but um but through yeah film films like that and then on TV for me it was the original incarnation of Doctor Who as well so that was kind of like um so both of those things I kind of think kind of got me interested in in film and television as a whole really I guess rather than specifically just in the effect yeah and did you how did you start off did you go to UNI to study it what was your sort of part off into visual effects I um I did I studied illustration at University oh okay so I um I had no as as I was growing up I kind of got more and more of an interest in in TV particularly and wanting to do maybe title sequences I want be a cameraman at one point I think all these different things but I never really had a a path in um you know my my dad worked under underground so it wasn't I wasn't somebody who um you know grew up in in in that world so it's when I went to University I went to Kingston University and um one of my tutes there Christine but was a BBC graphic designer and it was during doing the animation module with her um I was terrible animation so I didn't continue it on but I um um but through her I suddenly was like oh right there's this she you know just hearing what she did as a job which was title sequences and um and also um my dissertation at time I managed to Weedle in my doctor who um thing so I did the visual I did um visual effect the visual effects of Doctor Who as my um dissertation um so there I was interviewing all the people had done the titles the um the division effects and sets and in my third year as a as a sort of a day of experience we went with Christine to this place called framestore um where he worked a lot and we sat in a suite and watched her working with the uh with Timo who still works at Fram store now the U Henry operator and um and I was like oh wow this looks cool I wonder and it was when I finished uni I I had my portfolio to be do my illustration stuff but I said to her how would I get into doing something like that and it was being a runner so I put my CP around Soho and got a job 27 years ago nearly as a runner at Fram St wow so you've been at that company a long time um and you that's interesting that you started as a runner I had no idea I thought maybe you'd have done learned the visual effects and then got gigs working on no back then there wasn't really the there weren't really those those sort of fores so um I mean it was the Ravens born at the time had a had a Henry which was the the high ends of vision effect X workstations editing software um back then but but they weren't really the courses that there are now so so yeah I came and I I couldn't I couldn't switch on a computer I mean I had no I had Z I'd done like a two-day Photoshop course on my illustration degree and that was it yeah wowers okay so so then thinking about people now they can do the courses the and I noticed on frame store you have internships and work experience that kind of stuff so what's the what would you recommend people do to get into this business I think if you want to get into visual effects I think it is now best to go and do a degree a a course that gets you that sort of grounded knowledge of you know what visual effects is what you might want to do because visual effects has lots and lots and lots of different job job types you know so and and I think my biggest thing I say to students now when I've looked at reals is to to specialize as much as you can because we do have people who are generalists and we love generalists and that when I started people did a bit of this a bit of that but now your jobs are a lot more focused into certain job types you're an animator you're a modeler you're a compositor so I think to get a job at the end you you really do need to have a real that shows a specific skill that you do well and it's not about showing a hundred things that you've done it's about showing the two things that you're really proud of that really show that you're aiming at that job um because it's you know when I went into it I didn't really I ended up jumping around a little bit in terms of what I did do um and found my way to what I'm being a v VFX supervisor now but it wasn't a linear route um but it's the industry is a lot bigger than it was when I I you know Fame store was 70 people when I started and it's thousands of people now so um but I think it to be show and it's also thinking outside the the Box a bit you want able to do your maybe your your work you're doing for your course but often now you get the opportunity like on the internship at Fram store you get the opportunity to be part of making a little little film or something like that and I think you get noticed more I guess if you've done something that's oh that's an interesting idea well wow you know Bas it's all about making sure you do something well rather than lots of bits sort of well yeah and is there a in that all of those different roles or Vis effects is there any particular roles that are more in demand that people are sort of looking for and the more opportunities in I think it's in it's in everything I mean animation is a massive growing thing the the amount of projects now that demand animation is growing and growing all the time um in streaming and in and in film um so that's one of them but there's lots of I mean it's a broad church and we also have all of the people who are you know in our Systems Department people who are writing the software there's obviously new things like AI uses of that and um but there's lots and lots and lots of aspects to it so I think as as long as you're you're keen and focused I think there's lots of opportunities in all of the all of the Avenues really that you'd want to go down