Render, Rinse, Repeat. - VFX & Animation (with Lyndon Barrois & Michael Slemmons)

Lyndon Barrois is an accomplished artist, award-winning director, animator, and visual effects professional. A native of New Orleans, Lyndon played a pivotal role in creating groundbreaking visual effects for critically-acclaimed feature films such as The Matrix Trilogy, Happy Feet, Tree of Life, and The Thing, for which he received a Visual Effects Society Award nomination. Lyndon is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a Commissioner for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, and a board member of the California Institute of the Arts. This week, we welcome Lyndon to talk to us about how some of the amazing visual effects we see onscreen are created and how he got his start in the industry. He lets us in on the app he uses to shoot stop motion animation films on his iPhone and highlights that anyone with enthusiasm can leverage the tech they have in their pocket to get started. Lyndon also discusses his experiences of directing both animation and live-action movies, the differences between the two from his point of view, and shares why he prefers to direct animation projects. “You have to adapt; that’s one of the things that we always have to do in this industry. You’ve got to adapt to the medium, the tools, the whole shebang.” - Lyndon Barrois “Movies and TV shows are not so much about the way the world is, but the way we want the world to be. And VFX help us see anything that we can imagine.” - Adam Leipzig “Visual effects are like alchemy — you have this little piece of something to work with, and you can turn it into anything that you want.” - Tamika Lamison   Highlights This Week: How Lyndon entered the film industry via graphic design and miniature modeling How he lost his first job before he even got started Lyndon’s opportunity with Disney and what he learned on the job Lyndon’s recent miniatures and stop-motion work and the other independent projects he is involved with right now When Lyndon is brought on board a project and why he prefers to get involved at the storyboarding and pre-visualization stage Why pre-visualization is so critical in the context of planning the film as a whole How Lyndon brings the context of the world we live in into the work that he does Lyndon gives his advice to a listener interesting in making a career in visual effects Some of Lyndon’s favorite projects to work on and why he enjoyed them so much Lyndon’s work at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and why they try and explain and correct omissions in the history of cinema   Resources Lyndon Barrois on IMDB It’s a Wrapper! Website Stop Motion Studio Pro for iPhone