If you’re thinking about studying VFX compositing, this is the kind of answer you’ll never get anywhere else.

A prospective student asked: “What makes Alpha different from other VFX Schools?”

Ganz:
I don’t know. I only ever worked at one school here in Vancouver before starting Alpha.

I don’t keep tabs on other schools. I occasionally see an ad here and there, and I only know what students from those schools tell me.

A Lion doesn't follow.

To be frank, the less I know, the better. I don’t want my program to be a reaction to theirs.

I generally just look at what studios need and work backwards.

If you need to execute a paintout, you need to know how to use the clone tool. To use the clone tool, you need to know the difference between fg, bg, bg1, bg2, bg3. And on and on it goes.

Until I reach the beginning. Once I have the entire semantic laid out, I know the major milestones I have to cover and what additional pieces of information I need to reinforce.

Then we plan gaps. Sometimes they happen naturally during lessons.

That’s something unique to Andrew and myself. We deliberately withhold information. It gives you something to figure out, and we also want to see if you intuitively make the correct guess.

We do these things because we need you to be able to diagnose the problem by yourself and come up with potential solutions.

We are not here to paint by numbers.

There are thousands of tutorials out there and even schools that just regurgitate what they saw in a video. Our way is harder, which is why few people ever do it.

Ultimately, our method requires you to do all the thinking and execution.

That sense of discovery and solving your own problem reinforces the information you’ve been presented. And by having different mentors cover the same topics, you hear not only their reasoning but also see new solutions

Honestly, who else is going to put this much effort into you?

It really matters to us that you become a compositor, so that you can truly understand how difficult these things can be.

Most of the lessons are recorded and uploaded to our private web server, and you can access them, including one-on-one sessions of other students (if they consent) even after you graduate. Plus, there are about two decades’ worth of videos in there.

And everyone at Alpha is a co-founder or has equity in the business. We all have skin in the game.

Also, I’m not a school administrator who hires instructors and lets them dictate what’s needed for the program.

I designed one of the most comprehensive compositing programs in the world and taught it. I do have the highest placement rate in the VFX industry.

And honestly, it’s because I’m an outsider.

I saw what needed to be done and did it.

It’s the Singaporean way: no fluff, reverse-engineer and relentless execution.

And you know how sometimes you go to a school and you feel like you know more than your instructors?

Well… that’s not happening here.