

The Allan McKay Podcast
Emmy Award Winner | Speaker | Mentor | Visual Effects Expert
Allan McKay is an award winning Visual Effects Supervisor and Technical Director in Hollywood - join Allan as he interviews many of the leading experts in Hollywood about their careers, pitfalls and what they took to succeed, while also gaining a lot of core knowledge to help build your career, money and success and skills to make the biggest impact in your career AND in your life!
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 26, 2015 • 1h 37min
037 - VFX Roundtable - Sol Rogers, Chad Wanstreet and Hnedel Maximore
This is by far the most random episode on the podcast so far! As Chad, Hnedel, Sol and Allan gather together over a few beers and do a free for all discussing a lot to do with the industry, film, virtual reality as well as process, pipeline and people. Lots of great insight, as we progressively get drunker and drunker!
show notes at http://www.allanmckay.com/37

May 19, 2015 • 2h 5min
036 - Fred Ruff - What it takes to create your own tv show for animal planet?
Fred Ruff has been well known in the industry for his vast contributions for over 20 years working originally for Autodesk as a Max product manager and having influenced many areas of Max including the design of Particle Flow - Fred is a VFX Supervisor at Refuge VFX supervising the hit tv show Grimm.
In this episode we discuss a lot of the history of CG, software slamming and the timeline of max and other software tools, studio pipelines and vfx as a business - but we also focus a lot on Medieval Monster's - the new tv show for Animal Planet that Fred is executive producing and also the creator of.
We all have those long tail goals of wanting to make something of our own, and to all of us seeing 3D artists who grow into taking charge and creating their own property's and going after their big goals, this can be inspiring for all of us to see and understand the journey and see how this applies to our own careers.
This episode focuses on an artist going into the industry to launching his own studio and then creating their own tv show content and productions at their vfx facility. Really amazing and insightful, check it out!
Visit the shownotes at http://www.allanmckay.com/36/

May 11, 2015 • 2h 15min
035 - Launching your own VFX Studio
This episode we dive right into what it takes to launch your own studio. Such a big subject and so much to cover - if you want to know more go to http://www.allanmckay.com/35/ leave a comment #Iwanttoknowmore! and I will gladly put together a step by step episode series on the business strategy and steps necessary involved in launching a visual effects studio!

May 6, 2015 • 1h 2min
034 - The Importance of Finding Mentors
This episode is all about how impactful having mentors or experts in your life can be, and modeling those you idolize or see as successful. The key is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and find those that are able to push you and inspire you as well.
This isn't about finding 'the one' mentor but finding mentors for every part of your life and for those areas that you are going through in your life 'right now'.
Learning to ask for help and how to actually go about it, and identifying experts that are in a position to help you, and how you can truly benefit from them.
One of the most important things you are probably neglecting is not idenifying people and seeking them out to mentor you and push you to greatness.

Apr 27, 2015 • 1h 46min
033 - Studio Insight - Rising Sun Pictures
This episode is truly epic - Rising Sun Pictures has been around for 20 years working on many of the leading visual effecs films.
Speaking with Marcus Wells and Kirsty Parkin in the Training Department at RSP about their new graduate program, and future education and internships at RSP. As well as the production of many of their films - AND working overseas, diving in-depth into the visa processes and how to increase your opportunities of working for many visual effects studios. I give some of my own insight too into being proactive with this process.
Lastly we take a look at the life of a job application, from first being received and where it goes from there - who reviews it all the way through to final interview and the applicant being hired. REALLY INSIGHTFUL.
This is a really great episode I thoroughly recommend checking out, especially if you want to work overseas!
http://www.rsp.com.au
http://rsp.com.au/jobs/apply-faq/visas/
http://flinders.rsp.com.au/
http://rsp.com.au/jobs/training/getting-started-in-vfx/
http://rsp.com.au/jobs/training/training-at-rsp/
LA Drinks!! http://www.allanmckay.com/drinks/
VIP Insiders List! http://www.allanmckay.com/inside/

Apr 20, 2015 • 1h 19min
032 - Becoming a LinkedIn Ninja
LinkedIn is the number one job finding and networking resource on the web! YET it's not optimized for artist use - it's optimized typically for more corporate, and start up jobs and long form productions. The typical approach to finding work with LinkedIn typically will not apply to Designers, Game Developers, TV and Feature Film Visual effects.
I strongly believe LinkedIn is a AWESOME and POWERFUL weapon but you need to know how to use it. This episode we cover how to hack your ranking and get it up there, shift your positioning within LinkedIn searches and typically build a solid profile that is going to allow you to anchor the types of contacts you want for future work.
This episode just touches the surface as there is far more we WILL be diving into at a later date but the most important steps to take first before the advanced tactics come, start with the foundation...
Let me know what you think I would love to hear your feedback!
For more information and show notes go to http://www.allanmckay.com/32/

