The VFX Artists Podcast
The VFX Artists Podcast
Launching a Comp Career in India | Rishabh Laheja | TVAP EP50
This week we catch up with a rising star in the industry, Rishabh Laheja, a Junior Digital Compositor at MPC.
Realizing that a career in IT was not for him. Rishabh began studying nights and eventually putting together a compositing showreel with the help of working industry teachers and mentors he reached out to via Linkedin.
Launching his new career exactly in the middle of the Covid lockdowns. Rishabh won a remote role at MPC Bangalore and has already worked as a compositor on huge shows such as Prehistoric Planet and HBO's House of Dragons.
As he says in the opening, "It's a rollercoaster ride, you may want to buckle up!"
As always, if you liked this episode, please 👍 like, 📝 comment, 📢 subscribe, and 📣 share!
You can click on up below links to get the courses of some brilliant instructors.
📣 Keagan Harris Patreon: patreon.com/keaganharris
📣 Josh Parks Masterclasses: https://www.compositingpro.com/nuke-masterclass-courses/
📣 FXPhd: https://www.fxphd.com
Our own interview with @joshvfxify : https://youtu.be/tgqlS2BswZ0
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Watch our other videos
📣What does it take to be a lighting artist? with Jasmine Katatikarn | TVAP EP49
https://youtu.be/ikFiHXeDP1M
📣Behind The Desk with Hugo Guerra | TVAP EP47
https://youtu.be/jGJruJHOx2g
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00:00:00 : Intro - What to Expect
00:01:24 : There's a Tipping POint for Every Artist
00:02:19 : I Didn't Know How to Get into VFX
00:02:45 : Why Compositing?
00:03:20 : Getting in Touch via Linkein, Josh Parks
00:03:47 : Online Courses
00:05:18 : Keagan Haris Patreon and Marseile
00:07:42 : Studying While Working in Another Industry
00:09:51 : London Siggraph , Bring Your Own Comp
00:12:10 : First Freelance Job
00:13:31 : Finally Getting Into The Industry
00:15:03 : The Rookies: Dragon Personal Project
00:17:51 : Bangalore and Mumbai
00:22:58 : Work Life in India
00:26:43 : Being Creative in School
00:34:38 : Indian Work Culture
00:42:00 : Advice for Other New Entrants
Thank you for your support!
it's quite hard when you're in Indian your parents are not quite open to the idea of visual effects I feel the courses now I know everything and you could find I can go ahead with it and try to get the job in the industry it doesn't work that way everything changes as per the plate you know the techniques but then when it comes to actually putting down on what you're doing uh it really comes down to understanding the shot itself don't get scared when you get the feedback because you're gonna do that four to five times a day it's gonna get feedback for July times so you have to get used to that foreign[Music] podcast this week we have Richard lahaja who is a junior compositor at NPC and I've been talking to Bishop for quite a while actually we've been chatting on the chat from before you started so yeah you've come a long way in actually quite a short time so I thought it was quite an exciting story was it a year ago it is it is I actually started it in BC a year ago okay and so before that probably like a few months before that maybe you got in touch with your Show reel which was personal projects and then we had a chat and I think it was me and some other artists you contacted quite a few um and then you got some feedback and then you put a reel together and now you know you're working on how you've just recently worked on House of dragons rather than me telling the story let's let you tell the stories it's a roller coaster ride you might want to [ __ ] a laugh there's a Tipping Point for every artist like some movie or some film or TV series that got us inspired to get into visual effects and for me this was uh right around February of 2020 when I was watching 1917. I think before that I did want to want to come into VFX things that inspired me was Game of Thrones and uh Avengers end games but I didn't quite like decide okay I'm going for visual effects but it was for some reason I was watching 1917 it was the late night film I was alone I was coming back home it was traffic for some reason it was raining in February I don't know it just made a full you know it just got dramatized or something like that and and I was like I want to do visual effects and before that I was doing a bit of Animation but I wasn't quite uh good at animation I had done a few courses but not that well but I was like okay I want to go into visual effects and I didn't know how to get started you know um I don't know how to find because there wasn't quite enough at that time I mean there was but like not on my search engines like I I didn't have any clue of how do I begin and the pandemic came around at that time it was a bad period for everyone I agree it was for me as well but it was in a way a boon in Disguise and I started to you know look out how you know look at all the different aspects of VFX and then compositing was something that interested me the most because it's you're working on the final shot you're working you know you're working on everything that you receive from other departments and I thought okay this sounds interesting and maybe this is something I want to do the shots of 1917 was like that's where I was like okay compositing it is and confirm this is what I'm doing now I need to find how do I get above with it so that's exactly when I started uh talking to people on LinkedIn that quite early actually to understand how should I get about started with this industry and I think the first person who I spoke to and I remember it was Josh Fox um he still is like my role model uh like always husband and uh there were quite other few people as well that I communicated with and I decided to start with courses so the initial courses that I did was FX PhD it has plethora of courses not just for compositing but like blender and Maya and even unreal now like I've seen their latest upcoming ones so that's uh where I started I took a subscription of FX PhD for a month or two and that's where I understood the basics of nuke