This week, Chris meets Nathan Millsap, a humble but hugely enthusiastic CG generalist. Nathan’s career began as a “render monkey” for Chris at Sway, and since then he’s gone on to work at 19 effects studios on movies including 2012, Avatar, and Transformers: Age of Extinction. Today, Nathan is working on TV series for prestigious LA studio, GhostVFX.
In this podcast, Nathan talks through his life and career so far, from how Toy Story inspired him to pursue VFX, to his early days at Sway, moving to Singapore to fix shots on Transformers: Age of Extinction, and then returning to LA to raise his family. He gives his thoughts on why TV is taking over from theaters, talks about his favorite projects, and shares tales of working with directors including Roland Emmerich and Joe Kosinski.
Links:
Chapters:
5:25 Introducing Nathan
9:46 Thoughts on education
17:10 Working at Uncharted Territory
20:59 Frantic Films for “Avatar” and “The Tree of Life”
26:59 Moving to ILM in Singapore
33:14 Life on the other side of the planet
36:14 Current role at GhostVFX
43:22 The pros and cons of working from home
51:25 Time requirements
59:19 How streaming is taking over
1:06:11 Nathan’s favorite movie
Chris is a CG industry veteran and Director of Chaos Labs. He can also be heard regularly as the host of the CG Garage podcast which attracts 20,000 weekly listeners. With a background in both VFX and Design, Chris has worked for Gensler, Digital Domain, Imageworks and Method Studios. His credits include Maleficent, Oblivion and Tron: Legacy.