yeah and um can you explain what your what you do as visual effect supervisor what what does that role include well as a visual effect supervisor so now I act as a because I work outside of frame store most of the time like now I'm on a um a film I'm in SoHo um not a Fram St so I'm I um work directly um for the studio on that the movie so I'm I'm working as one of the filmmakers directly with the director the producers and I'll star on the movie I'm usually one of the first on and one of the last off as well so I'm starting with my my producer we have a script you breaking down what the work could be in that script and then you're beginning the early um you know like using the Fantastic Beast films as a as a you know an example there the Journey of those films was coming up with the beginning to come up with the designs of the creatures so working with concept artists and then bringing animators and model modelers into start working with an animation team and supervisor designing the characters um very early on you know months and months before production starts um and then alongside that you as the art Department are building up you're beginning to work out what the world's going to be working out what the so there's a whole creative thing to start with and then then there's the how we going to do this and so there's a lot of logistics to working out especially with sets what's going to be real what's going to be CG what PCG you begin to work out who you want to do the work so um you know the current film I'm doing now is is all Fram mostly but fantastic Beast we had about seven companies in the end on that so you're working out who how you want to break the work up briefing them getting costs from them so that my producer is can work out whether it fits our budget um creativity still working on previs which is a big part of it so that's pre visualization so we kind of do a simple animated version of all of the kind of key sort of action sequences or setpiece sequences in the film so that we know what we're going to film because a lot of stuff isn't there so creatures or you know flying um you know flying carriages and all that sort of stuff we have to design all of that so that and alongside that doing all the head of departments meetings I mean visual effects is reason I really enjoy my job mostly is because it sits in the middle of everything you're you're doing a digital version of most of everybody else's department so you have to work with everybody from your production designer to your stunt coordinator to your costume designer makeup designer obviously the director the everybody you're you are making digital versions of virtually they're doing and so a lot of the meetings towards shoot are all about prepping for the shoot but also working out how we'll integrate into that what we'll be doing then on the shoot itself I'm there every every single day on set I'm usually stood next to the director sort of making sure that I'll have a you know a team of people on set my team in the office but team of people on set taking all of our set data to make sure we've got everything we need to recreate uh or put you know creature into a shot or a background and I'm there often again with the director sort of creatively sort of like oh does this work does that work or you know speaking with them the actors everybody Director of Photography to make sure we're attaining that and then like now um we're finally in post production and that's where we're working with initially to you know I'm we're as I am now I'm with the editor and director we're in offices all together so as the film is being cut together we're beginning to put simple versions of the visual effects in initially and then we'll be working with whoever's doing the final visual effects to put all of those in and then my job is to make sure all the director's notes are being sort of adhered to creatively it's going in the right direction the quality is is correct and that builds looking at every single shot in the film which usually is about films I do is about one and a half thousand shots something like that to a final delivery and and then seeing the final film you know so it's um so yeah so then the process is anything from 18 months or more recently to about three years wow um so it's you know it's it's a long one but you feel you know I think creatively it's the most rewarding my job has been because you are really up I say you are part of making the movie it sounds like you're chatting to every single department and responsible you got a lot on your shoulder as far as the final kind of look and feel of the film film comes through um so talking about uh like Harry Potter big films like Fantastic Beasts what what don't what wouldn't a normal uh sorry not a normal what what wouldn't a student appreciate about a film of that size do you think I think it is the sheer amount of it's the sheer amount of people the amount of collaboration collaboration is really key um and just the menu that you go down to in terms of detail um and you know we're going through all that detail in pre-production but then at the end you've got people that like a you know frame store will be you'll have an individual person looking at one thing in one shot and I've got to stand back from that and look at the broad thing does it fit but it's you know there's you know when I was doing more inhouse SU Vision or working as an artist on shots you'd realize that something that you had worked on for months it's almost like that look down at your popcorn look up and it's gone you be wow all of that work but I think that's the biggest shock I think there's the amount of detail and hard work from all of the film crew