Leading

Sort of big news to round out this week. There have been lots of changes happening here, and I've expressed interest in taking more of a supervisory role.

Due to several changes in personnel over the past weeks and in the near future, I've been given the chance to try my hand as a comp lead. I won't be giving up my regular compositing duties as of yet, but in addition, I will be assisting fellow compers in the daily activities that happen from show to show. I've become a comp lead in training, working with a good friend and coworker who is currently leading our Chevrolet commercials. He is slowly seguing out of leading here at Tippett and will be going to Blue Sky.

This is a huge step for me, and, oh so intimidating and exciting! On Ghost Ship it was fairly straightfoward. Just delegate responsibility and make sure the shots look good. That was ages ago, and I've learned a lot in the interim. It's going to be fun tackling this challenge! Of course, I hope to continue to update this blog on a regular basis, and contribute to the forums at VFXTalk!

For those of you reading that aren't familiar with what exactly a compositing lead is responsible for, here are some of the duties that I've seen previous and current leads undertake.

• Oversee and delegate shots to compositors based on experience and timeframe with the production department


• Create and coordinate look development with the VFX supervisor


• Coordinate with other departments (FX, TD, Anim, Film I/O, etc) to establish a pipeline with the show sequences


• Communicate problem areas with sequences to supervisors and production


• Introduce alternative or quicker techniques for finishing or creating a shot

I'm sure I'm missing some duties, which I will probably encounter! I'm definitely looking forward to this next step in the saga. I think a lot of my inspiration comes from the supervisors I have here at Tippett. Craig, Blair and Frank (the three dedicated supervisors I've had on the shows here so far), are great to work with, and for. All of these supervisors have backgrounds in other areas of visual effects, and working at a studio like Tippett greatly increases my proficiency in this field. I've talked about Craig and Blair's past before here on digitalGypsy, but just do a search on IMDB, and you'll find their past just as interesting as I did! At what other studio can you find ED-209 presiding over the shooting stage, or original Star Wars work strewn about the facility?