Introduce Yourself : Changing the way Visual Effects is taught. by Nicholas Boughen

Hello Everyone. My name is Nicholas Boughen. I have been 34 years in the entertainment industry, beginning long ago as a musician, then training and then working for years as a theatrical scenic and lighting designer and, once 3D Software became available, moving into Film & TV visual effects. I spent 15 years as a vfx generalist artist specializing in lighting and shading and I spent 8 years as a VFX supervisor, executing projects, recruiting and training VFX teams and teaching VFX at local colleges and universities part time. Over time I realized that nearly all college/university training in animation & VFX is theoretical and does not properly prepare students for a job. This "process-based" training (a list of courses followed by a list of grades) dominates the education culture today, but does not provide practical skills. So several colleagues and I adapted our on-the-job, practical training and mentorship systems, developed a simulation-based training program and launched our own school of 3D Animation and VFX where students are creating near-photo-real work by the end of their first term of training; a feat almost never achieved by graduates anywhere, including most degree-holding digital visual effects grads. This is a completely new approach to VFX training in the world. We expect to revolutionize training in our industry over the next ten years and to help the industry by providing properly trained entry-level artists and technicians who can contribute to production on the first day without needing several months of training. (I can almost hear the recruiters' heads turning) We also focus much of our attention on production philosophy. We recognize that much of the industry lives in a culture of crisis which, aside from being enormously damaging to individuals, is completely unnecessary. We talk about how good team and project management by real, trained managers (not artists who have been promoted to management because they are good artists) can spell the difference between a normal 40-hour work week and a schedule of insane unpredictability. The industry can not be sustained if it continues to burn out and destroy the best and brightest. Artists are not "light-bulbs that, once burnt out, can be replaced" as one producer in Toronto (you know who you are) once said. Production ethics and responsibility will lead to a better industry that has normal profit margins and normal work hours, where people live normal lives, leave work with a sense of satisfaction and arrive in the morning fresh and ready to go instead of exhausted, demoralized and angry. So you can see that we are not your average school. Our faculty are all current working industry professionals with many years of front-line experience. Battle-hardened, wise and weary, we teach the way things are and the way things can be, if the will exists to make it so. We believe it does. If you read this far, thank you for taking the time. Our school is called CG Masters School of 3D Animation & Visual Effects.