“Your only as good as your last Renderdome.”
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Everyday,… Flame gets more complicated and i get more simple minded…
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Yup. Completely.
Every day is a learning day.
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Every learning day is a day that someone else faked it and ‘maked’ it…
You know it’s true.
We’ve all done work for those directors:producers…
Onwards!!!
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I think not one of us can do it all. Its amazing how many brilliant artists are gathering here, as evidenced by the posts and the links to your work. And the great advice freely and confidently given. And the relatable stories which enrich and teach us all.
But we’re all very much working like the Blind Men Encountering the Elephant parable. We touch some quantity of the parts and extrapolate the results to our best estimate. Don’t compare your journey to the totality of all - it’s just not right. Each of us can see ourselves becoming amazing at some part of this work, but we will not at all parts of this work. I believe that even all of us together will not cover all there is to know about it. Which… is the best part of this - that there’s always something more to learn.
This forum is a great place to share knowledge, but that knowledge is and always will be more than one lifetime’s worth.
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I’m not going to buy this. I am not advertising this or recommending it. But I thought it ironic that it came up on my Amazon feed or more likely, good old fashioned cookie marketing: the sort of thing Arkwright was champion at.
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I gotta say, I really struggled with this a LOT in the early days. I bought Smoke 2012 on Mac when it was $15k. I had been doing “finishing” work in Apple Color, FCP, Motion, etc… And then upgraded to Smoke when we could get into proper finishing tools for less than six figures. But I never had a mentor, never was a Jr working under a Sr Artist to learn from, etc… So there was SO MUCH to learn, and if it weren’t for FXPHD and Smoke/Flame learning channel, I’d have been dead in the water.
So, even with almost 10 years on Smoke/Flame, I know there are Flamers out there who have crazy comp skills I can’t even imagine, but I have my own set of skills that are different, and just as useful. Coming from an editorial background, I can run circles around most Flamers when it comes to timeline work (especially in the early days of 20th Anniversary Edition), and my color background brings another skillset to the table as well.
So - yeah, I definitely used to feel like I didn’t belong in the same room as the Flame Artists I’d meet at User Groups or NAB, but now I feel like “Hey, they have their strong skills, and I have my strong skills - they may be different, and that’s actually a good thing.”
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sounds very familiar indeed!
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Every single day!! And is funny because even somebody is briefing me, with something a little different from the usual, I usually tend to plan some approach, but there’s always, the feeling that at this time I won’t be able to do whatever is wanted from me and everybody will realize I have no idea what I’m doing and ran out of luck.
This is why there will never be a flame festival in the Bahamas - only a fyre festival.
Now those guys were the real deal - oh no wait - they were impostors…
Dang.
At least they managed to sell the media rights of their impostor/failure…
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That’s be one helluva Logik Live. We’d call it the Flayme Festival.
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“…Let’s be happy, let’s be flamous, whatever the weather!”
Heaven 17 - Who’ll Stop the Rain.
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Some 3D artist told me once: Flame is fake…
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Flake
@greg Meditation thickens the cortical membrane between left and right hemispheres, and so allows more rapid switching and also integration between the two, and long wave neural communication ! This is proven pretty scientifically these days, you can check out the work of people like neuroscientist Dr Vince Walsh who is deep into the study of creativity and logic.
In most cases you have to prep the brain before the problem solving task is presented, and it will then solve accordingly via left (logic) or right (intuitive) hemisphere, depending on the prep signal ! then you can learn to speed that up with practise and it feels much more a flow state when switching between the two… Basically it’s like neural yoga !
The default tends to be a conflict between the two hemispheres and also we tend to have a bias towards one. We can actually identify that bias and then target specific exercises to strengthen and balance the opposing one ! It really works but takes dedication !
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I get imposter syndrome all the time ! and while some of the discussions above are focussing on skills comparisons with other artists etc etc, for me it’s less rational than that! That’s actually just a realism about accepting we are all different.
For me imposter syndrome is even after a job has gone super well, I start to believe it hasn’t, that the client won’t want to work with me again, and I can start to focus on all the things I may have done better ! It’s no fun tbh !
I think imposter syndrome, as opposed to a more generic insecurity, or concern, is pretty irrational and defies actual feedback and evidence to the contrary in quite strong ways. For me it’s all due to trauma…and generally I think that’s quite a trigger from those that get it. It’s also quite corollated for creative minds to have experienced some levels of trauma at some points…even if they are stored only unconsciously, and not recalled ! At the extreme end of this is the archetype of the classic tortured artist !
In my experiences in this game, I feel like I have come across quite a few trauma beheld artist…and I feel that is one of the reasons we as a collective tend to get somewhat exploited, given just how much input we have on a production compared to remuneration of the rest of the cast and crew etc !
I actually thought at one point to offer a specific coaching/emotional development service for vfx artists !
Great and important topic ! Thanks @randy !
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That sounds interesting. Care to elaborate?
So the idea would be to create specific tools based on combining mindfulness/psychology/neuroscience/yoga, for targeting some common traps that vfx artists may tend to fall into :
Things like : bridging the gap between production and artist mindsets, improving intuitive confidence for creative risk taking, balancing between creative and rational problem solving, learning to improve perspective, dealing with deadline pressure, dealing with artistic and delivery responsibility, financial worth issues especially regarding valuing subjective creative output versus more objective measurable outputs, vfx career paths, dealing with difficult clients, how to get through those long hours jobs, and knowing how to reach out when feeling overwhelmed.
A lot of other things too…dealing with artist rivalries, addictions, how the creative mind works in personal relationships when at home and balancing that with work…
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So you’ve obviously thought about this. A lot. What’s the mechanism of delivery of this support? Individual? Small groups? Weekly? Virtual? Determined curriculum or a bit more ad hoc?
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There is no we as a collective.
There never has been.
That would be like trying to proclaim the existence of an art team.
I can name all the successful art teams that have ever been.
In more than one language.
I call piffle and fluff.
Art team - flame collective - hahahaha
Brilliant.
That made my Saturday.
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