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Cymbal Monkey
Apr 16, 2009

Lift Your Little Paws Like Antennas to Heaven!
I've been DIYing for most of my 24 year life, I'm a pretty decent designer and I know my way around a machine shop decently well, I can weld stick, MIG and TIG, though I wouldn't consider myself a welder as I've welded on mostly flat surfaces and probably wouldn't pass a licensing test at this point. I've got experience in competitive robotics, too. I'm currently studying mechanical engineering but I'm kinda starting to feel the university path isn't for me, and I don't really wanna be desk-bound doing Solidworks and spreadsheets for the rest of my life, I want to be out there with sawzalls and welding torches getting my hands dirty and making incredibly cool and ridiculous things. For a very long time I've been super into the idea of doing practical effects in the film industry, but I kinda put that dream on the back burner in that era in the 2000nds when George Lucas convinced much of the industry that all you need to make a film is a render farm and a green screen, but that seems to be changing as directors realise that actually building and doing poo poo is both far more exciting and provides much better performances.

So anyways, with my somewhat limit background, is this something worth doing? Is this an industry you even can get into without sleeping with the director? Where do I go, what do I do? What's the pay like and what can I expect a career in practical effects to actually look like?

I have citizenship in both the US and UK, and am not really tied to either so moving around is easy.

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NeuroticErotica
Sep 9, 2003

Perform sex? Uh uh, I don't think I'm up to a performance, but I'll rehearse with you...

A mechanical engineering degree will help you out here. I definitely wouldn't leave school to pursue the entertainment business, that's for sure.

The best way to go about this (which you should do after you get your degree, I can't emphasize this enough, all those stories you hear about how difficult it is to "make it" in entertainment are holding back if anything) is to figure out which business you want to be in - I don't know much about the UK film buisness, but you'd have to live in London. If you want to be in America you have LA, NY, or ATL - Atlanta because of the Georgia state tax incentives that promote the use of local hires. Most of the things you watch on TV has a "Made in Georgia" tag at the end because the crews are good, and the incentive makes it cheap.

Each of these has their pros and cons - In ATL you'll get work a lot more quickly, and probably a lot more individual gigs because you'll be somebody who makes something that the production designer from LA didn't make, felt it would cost too much to ship, etc. A lot of short quicky jobs. Maybe a few gigs that last a few weeks, but you'll be searching a lot for work, and there will be some long dry spells. Cost of living in Atlanta is not too bad, the city is pretty fun, but the incentives could quickly dry up like they did in Michigan and Iowa, and you'll soon find yourself having to move to the next hotbed state.

LA and NY - these are the main centers of production. LA is more film based, NY more television. The lifestyles are completely different, both are expensive, and both are competitive as can be. You'll get your throat cut for the smallest of jobs by your best friends in the business. And you'll still be friends with those who do it. You'll harbor the grudge, though. Getting started will give you more opportunities to be with effect houses where you can intern, volunteer labor, etc. in hopes of getting on. No guarantees.

Two ways to get in: Find a effects company that does the work that you want to be doing. Intern for them. Do grunt work. Do bad jobs. Be underpaid, overworked, and removed from the rest of the world. Listen to their complaints. Eventually if you do good work, you may find yourself working for them, specializing in something, or just in general construction. You won't be paid what you think you're worth, but this is what success looks like. The other way is to link up with a lot of low-to-no budget filmmakers (used to be these would be people at the beginning of their careers, but movie budgets have shifted so much this is basically anyone, now) and do their effects for little-to-no money. Often this will cost you money. You need to build a portfolio, both of things you have made, but these things appearing in movies. Hopefully ones that people see. Hopefully you do a good job and people want to hire you. None of this is guaranteed.

Doing things practical is nice, but expensive, and time consuming. Your most valuable asset will be working quickly, and your effects working every time. People love to complain about CG bullet hits and talk about how they miss people using squibs. Squibs never loving work. Lot of the time you see a squib go off in a movie and the performance is bad is because they've been shooting that scene for two hours and the squibs have never worked, everyone but the director and effects have given up, but they keep running it back.

If you can work fast and decently, you may be ok. This is a hard area to predict where it's going in the film business because there are stalwarts holding to the ideas of practicality. Fans complain about things like CG blood, but they don't realize how much of the blood they think is practical actually isn't. Film budgets are plummeting, and a lot of productions can't afford to do builds anymore. There's some directors leading the charge on practicals, sure, but often it's the budget and the producers deciding to send it to a render far in India instead. If I were you, I'd start reaching out to people who do this on facebook and twitter. They get hit up some, but not that much. Usually it's people looking for freebies. They love to talk about this stuff. Hit them up and gauge where they feel this business is going.

Like I said, it's not something I would leave a viable degree for.

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