The Allan Mckay Podcast

The intense drama and riveting action in the newest primetime CBS hit series FIRE COUNTRY is accompanied by spectacular firestorms: The work of visual effects leaders CBS VFX which was selected by producers to create the namesake infernos and deliver other critical visual effects for the most watched new network series of the season. Led by VFX Supervisor Colin Strause, whose career includes such big-screen blockbusters as RAMPAGE, SAN ANDREAS and THE AVENGERS, CBS VFX brings together a visual effects crew of more than 100 people to deliver as many as 135 effects shots in every episode of the series from Jerry Bruckheimer Productions and CBS Studios. To make fire into a palpable antagonist in the series and to showcase the many different and terrifying forms that fire can take, the work from CBS VFX incorporates multiple elements, sometimes including actual pyrotechnics that were filmed on set in highly controlled circumstances. Although the series is set in Northern California, it is shot in British Columbia

Ash Thorp is a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, and creative director for a multitude of media, including feature films, commercial enterprises, and print. Most recently, Ash worked on the concept for the Batmobile and the Batcycle, for the 2022 film The Batman directed by Matt Reeves.  Previously, Ash has worked on graphics for Ender’s Game and Total Recall, as well as contributed to the design concepts for Spectre, Prometheus, X-Men First Class, Call of Duty and others. His first directorial debut started with the assembly of an international team for his Ghost in the Shell tribute, as well as the main title for OFFF Barcelona 2014. In 2015, he was requested to assemble an international team of designers and create the title sequence for FITC Tokyo. Later that year, Ash co-directed “Ares — Our Greatest Adventure”, a promotional trailer for the feature film The Martian. Allan McKay is an Emmy Award winning VFX Supervisor and Technical Director. He is responsible for many visual effects sequences includ

William Faucher is a 3D Artist, Unreal Engine Educator, CG Spectrum Mentor and a successful YouTuber. He is a deaf 3D Generalist who’s been working in the entertainment industry for the past 14 years. Some of his titles include VFX / CGI shots in Marvel's Black Panther and HBO's Watchmen.  He created his YouTube Channel over 2 years ago and it currently has over 165K subscribers.  In this Podcast, 3D Artist, YouTuber and Unreal Engine Educator William Faucher talks about his journey of in VFX and Unreal, as well as gives advice to artists about the importance of being a generalist, learning new skills, embracing one’s soft skills, and knowing how to take criticism. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/399.

Pindar Van Arman is an award-winning AI Artist who builds, codes and experiments with robots that paint in a variety of styles. Pindar was a winner of the Robot Art Competition for his home-made robots that use AI to paint artworks. He is best known for his robotic art project Cloud Painter, a sophisticated robot painter highlighted in videos below. Van Arman’s exploration into robot art began by following his curiosity, attempting to answer the question: Where does creativity come from? To try to understand this universal question, he dissects his own artistic process and teaches robots to paint. Van Arman’s impressive and award-winning works include CloudPainter, an autonomous robot that anyone with an Internet connection can control to produce artworks. He has been featured in many interviews, TV episodes, and conferences.  In this Podcast, AI Artist Pindar Van Arman talks about his journey into AI art, the disruption of AI, singularity and the future of AI, the definition of “art” and where AI art and NFT

When it comes to job interviews, the number one thing to think about is putting yourself in the interviewer’s shoes. The more you can think like them – the pain points they may have, their wants and needs – the more you are in tune with what they’re thinking. It’s all about understanding their needs and alignment. By understanding what they want, you’re able to be the best fit. Going for an interview is a chance to stand out, beyond your reel. A great interview is when you’re moving into the rates and start dates. It’s a chance for you to excel above everyone else. The interviewer will have a preconceived idea of who you are. They will look at your social media as well. So you can use this as an opportunity to put out more pictures of yourself at work. One of the things that artists mishandle is asking good questions. If you blend in, you become forgettable. Figure out a way to be yourself but also how to stand out. What is your angle? What do you want to be remembered for? Also, think about speaking to them

