Mike Seymour, Jason Diamond, and Matt Wallin discuss the future of visual effects with the advent AI and machine learning tools. The medium is the massage. Listen for free on FX Guide.
Alia Agha
This week on 8111, Alia Agha!!!
Alia was born in Damascus, Syria. Just before the age of 2, her family fled Syria and moved to Lebanon. After a time there, they boarded a ship and travelled to Brazil where they lived with Alia's mother's family. A few years later they emigrated to the United States and moved to Anaheim, California.
Growing up Alia loved art and spent hours making models, drawing, sculpting, and watching movies. She attended an all girls school and continued making art and going to the cinema. Her and her friends loved silent films and even dressed up like their favorite movie stars.
After high school she went off to San Francisco State University where she studied studied Cinema. The expense of filmmaking was a challenge so she transferred to UC Berkeley and earned her undergraduate degree in writing with an interest in writing for film.
A chance meeting at a party led Alia to an opportunity to become the receptionist at Industrial Light & Magic. After a year at the front desk she moved to work as a production assistant on Back to the Future 3. After a few years she left and went to work at Skellington as a production coordinator on Nightmare Before Christmas. She returned to ILM after that project wrapped and worked on Star Trek: Generations and Wolf.
Alia later went to work as a rotoscoper on Congo, Twister and 101 Dalmatians before transitioning to work as a 3D camera matchmover on Mission: Impossible. She worked on numerous projects and then had the opportunity to go work on set for Galaxy Quest. She's worked as a matchmover for 29 years.
Today Alia lives in Portland and working on a project for Laika. Alia's family life story is incredible. She's a great storyteller and it was fantastic to have the opportunity to catch up with her.
VFX Show 267: The Pedro Pascaliverse - The Last of Us & The Mandalorian
Mike Seymour, Jason Diamond and Matt Wallin take a deep dive into the Pedro Pascaliverse. We talk about the visual effects in the HBO series “The Last of Us” as well as Disney’s “The Mandalorian” season 3. Listen for free on FX Guide.
Michaela Calanchini
This week on 8111, Michaela Calanchini Carter! Michaela was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the second youngest member of a huge family with seven brothers and sisters. Incredibly shy growing up, she found community playing soccer and a creative outlet in photography, which had been a hobby of her father’s.
She attended UC Santa Cruz where she studied fine art photography. She took a semester leave, travelling with a friend to Africa. It was a journey that wound up having a profound impact on her personal beliefs and world view. After a really cool senior show, Michaela graduated and travelled to Thailand.
Back home in the Bay Area she landed a job working for CP Shades in Sausalito. The company was expanding nationally and she traveled around the United States opening new locations and training employees. But her heart just wasn’t in the retail trade.
In 1996 Michaela jumped at the opportunity to work as a production assistant at ILM on 101 Dalmatians. She would go on to serve as a PA on Flubber and The Phantom Menace as part of the Knoll team. But after working on The Perfect Storm (ironically) she decided to move out of production and into a more creative discipline. With the kind and generous support of Jack Mongovan and Susan Kelly she transitioned to roto/paint. Michaela worked at ILM for fifteen years before leaving on disability after a long struggle with RSI.
Michaela and I discuss family, being a parent, work life balance, the importance of good friends, and the difficult pain of loss. Michaela is a fun, brilliant, and empathic person. It was fantastic to reconnect and hear about her journey through ILM to today.
Bruce Buckley
This week on 8111, Bruce Buckley. Bruce grew up in Toronto. As a kid, he loved going to the drive-in movies with his family. Art was a clear area of interest in childhood as he enjoyed drawing and making things out of plasticine.
Bruce attended Sheridan for college where he studied art fundamentals. His primary focus was photography, shooting both 35mm and 4x5. Commercial photography was exciting and he wound up doing lots of studio work and architectural photography.
After earning his degree, Bruce took a job with the Canadian government woking with microfilm. There he discovered computers and became curious about the possibilities of using them to make art. After nine years there Bruce returned to school to study technical illustration.
In 1987 he went to NAB where he met fellow Canadian Steve Williams who was at the conference presenting with Alias. This meeting eventually led to a job opportunity working for Alias support doing training for clients and traveling the world to places like Columbia, Korea, and Europe.
A phone call from John Berton in 1993 brought Bruce to ILM. At ILM he went to work right away on films including; Casper, Dragonheart, and Congo helping to develop systems and tools to make the artist’s work move seamless. In 1995 Bruce was headhunted away by Disney to come work on Dinosaur. Bruce’s credits include; Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, Monster House, Beowulf, Scott Pilgrim, Tree of Life, John Carter, Prometheus, Fate of the Furious, Kong: Skull Island, and Deadpool 2, to name just a few.
Today Bruce teaches at the NY Film Academy. It was great to get to chat with Bruce about his amazing career in the industry and hear his insights.