you know by the time filming is finished that feels like even though we carry on obviously feels like a mass massive achievement because you've attained all of that work and all of that detail that's gone into sets and costumes and makeup and the photography and the lighting and all of that and then we then have the responsibility of making sure that we make our stuff look as good as their stuff did you know um so it's so I think that's the the SC the scale of it I think is would be quite surprising I think yeah and you mentioned earlier you did your dissertation on Doctor Who but then later on you got you got to actually do Doctor Who credit sequence so that must have blown your mind for starters what what do you get uh given so say they say right we're going to do the credit sequence are they telling you do you know the whole story of that show so that it informs it I'm talking to Doctor Who in particular because the one I saw that you did it's quite dark and sort of scary compared to some of the other ones so did you know the whole story what was going to happen and how much did they Define what that looked like we did that in two weeks all right so we um yes you're right it was like because I'd spoken to all of the original titles designers doing my dissertation and then suddenly I found myself when I was I was doing a film at a time and my producer said oh you know the BBC being in contact they need a title sequence for Doctor Who do you think and I was like yes where where can we H how can we make that work and the brief I had was wanted it to feel at the time it was the the Matt Smith coming in Steven muff coming in that they actually wanted bizar that's what I was doing at the time more of a sort of a Harry Potter sort of Darker feel to the title SE to the show so that was the brief so I literally went over they sent me to music and I went over a weekend and I wrote a treatment and did some really thumbnails sort storyboards and wrote a you know timing thing for it and came with on the Monday and did the meeting say this is what I think we're going to do they were like great and then we began work so um and then we did the usual thing of doing a you know a simple previous version of it and then then working up and literally that was the last thing I I think because I didn't use nuke at all but I sat there with the manual next to a person like three of us um with a team working in Iceland at the frame store had a team in Iceland at the time and um doing the sort of the animation the CG aspects of it and then a lot of it was just comp comp heavy making it um look good and and I handed the HD tape to the bike career who then took it to Cardiff to C on the front of the show and it went out the next night so wow it was um it pretty it was pretty full on but and we did do tweaks as those series you know we had to um change names and we got the opportunity to kind of do a slightly more refined version as it went on but I'm still really proud of it and and I must admit my son turned to me with the new series that's been on recently and he said oh the kind of look of the colors of that they kind of copying your one aren't they and I was like maybe they are I don't know but um but yeah but it's nice to have been that because I know as a fan at the time I knew the of like the burnard lodge titles or the Sid Su titles so I kind of it's quite nice to be in that you know he you know that that that title sequence would always be mine yes yeah yeah yeah no that's awesome and then looking at Harry Potter so I read on somewhere that you were involved with Dobby the character Dobby H how um how did that work was that motion capture or was that completely was that a cardboard thing that you replaced on set and how involved with the actor were you with with visualx Team well we so that point that was my last job I did as an in-house visual effect supervisor frame store so we had zero contact with the set or the you know know um Tim Burke who I ended up collaborating with on the Fantastic Beast film was was the supervisor on the movie and so very much that that work came to us initially as the you know we did a test to show that we were because again doing that sort of CG humanish character was still wor it is tough but was tough so we had to do a test um so myself with Andy kind who I'm working with now again as a um he was the CG supervisor gillo who I've worked with a lot as the animation was the animation supervisor and we did a test to show that was Dobby sat at a desk writing desk um showed up we got awarded the work and then because they were filming those two films Dy H part one and two I think the shoot was nearly a year um so we had a lot of time on film one in the background to be building him um building him and creature so we had um but what was great about the way it was shot was it was all key frame animation there was no capture at all um creature was done slightly differently because the actor was actually in the set with he was down just in his own clothes but crouched down and actually in the shots with with them and so we were able so he was in the lighting and everything and we had you know we painted them out and stuck him back in and so that was brilliant so we had all of that reference for for him because we had the the act of playing him in set um Dobby uh Toby Jones had done a a kind of a recording but that was also filmed so we had his we had reference the animators had reference there so really it was a it was a a journey with him that was the first thing where because you back in those days you used to get a designed thing would get sent to you you know like the mermaids I always remember in Harry Potter 4 they turned