Apr 14, 2015 • 1h 21min
031 - Killer tools to help you get s!#% _DONE_!
By far the most different episode I have made to date. Rather than focusing on interviewing artists or on core ways to build up your career. I wanted to share some of the tools _I_ use in production or day to day that are pivotal to getting things done.
There are some very useful email tools that really go above and beyond that I highly recommend, and many other tools and insights.
Going with the trend of doing something not done on this podcast so far - you can also go through this episode as a VIDEO by going to the link http://www.allanmckay.com/31download/ to view the video and watch as I go through everything in the podcast on screen and demonstrate how I use these tools.
Furthermore I want to know what tools YOU use. Visit http://www.allanmckay.com/31/ to share in the comments what tools you find to be useful or critical to your day to day work! I would love to hear from you on this - maybe there's some tools I don't know about that might help me be more productive!
Visit http://www.allanmckay.com/31/ for more show notes and http://www.allanmckay.com/31download/ to watch the video.

Apr 6, 2015 • 1h 58min
030 - Dan Roarty - Character Artist
Dan's background working in video games on projects ranging from Star Wars 1313 to Tomb Raider to Gears of War to many other iconic projects as well as high profile studios such as Lucas Arts.
What makes Dan stand out is his phenomenally realistic character work, many of his pieces have received much acclaim, awards and can be seen in magazines worldwide. If you've followed Episode 28, interviewing Christopher Nichols of the Digital Human League, Dan is also a member of this and both have collaborated on the high profile 'The Newyorker' digital human piece.
This episode we dive into Dan's process - discussing what it takes to make characters photoreal, as well as his habits, his process and giving much insight into his background as an artist. We also discuss in great depth work visas and working in other countries, as well as many other exciting subjects!
For more information and shownotes visit http://www.allanmckay.com/30/

Mar 30, 2015 • 1h 25min
029 - Andrew Kramer - Video Copilot
As the host of over 160 tutorials and creator of title sequences for tv's Fringe and the film Star Trek, Andrew Kramer has participated in many forms of production: from visual effects artist, to directing commercials and promos. His website Video Copilot has been a progressive force in the visual effects industry, with his upbeat training style and innovative plug-ins. As a freelance artist and web designer at age 20, Andrew began to work on the Video Copilot website from his apartment in Southern California. The website started with a single product and a handful of short After Effects tutorials that were featured on the Creative Cow community. His unusual training style and off-beat humor intrigued viewers by showing them powerful techniques for visual effects that were detailed and also entertaining. The site’s online presence has also led to collaborations for Andrew to work with major companies and even the unique opportunity to work with Director J.J. Abrams on film & tv Projects. Video Copilot has since published over 40 hours of training and has over a dozen professional products and plug-ins used by creative professionals around the world. Andrew continues to work in the film industry in addition to publishing new, exciting products and tutorials for the growing motion graphics and visual effects community. In this Podcast, Andrew talks about what inspired him to launch Video Copilot, his experience working with J.J. Abrams, as well as gives advice on the most important skills when starting out as a VFX artist. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/29/.

Mar 19, 2015 • 2h 21min
028 - Christopher Nichols - Chaos Group
Christopher Nichols has an impressive resume of working for many of the leading studios, from The Day After Tomorrow, I, Robot, Stealth, Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, Maleficent and The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo to photo real cars and photo real humans.
Chris works with Chaos Group - the developers of V-Ray as one of the main people behind Chaos Group Labs, an experimental outpost based in Los Angeles. Where Chris has been involved with many high profile projects and pushing tech in new directions, being involved in projects ranging from the upcoming 'Construct' short film to photoreal human projects - there's such a wide range of subjects covered in this episode from getting a job in the industry to what it takes to make things photoreal, to more the backstory of so many really 'really' cool projects - check it out!
http://www.allanmckay.com/28/
CG Garage Podcast: https://labs.chaosgroup.com/index.php/category/cg-garage-podcast/
Chaos Group Labs: https://labs.chaosgroup.com
Pixel Perfect Article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/pixel-perfect-2
Construct Teaser: https://vimeo.com/90509568
Christopher Nichols website: http://www.redeyetales.com/
V-Ray in Real Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9rgG2vPAvQ