Important Looking Pirates (ILP) is a visual effects and digital animation studio located in central Stockholm founded in 2007 by Niklas Jacobson, Yafei Wu, Carl Hermelin and Eric Hermelin. The studio has more than 200 artists and have worked on big titles like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; and series like Westworld, The Mandalorian, Stranger Things, Lost in Space. ILP was nominated for a number of Emmys for their work on Stranger Things and Lost in Space. In this Episode, Co-Founder of Important Looking Pirates Niklas Jacobson talks about the origins of ILP (and its title), their work on Star Wars, Lost in Space and Stranger Things; as well as gives advice on how to stand out as an artist or a company, mindset of a studio owner, and the most important asset of a VFX studio. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/396.

Sir Wade Neistadt is a Freelance Animator, VFX Artist and YouTube Creator. Currently, his YouTube Channel has over 205K followers. In 2014, after his short film about a sick superhero brought him to the Cannes Film Festival, he completed Animation Mentor's Character Animation Program and got immediately hired at DreamWorks Animation as a Technical Trainer / Educator. Two years later, he left the studio to travel, work freelance and build his YouTube Channel. Sir Wade had taught over 50 classes across our pipeline ranging from proprietary software for animation, layout, and lighting, to third-party tools such as Maya, Mari, Substance, After Effects, Nuke, etc. In this Podcast, Allan McKay interviews YouTuber and Freelance Animator Sir Wade Neistadt about his journey from an animation school to the Cannes Film Festival, his first job at Dreamworks, launching his YouTube Channel – as well as skills artists need to launch their careers. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/395.

Christopher Zammit is a VFX Supervisor and Art Director. He’s worked on many films like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Tomorrowland, Ghostbusters, and of course films in the Transformers franchise Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight.  In this Podcast, VFX Supervisor and Art Director Christopher Zammit about his work on TOP GUN: MAVERICK, THE BOYS, GHOSTBUSTERS, THE THING, GODZILLA; as well as how to make production constraints work in your favor as a VFX Artist. For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/394.

It is amazing how far Artificial Intelligence has progressed just in the last year! No one could’ve predicted the speed of this innovation. A lot of artists are now worried about being replaced with machine learning. While AI can automate and speed things up, it is still up to us as artists to know how to use it as an extension of their ability. Before, we couldn’t talk to computers. We could only program computers via 1’s and 0’s. When GPTs came along, we started communicating with a computer and giving AI commands. AI is also able to read the internet and interpret the data it consumes. It knows that it also has to fail in order to succeed. Eventually, it will perform the task correctly. That alone changes the playing field!  But what does that mean for artists? We used to think AI would be assigned repetitive tasks. But now AI is able to create art using the style of another artist. Things like that disrupt the industry. It’s a threatening time for a lot of artists. With the advent of Stable Diffusion, Mid

Respeecher uses deep learning (AI) techniques to produce high quality synthetic speech.  The company was launched in 2018 by Alex Serdiuk, Dmytro Bielievtsov and Grant Reaber. In March 2020, Respeecher received $1.5 million in startup funding from ff Venture Capital, Acrobator Ventures, ICU Ventures, Network VC, and several angel investors. A year later, the company launched the beta of Voice Marketplace, a democratized version of Respeecher’s tech available for small creators. In September 2021, Respeecher was awarded with an Emmy for their work on In Event of Moon Disaster. Since then, the team at Respeecher has worked on the following projects: The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian (synthetic voice of young Luke Skywalker), Aloe Blacc’s tribute to Avicii (cross-lingual Avicii’s singing voice cloning), collaborated with 72andSunny, NFL, Digital Domain on the Super Bowl commercial (voice of Vince Lombardi / 2.1B impressions), Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi Series. In February 2022, Respeecher team, most of whic

