EDUCATIONAL. interview with. Nicholas Boughen, Senior Education Administrator CG MASTERS SCHOOL OF 3D ANIMATION & VISUAL EFFECTS

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1 EDUCATIONAL Spotlight interview with Nicholas Boughen, Senior Education Administrator CG MASTERS SCHOOL OF 3D ANIMATION & VISUAL EFFECTS

2 is a new school with a unique approach to digital media training. What makes it different from other schools, and what new technologies are students being taught to ensure they are industry ready such as 3D printing, RED camera, and Motion Capture? Tell us about CG Masters and what sets you apart from other 3D and VFX schools. CG Masters trains digital artists for a realistic chance at an entry level job in digital visual effects and animation. There is little point teaching 3D printing, RED camera, VFX Makeup, practical or optical /in-camera effects, VFX supervision or many of the other courses offered at many institutions. We know our graduates will not land jobs in these areas so we prefer to focus our precious study hours developing excellence in tools and techniques our graduates are likely to actually need in their first jobs.

3 Working together as a team, understanding personal and team workflow and hierarchy, mastering task estimation, planning and execution, problem solving, knowing how, when and where to communicate issues, and peer and self-critique are essential for the training we provide. We also emphasize composition and design, observing the nature of visual reality, human factors such as ergonomics, health and fatigue, motivation and exhaustion, how to survive in a culture of crisis and the hundreds of other daily personal, technical and aesthetic skills. This is the real cutting edge of digital arts training and in all these areas CG Masters leads the way. What tools and techniques do you teach? We teach industry standard or cutting edge tools such as Nuke, Maya, Houdini, V-Ray and Mari. V-Ray is a particularly good tool offering not only physical rendering but an intuitive, artist-friendly interface that makes it easy to create spectacular renders. But real success isn t about the shiny lights and fancy software. It is relatively easy to learn a new tool once you know one or two others, and schools cannot possibly anticipate nor teach every potential tool a graduate might face. The real meat of training is in production practice and philosophy. Learning how to approach a new tool and working it into our toolset is what we do. Schools should not just be teaching software. Learning to use a hammer does not teach you how to build a house.

4 Nicholas Boughen, Senior Education Administrator

5 How does CG Masters help students land a job in such a volatile job market? First of all, we don t see the job market as that volatile worldwide. It is true that business models are changing and many huge, corporate entities are being replaced by smaller, more flexible and less costly boutique studios. Some specific markets are suffering due to the globalization of the industry, which is unfortunate, but a natural progression. This transformation is resulting in the perception of a volatile job market worldwide when this is not the case everywhere. Many markets are extremely strong. Worldwide demand continues to grow for well-trained digital artists. More movies are being made than ever. Exponentially more movies use animation and digital effects than ever. The big problem is that the experienced artists are getting spread thin as the training industry fails to fill the growing demand. So the overall quality of digital animation and effects is dropping. There is no shortage of jobs for people who know what they are doing. The key is well-trained. CG Masters was specifically designed to fill a big gap in the animation and digital effects training industry. Nearly every school will teach you software skills, but little or no practical production-line skills. Our school has been designed and built by industry veterans who know what production artists need to succeed. What s needed is far, far more than how to model, rig, animate and do 3-point lighting in Maya. So the single, most effective decision we have made is to train artists to a film studio production level, with a broad production skill base; not merely to teach some tools, some irrelevant skills and then leave them to make a demo reel at their workstation.

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7 Tell us more about the lecturers at CG Masters. Every faculty member at CG Masters is a professional mentor/supervisor or senior digital artist currently working in the industry. Most of our Masters have been in the industry 10 years or longer, meaning they were probably among the first 50 digital artists in town. They have been through it all, seen it all and done it all. They know what makes a great artist. So every student is exposed to job opportunities every single class as they show off their skills and commitment. Our faculty collectively know most of the recruiters and digital artists in town, which makes it easy for us to hook up a talented, motivated student with a potential employer. We recently put two hotshot first-semester students into professional practicums during spring break and came out with two job offers for when they graduate. We also bring in industry luminaries to speak at CG Masters. Recently, we invited Warren Franklin, past General Manager of Industrial Light & Magic and President of the Vancouver Visual Effects Society to come speak to us about his career and what it was like to be making pictures in the days of Star Wars V and IV, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. Star Trek II and III and so many others. These talks excite and inspire our students to do better and reach for higher goals. We could hardly ask for more than that. After all, Passion Drives Excellence. So how do we help students land a job? By making them well trained and highly-prized. It is about far more than just learning software. Photo by Dan Dickheiser