up at Fram store as a beautiful sculpt that would be scanned and then the job initially was to build that thing and the same thing with Dobby there had been a a beautiful sculpt made of him the brief from David the8 was they he wanted them to just feel more real more I guess because we were effectively killing him he want to engage with him more than the I think the the film Chamber of Secrets Dobby was slightly more um kind of exaggerated in character and look and David was is always about you know pairing it down the reality of it so we were seeing what we could do design wise with him to pull him into something that felt more port and a little bit even though we still had the big ears and eyes and all that sort of stuff and creature we had a bit more license to to to change him so it was a real journey of instead of having that defined thing to start with the Journey of 15 months on that was remodeling doing animation going oh maybe we need to tweak his proportions and doing all all of that all the way down to delivery virtually um and it was really beautiful work you know it was um it still stands up today and and I think it was I knew at the time we all knew at the time the fact that we got you know 15 months to work on a hundred shots of a film you know that just doesn't happen now it' be you never get that time but um I was kind of half finishing Nan MC at the same time that was starting but um but yeah that Focus that the focus on the craft was the was the great thing there and we had lots of you know um great references but yeah all key frame animation wow and and it worked because people cared when he died that's the main thing yes it really worked yeah um because that could have gone horribly wrong so so talking about when you're watching films these days is there anything you see in in visual effects that makes you cringe and go oh like when they do that I don't like it or is this or you know do you spot a lot of mistakes how do you view other films I I tend to in truth watch try and just watch films as a viewer and I don't s i yes you do see stuff that you think or wish that often if the story and the the story is good enough and the performances of everybody and it's good enough if the visual effects aren't quite up to scratch you forgive it I think it's when the story isn't good enough and everything else isn't good enough and it's leaning on the visual effects and they're not good enough either that then suddenly it's like oh the visual effects were terrible weren't they it's like but it wasn't them that was letting I I it's a truth I think but I I it's really the the aim of visual effects even if you are doing fantasy creatures or you know is that you shouldn't even be looking at them you know you shouldn't even feel aware that Something's Happened you know I mean you should feel that that creature was filmed with those actors and and all that sort of thing and I think a lot of time now that you see something that hasn't doesn't maybe get isn't out to scratch you know I know that it's because most probably is they didn't have enough time or that changes were made CU we're in a world D digital world where you know we can do everything I always say you know you can do anything it doesn't mean we should but I think the ability to change stuff is you know people feel it's easy and therefore it happens but often changes are made too late in the day to make it to that final final look that you would expect from everything else and that's really tough because you everybody on a foot production whatever it is always wants to do their best work um and sometimes you know it just stops the deadline's there the film's going to be out and you don't get get the opportunity and you're you know you kind of and there's always shots in things that you've done that you're like I wish we had had more times do that um but yeah I think because visual effects as well it's also the art of it is it is a visual effect it's not real you know you've got to try and guide the audience's eye to the thing that they should be looking at and if something in the top right hand corner isn't doing quite the right thing it doesn't matter and I think often my job as you go through this the the finishing stage is to make sure that we're focusing on the right stuff so you're working with the director trying to help you know with director because obviously we all want it to look great but if we haven't got enough time we've just got to focus on the right stuff to make sure that when you watch it and the edit you don't really notice the things that aren't quite right yeah so with that in mind if I could say to you uh is there an old TV show I'm not trying to Ste a doctor who but is there a a film or TV show from the past that you would love to go back and work on the effects and kind of update them oh wow that's kind of a um well you see it done quite a lot and actually I guess there are there are you know obviously Doctor Who episodes that I'd love to and you you do see it these days where there are special editions done with updating I think it's Doctor Who's done it Star Trek's done it um but even then you're like it's still not been done with the full money and time that it would take so there's certainly aspects of of some of those shows I always you know there was there are other shows I grew up there was a show called The tripods which I loved when I was a kid scary that was yeah and I think that to be seen that being done properly um would be would be great you know something like that but um even you know but I but you know I loved hitch and Sky of the Galaxy and bizarrely I still love and M now my children love the original 1970s 80s TV series over