GanzChroma 0235
One of my favorite graphic novels of all time is the sublime work by Alan Moore, "Watchmen." Most of you know of this work through either reading the graphic novel or watching the movie adaptation, so I won't go into detail here.
One key lesson I learned from "Watchmen" is highlighted at the end when Ozymandias is telling Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Doctor Manhattan about his grand plan to save the world. It's a utilitarian plan and they are not going to like it.
This is significant because, unlike other comic book villains, Ozymandias doesn't make empty promises like some people we know in our lives, who say, "I'm going to do this" or "I'm going to do that," but never follow through. After 2 or 3 instances of this, we lose faith that they will ever fulfill their promises. From this point on we do our best to avoid them, or when that is unavoidable, we just smile and nod at their new action plans, knowing that these too won't come to fruition.
I absolutely fucking loathe "promise of action," which is why I practice the opposite. I call it "do and then tell," just like Ozymandias.
Yes, I am quoting a supervillain here, but this is the reality of a modern visual effects artist. Your work will not speak for itself in an endless stream of digital content. Each time you refresh your feed, something new and more enticing appears. 20 minutes on social media, including LinkedIn, and no one remembers the first article they read, let alone one from a month ago. Out of sight is out of mind. If you don't see something frequently, we forget it exists.
In order to work on the projects you want, you first have to win the projects you want. The world is far too busy and distracted to pay attention to our little corner of the internet.
As a viable strategy for our students to get noticed by VFX studios, they obviously need to do the work and then tell the world what they did. The way we tell has many interesting possibilities: detailed technical descriptions, videos, or cool YouTube-style breakdowns. This helps convey the complexity of the problems we are solving and giving the world a glimpse of their thought process.
Our students at Alpha Chromatica Education (ACE) aren't just following some YouTube tutorial or short course. They are tackling shots that no one has composited before, and their execution is out there for the world to see and judge. They are putting themselves out there, and so am I.
When I told everyone close to me last year that I was going to open a school, I had already incorporated Alpha Chromatica provincially and federally, set up the technical and network infrastructure, and had somewhat of a working curriculum ready to go.
And that is my goal with Alpha Chromatica. No promises of action. By the time people realize what we are planning to do, we are almost done with its implementation.
Do and then Tell.