Christopher Townsend

Chris grew up in the UK. As a young man he travelled to China and worked numerous odd jobs while exploring. His background in graphic design helped him land opportunities to work in creative ways doing motion graphics for television news. His boundless curiosity and wanderlust took him all over China, Singapore, Thailand, and even Australia.

With passion, enthusiasm and dedication he eventually landed a job at Industrial Light & Magic where he worked for more than a decade as an artist and supervisor. Chris’ ILM credits include; Congo, Mission: Impossible, Daylight, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk, AI, and The Island (to name just a few).

In 2007 he left ILM to work with first time director and former ILM VFX Supervisor Eric Brevig on Journey to the Center of the Earth, the first ever stereoscopic motion picture shot and released digitally, Chris continued working as a freelancer on numerous films including; The Wolverine, Ninja Assassin, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Captain America: The First Avenger.

He was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Iron Man 3, oversaw nearly 3000 shots on Avengers: Age of Ultron and was the overall supervisor for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as well as Captain Marvel. In 2015 he was given an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree by his alma mater, Coventry University.

Chris’ enthusiasm for his work is self evident. His career continues to expand with his latest work as the Marvel VFX Supervisor on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. It was great fun to catch up with Chris and hear about his amazing career.

Chris publicity still

Eric Brevig

This week on 8111, Eric Brevig. Eric grew up as an only child in West Los Angeles. He loved going to the movies growing up and he made his own short films with kids from the neighborhood. His mom worked at a bank near 20th Century Fox and one of her clients got Eric a set visit to The Towering Inferno on the day they blew up the building. It was an eye opening experience. He went on to attend UCLA for film school and earned a Master’s degree where he made a complicated short film involving stop-motion monsters and live action. 

After school Eric worked as an intern for the camera union. The internship exposed him to all kinds of opportunities working for a short stint at Apogee and Universal Heartland which was doing work on the TV series Buck Rogers. He worked for a time at Doug Trumball’s while they were working on Blade Runner. While there he met Rocco Gioffre who went off and started Dream Quest Images (with Scott Squires, Hoyt Yeatman, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister). They needed a matte cameraperson and Eric was the right fit for the job. He worked on Lost Boys, Scrooged and other films as VFX Supervisor. 

After working on Total Recall for Dream Quest, Eric was hired by ILM to come work as Supervisor on Hook for Steven Spielberg. Eric worked at ILM for fifteen years on some massive projects. Over the years he's worked  with filmmakers like Spielberg, Michael Bay, Roland Emerich, Barry Sonnenfeld, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, James Cameron, and Frank Oz (to name a few).  

Eric’s visual effects credits include; The Abyss, Total Recall, Hook, Disclosure, The Indian in the Cupboard, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Pearl Harbor, The Island, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and many others. As Director he’s made the films; Journey to the Center of the Earth and Yogi Bear. Eric’s enthusiasm for filmmaking and visual effects is infectious. Along the way he’s been helped by others and he’s payed it forward helping people he’s worked with, promoting colleagues on films where he’s been a key decision maker. It was great fun to talk to Eric and hear about his amazing career.

Eric lines up a shot for Men In Black.

Eric with the Men In Black production and miniatures crew.

Eric with director Frank Oz on the set of The Indian in the Cupboard.

Publicity still working on the vfx for Disclosure.

Alex Laurant

Alex was raised by his mom in San Francisco. She was a fine art painter and art has always been a part of his family. So he’s always drawn since his was a little kid. He watched late night monster movies and scoured the local news stand for every magazine on movies he could find. In school he and a friend made stop motion animated films of their own inspired by Ray Harryhausen. He saw a presentation by Linwood Dunn at the SFMOMA and it set his trajectory for the future. 

Alex attended CCAC in Oakland for college and focused on illustration and graphic design. He freelanced for several years after school working as a graphic designer just as things were moving from analog techniques to digital. A gig working for a company in the South Bay doing multimedia presentations led to work doing a kind of story boarding and animation combining several of his skills and connecting him to working in the digital space. 

Alex moved onto another company and became and art director and eventually a manager/team leader working on multi-media “edu-tainment” projects. He was leaning new things everyday and building a set of skills that he’d use for years to come. A chance meeting at an art supply store with another art director Michael Brumsfeld from Colossal Pictures eventually led to a job at ILM. 

Alex worked as designer and visual effects art director on multiple films at ILM including; Star Wars: Special Editions, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy, Mission to Mars, Minority Report, among others. After eight years Alex left in 2004 to work in games at Electronic Arts in London. 

Today he continues to work in games. Alex is a great artist, a kind human, and thoughtfully shares his journey. It was great fun to catch up with him and hear his story. 

David Tanaka

David Tanaka grew up in the Bay Area. As a kid he was fascinated with a small hand cranked toy you could look into and watch Super 8mm film. He later took that toy apart and began making his own short films with friends. He wound up earning a degree in film from UC Berkeley. A visiting artist lecture with Ease Owyeung inspired David to begin looking for ways to get a job at ILM. After several tries he landed an internship at ILM working in the group that did amusement park rides (now defunct). He later moved over to the Art Department and eventually landed a full-time position as an assistant VFX Editor.

While at ILM David helped create a program that allowed employees to propose and make small independent projects. David went on to make a number of PSA for organizations like Swords to Plowshares. Others in the company made music videos, short films, spec commercials, and experimental art films. David worked at ILM for fifteen years.

His next job was working at Pixar for the next decade or so cutting trailers and marketing material for the company. David has continued to work as a freelance editor and creative for numerous clients. He also has been giving back through teaching and his work with the VES (Visual Effects Society).

David is an incredibly talented, kind, and thoughtful human. While he mentions others who helped him along the way, so many of the people I’ve talked to for this podcast mentioned David as having been critical to their successes. It was a pleasure to catch up with David and hear his inspiring story of creativity, tenacity, and generosity.

VFX Show 256: Black Widow

Mike Seymouruski, Jason Diamondetski, and Matt Wallinoffka form a dysfunctional family of Soviet super spies as we defy physics, logic, and character development in this week’s VFX Show discussing Marvel’s Black Widow. Listen for free online at FX Guide.