The mission of Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ) is to deliver feature-film quality visual effects on television timelines by harnessing GPU clusters, game engine technology, AI and senior industry talent. Leveraging these pillars allows us to consistently execute with both speed and quality for our premium television projects. Lon Molnar is the Co-President of MARZ. With more than 20 years of experience, Lon has contributed a vast amount of visual effects to film and television as an Artist, VFX Supervisor, and former CEO of the award winning VFX company Intelligent Creatures. Inspired by the magic of TOY STORY, Lon attended the Vancouver Film School with the single goal of opening up his own VFX studio. As he built his resume, he became dissatisfied with working on VFX for tv, and set his sights on feature films. He became a VFX generalist, working in animation, lighting, compositing and modelling, while using a vast array of software.  After serving as the CG Supervisor on the groundbreaking films CHIC

Stability AI is the company behind Stable Diffusion, a powerful, free and open-source text-to-image generator that launched in August 2022. Since launching, Stable Diffusion has been downloaded and licensed by more than 200,000 developers globally. Stability AI's consumer-facing product DreamStudio quickly grew to well over a million registered users from more than 50 countries who collectively have created more than 170 million images. Headquartered in London with developers distributed across the globe, Stability AI was founded by Emad Mostaque as the first open-source, artificial intelligence (AI) company developing breakthrough technologies for the benefit of humanity and the world.  In this Podcast, Creative Director for Stability AI Bill Cusick talks about the creative vision behind Stable Diffusion and its potential application in art and filmmaking, the meaning of AI in the history of humanity; and why artists should get excited about the existence of AI art (instead of viewing it as competition)! For

The most commonly asked questions that get asked are:  “Should I go to school to study VFX?”  “Should I study online?”  “What school / online community should I join?” Attending a school is a more traditional way of learning. However, because of the speed at which technology is changing, school is not always the best route. Throughout the history of this Podcast, Allan has interviewed many artists and VFX supervisors and they attest that: Learning on the job — is the best and the fastest route to learn! The biggest myth in VFX is that you need a diploma in order to get a job. But in reality, the most important thing in getting hired is knowing that you can do that job, even if you were to get hired tomorrow. The only place where a diploma actually matters is when you’re applying for a work visa in a different country. Otherwise, the most important tool in getting hired – is your REEL! If you spend 4 years at a college, you could've spent that time getting experience in the industry. In addition, the price t

Brendan Kane is the Bestselling Author of ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS: HOW I BUILD A MASSIVE SOCIAL AUDIENCE IN 30 DAYS and HOOK POINT: HOW TO STAND OUT IN A 3-SECOND WORLD, as well as the Founder and Managing Director of Hook Point. Since 2005, Brendan has helped the largest brands and celebrities in the world to reverse engineer how to make content go viral. He has worked with major corporations MTV, Viacom, Vice Magazine, Paramount Pictures, IKEA and Sketchers shoes on their digital strategy, as well as celebrities like Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Adriana Lima. In addition, he developed the first ever influencer campaign on YouTube in 2007; oversaw $200 million in marketing spend and generated $1 billion in revenue. In this Podcast, Bestselling Author of ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS Brendan Kane talks about how-to’s of creating content that serves your viewers – and the algorithm, maximizing your followers’ engagement, content vs context, chaos as part of the creative process and so much more! For more show notes, visit

Perfectionism holds artists back. It gets the best of us, both junior and senior artists like. It’s part of the inability to manage ourselves.  It also ends up costing more: You’re spending so much time on the project, you burn through the budget. You end up paying the client for the privilege of working on their project. There is a famous quote from Leonardo da Vinci, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” But if you’re creating art as a business, you need to know when enough is enough. You’re the one who has to give yourself the constraints. Your goal is to create the best work within those constraints. All of this can be avoided if you: Track your time; and Have a clear target of what you aim to deliver.  Failure is also part of the process. It helps you identify the dead ends in the process and to avoid them. But the ego sometimes gets in the way and forces you to avoid admitting defeat. In addition, if you do your art every day – like Goro Fujita or Beeple (see links below) – you can see your progres