8 Why did you choose to teach V-Ray at CG Masters? One of the biggest challenges in lighting and shading is deciphering cryptic attribute names and wielding poorly designed, barely functional lighting and shading tools. Most lighting/shading tools are loaded with engineering or physics terminology that is meaningless to digital artists. This results in frustration and failure for the end-user. Chaos Group software developers obviously understand the need for a toolset that more precisely represents real lighting and real materials and presents them in a way that is intuitive, easy to use and easy to understand. Artist workflow can be significantly enhanced through this tool, resulting in less expensive visual effects and better quality. For example, Chaos group chose not to disable natural properties of lights such as decay and shadows by default. They chose not to include physically impossible lights like point, spot and line lights. These choices mean that when an artist places a V-Ray light into a scene it just works and looks great. We also love the V-Ray Physical Camera. It is wonderful to find a virtual camera tool that actually deals with exposure and other physical properties that don t exist in other cameras. This enables artists to light within a natural, physical range rather than trying to jam everything down into 8 bits. If it s too bright, we don t turn down the lights, we simply re-expose, just as we would if we were holding a camera. It s pretty tough to turn down the intensity of the sun.

9 How would you describe the role of V-Ray for CG Masters student teams? V-Ray is one of our main render tools and students make extensive use of it during their training. Our Master Lighting/Shading instructor Nicholas Boughen is one of the most experienced, talented lighting gurus in the world. He teaches our students in their first semester how easy it is to create photoreal CG elements rendered in V-Ray. As a modern, physical tool, it is compared and contrasted with other modern, physical tools to give students a broader understanding of the nature of all renderers. Different projects will use different renderers to ensure students have a clear enough understanding of the bridging principles so they will be able to decipher any shading, lighting or rendering tool and understand the intentions of the coder who wrote it. We also appreciate the very quick response we receive to any customer service issues we may have, whether it is a feature request, a licensing issue or providing us with a personalized webinar for our students and guests. We see V-Ray as continuing to play a major role in our production training environment.

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11 Why did you choose to attend CG Masters, and what sets it apart from other institutions? Sherryl Morgan: I decided to attend CG Masters because I wanted to learn from some of the best in the industry. I believe it made a big difference. Not only do the instructors have industry experience they are still in the industry as they are teaching us. We can actually call our instructors experts because they have worked on and still are working on many movies. I researched schools and found that many of the experienced instructors at other schools have worked on only one or two productions. Or there are recent graduates instructing their students without any real production under their belts. I wanted more and wanted the best. Researching the school, their mission for their students and the future of this industry was something that helped me make my mind up to attend. I feel like I have a great opportunity to take advantage of my instructors, learning their workflows and how they do things day to day in this industry. I love how they come in and tell us how they solved a problem that day at work or how they can t wait to go into work the next day to see how awesome their simulations turn out. I also find that we are being prepared with a different knowledge, not only skillsets, but real experiences, hearing them come in and telling us how rough the week was or how awesome things turned out because of the extra push their team made that week, it just helps to see what we are getting ourselves into. Sherryl Morgan

12 Nicolo Barco: When I first arrived in Vancouver from Italy, I thought I was skilled enough to start working in the CG industry. When I realized I lacked in some skills I started looking for a school that could fill the gaps and help me in finding a job as soon as I graduated. Following the advice of some friends, I started searching for a program that involves the software Houdini, that s how I got to know the school. I had a very good feeling about CG Masters because after an interview with Nicholas and Vickie, they really gave me the idea that the final goal of the school is forming professional skills, and not only artists that know a software tool. Nicolo Barco

13 Kevin Mitchell: Why did you choose to study at CG Masters Academy? I chose CG Masters Academy for multiple reasons. I whole heartedly believe in their main philosophy that passion drives excellence. With the right focus, ambition and dedication, anything is obtainable. CG Masters is designed to help you reach your maximum potential and this is readily apparent from the curriculum to the Master Instructors. I also truly believe if you want to be the best, there s no better way of reaching that goal than learning from the best. What sets CG Masters Academy apart from other training institutions? Each instructor is a master at their craft. I haven t seen any other school with a similar quality level of instructors. They are industry gurus and are still currently working in a production environment on a daily basis. This fact alone is assurance enough that students are taught current, production proven techniques. What other facility can boast the same? Kevin Mitchell

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