the film that was made because there's something about the the way it was made that actually makes it very watchable but um but yeah I mean I think I mean the thing is the truth of it is back in those days there wasn't a lot of visual effects driven stuff because you couldn't afford to do it there was visual effects in the background um but it wasn't the whole thing wasn't driven by it and I think that's why something like do he probably is a big one because sometimes if there was a sort of a a really phony looking giant snake or something at the end of a story that was otherwise amazing it kind of is almost a bit that you're a giant rat or a giant something that doesn't kind of they they' come up with cuz you can imagine back in those days it's the same as we have now that you'll um read the script and go the that they must have been like how are we going to do that you know and of course they deliver what they could you know um so yeah I kind of think something like that a lot of a lot of stuff on the BBC stable from the' 70s and yeah yeah and and the thing is I'd say to to when you look at those uh what we'd consider now bad effects the actors especially the people playing the Doctor Who give it so much well that you kind of believe it especially if you're young as well you're a kid watching it you just believe it because they're completely committed to this ridiculous thing that's now become you know even even like a d it's pretty ridiculous but now they've managed to over time it's come become iconic it's become something that's kind of comes with all this history but that's the truth I think even now with you know working on big budget movies as I do now you know the the if we if the actors didn't help if they didn't take it seriously you know working with somebody like Eddie redm on Fantastic Beasts you know and he's a lastol winning actor but he cared about you and cared about how everything that we were doing the creature work and everything how is it going to work what they be doing so that you'd utterly believe you know the the process we came up with on beasts and I've used ever since was we used puppets we used puppeteers and puppets to play the creatures so they had a performance so the actors had a performance to play against and and I think it's that now that if you I always say now it doesn't matter how good how good we make our work look if the actor's not touching the thing correctly looking at it correctly or or not really taking it then doesn't matter the the the shot doesn't work you know so I think that's a big thing to get still now to get sort of the actors and everybody on board with what we're doing because ultimately it's trust where you know you really really have to to trust that we're going to deliver and not make them look D basically see the finished result yeah yeah definitely we talked about skills you might need studying it you need to become a visual effects artist what personal attributes do you need what sort of person do you need to be to get into visual effects I think again visual effect to do to do something like my job I think you you have to be able to deal with people you have to be per you know collaboration and collaboration with other people and and always not sometimes not very nice collabor you know you have to be able to um you know my experience that I I think over the last you know 14 years or so of being sort of production side on things is just becoming more confident in being more confident in your own ideas and and that's tough I think because you're often in a room with people who've got you know years of exper Decades of experience but I think that's that's a massive thing for what um you know for what I do but if you're an artist doing modeling or something like that the great thing is to be massively good at that and it doesn't matter about that so I mean you're always going to have to interact with other people um and visual effects has always been a collaborative um thing but we you know lots of different people will will different characters and people who are more um you know sort of nervous or a little you know absolute because they're be an amazing artist and that's what you're after you're not after them to be leading a team of people and that's where you know I guess people like you know me have you know gone on that supervision route because it's because a lot of of the job is that um as well as having the sort of tech and creative stuff is a lot of it is leading a team so um but yeah I don't I don't think you I mean the the biggest thing that I I say even to to to senior people um supervisors and everything at frame stor is just watch films watch and love movies that's one of the biggest attributes because a lot of what we do is looking at you know we're you're just looking at other other films you're looking at other work people's work you're doing that all the time it's like you're not copying but you're absorbing we're part of a a rich tapestry of like over 100 years worth of Cinema um and we're filmmakers we're not you know and I think that's the the big leap with visual effects is that and it's slowly happening even though in very recent times there's been a lot of press of trying to 10 visual effects isn't happening but you're you're filmmakers you're not technicians you're you know um and I think that's that's really important just to love what you do you that's the biggest thing I hope you enjoyed that episode if you'd like to hear from more industry professionals how they got into the business and how you can do the same or you just want to listen to some cool stories from movie sets around the world then please do subscribe to the honest filmmaker podcast