Chris Bailey is a Productivity Expert and the bestselling Author of two books about productivity: The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction. Chris writes about productivity at www.alifeofproductivity.com and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive, without hating the process. Chris was born in Red Deer, Alberta and raised in Ontario, Canada. He first became interested in productivity in high school after reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done. He graduated from the Sprott Business School of Business in 2013. After college, he started researching productivity and conducting experiments, while documenting his experiences on this blog A Year of Productivity. Insights and strategies learned from these experiments were compiled into his 2016 book The Productivity Project. His second book Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction was released in August 2018. Most recently, Chris wrote his third book

We all have doubts if we’re on the right path. Being an artist requires a lot of patience, perseverance and skill. In addition, we have to continue learning and innovating.  There is this inner voice that asks, “Am I investing my time into something that’s going to pay off?” It weighs on you. It doesn’t help when we have people around us, telling us to give up. There is so much negativity on the internet – and on social media – as well, and it’s hard to weed out that noise. Everyone is opinionated and not everyone knows what they’re talking about. It makes us double guess our path and sometimes even give up! It’s tough to keep going when you’re alone. The best thing is to find our circle: A group of people excited about our one thing. If you’re an artist, you need to have people who support you and lift you up. You have to find your community. There is a concept of something called “monk mode”: It’s about eliminating the noise and getting focused. Get focused and surround yourself with people who help you ris

Tim Miller is a Film Director, Animator, Creative Director and VFX Artist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the work on his short film Gopher Broke. He made his directing debut with Deadpool. He is also known for creating opening sequences for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Thor: The Dark World. In 1995, Tim co-founded Blur Studio with David Stinnett and Cat Chapman. Blur is where animators and artists can collaborate and be in control of their creative destinities. Since then, the Studio has evolved into an award-winning production company with work spanning the realms of game cinematics, commercials, feature films and more. Committed to their clients, artists and to the telling of great stories, Blur continues to grow not only as a high-end animation studio, but also as original content creators, having recently helmed Netflix’s first animated anthology Love Death + Robots. In this Podcast, Allan McKay deconstructs his interview with Film Director and Co-Founder o

AI is exploding everywhere. There are so many technological innovations that use AI in visual effects. You might be already following the massive growth of AI. For VFX artists, the question is: Is AI taking over the art world? Will art be replaced by AI? Are artists’ careers over? In 2010, deep learning changed everything. AI became the revolutionary thing we can utilize. But the big part of preventing AI growth was processing power and storage. With technological innovations, we’re beginning to experience AI for the first time. How exciting it is to be alive right now!  Machine learning is feeding machine information. With machine learning, the more AI gets corrected, the more it can learn on its own. The disadvantage is that it does take some hand holding to teach AI, in the beginning. There is different machine learning based on neural networks. It thinks similarly to the human brain, it analyzes every little detail. With deep learning, we tell what we want it to do – and the AI figures out how to get th

ActionVFX is a website that provides stock footage for visual effects, from smoke plumes to fire, from sparks to explosions. Before the company was launched in 2016, its CEO Rodolphe Pierre-Louis, along with Joe Camarata (Marketing Manager) and Luke Thompson (COO and Co-Owner) conducted an extensive survey among visual effects artists, which determined the type of files the site would contain and its content. After only a year, ActionVFX’s footage has been used in television shows like Flash, Fear of the Walking Dead, Legends of Tomorrow, How to Get Away with Murder, Narcos, Series of Unfortunate Events; as well as in video games, music videos and the live Lady Gaga performance at this year’s Grammys.  In this Episode, ActionVFX CEO Rodolphe Pierre-Louis and COO / Co-Owner Luke Thompson talk about launching the company, the lessons they learned along the way, upcoming technology and the importance of consistent learning, willingness to fail fast, leadership advice and so much more! For more show notes, visit