and how I'm going to use the interface how do I do the basics of Roto and paint is uh what I learned from it most of tracking and stuff and then I did another course uh then I did Josh's course which is the monster course and the green screen and and the Deep one and it's really a good course like even today when I'm at work and I'm jumping like suppose I'm on a show that had a lot of green screen and now I'm moving on a show on CG I really use those courses to brush up so in a way it's like a good pocket handy thing you know you could just always go back to and refer and his courses are really tailored well so definitely recommend those courses for anyone who's going to try it because it's so handy it's so short and it's so well explained that I still refer it you know even after a year or two I still refer it and then I started to get in touch with Josh and I couldn't I couldn't do the 101 because it was quite expensive for me so I started to network with quite more people on LinkedIn and then I came across this person Keegan Harris uh he runs a patron uh you subscribe for the patreon and then you can do one-on-one with him and you can also do the plates that he provides or the co he also has short videos and stuff I'm very thankful uh today everything I am is because of Keegan and another compositor Marcel from Germany so what I used to do was I I learned these courses right but that's not it like we feel the courses now I know everything and you could fine I can go ahead with it and try to get a job in the industry it doesn't work that way it's not like other Industries you really have to have a real ready to you know in the creative industry you need the real and now I was thinking how do I get about started with this real thing like what kind of shots should I do how do I approach and stuff so it's actually uh when I started thinking about doing the the personal projects um it it's when I realized that courses is not enough you have to you know every project you will use different techniques to do this you know you are trying to do something you know you are going to do this like say you want to do king but then everything changes as per the plate and that's the interesting thing about VFX like you know the techniques but then when it comes to actually putting down on what you're doing uh it really comes down to understanding the shot itself and the plate and everything around that so this is where I did the one-on-ones with Keegan I used to meet him on the weekends uh so on the weekend I used to have a call with him he used to explain me okay tell me an idea that you have for a shot okay then I would tell him the idea of a shot and we used to take the shot from the idea to the final execution of it like the final shot so we used to plan the whole process like what are you planning to do what kind of CGS are you trying to look for and then I used to look for plates I used to search plates online where I can find uh good plates good CGS and I did quite a bit of lighting as well I asked him to teach me lighting as well because I didn't know that and I did need CG for doing some CG integration shots so for lighting uh he taught me lighting as well and he taught me compositing and we used to do it like so on the weekends we would do the call we would decide a plan of how we're going to go about the shot during the week I used to work on the shot after my workouts I was working in other industry and I didn't like my job what were you can I ask what you were doing that was Ernest and Young I was working in the I.T and Consulting side of things and so after the eight nine ten hours of that work and then I used to sit through the night for working on my shot so it was really like a grind that I went through but it was exciting because that was something I wanted to do I wanted to get into that so I put in the extra efforts and I sat late nights and the reason I did late nights is because that would be like an evening or afternoon in London so when I'm doing a call with him on the weekends it used enviously even work weekends sometimes so I would sit after eight and I'm working on my shots and then I'm getting on a call with them or not so during the week I used to work on the shot and send it to him on sing sketch sing such came like very handy when it came to getting feedbacks and when I was doing my personal projects in the beginning I used things to sketch a lot to send it to people now that I have it real I send the Reel but when I wanted to get my in uh each shot reviewed I would use sync sketch yeah we still use it actually um with some clients as a really facility so yeah it's quite it's a useful tool yeah it's quite useful yeah so I would use sync sketch and I would send it to him and get he would do the annotations on it and I used to work on the shot during the week and on the weekend I used to show it to him and then that's how I went on building shots by shot and then once I had the correlation of a few shots I used to I used to make a reel and then send it to people on LinkedIn and try to get more feedback you know a diverse feedback helps in understanding the kind of shot you know different views on how to do a shot and it's so great to know everyone's perspective everybody has a different perspective on that shot and then the ideas that come in and then I would try to see oh maybe I can do this maybe I can do that and that's how I went on building the shot and then Marcel was the other Mentor I found myself on LinkedIn so with him as well I used to do this on the weekends so like two mentors and then I started um joining this London seagraph event which was bring your own composite it's it was so great because I met quite a lot of people on that and got feedback from quite a lot of people um shots I'm going to tell you that I'm going to tell you so what I used to do I used to know the whole the guests are coming okay and I always wanted uh to get it reviewed by Josh and Chris fry I used to do so they on the event during the event they'll be like they'll send you a Google form and they'll say Okay choose your mentors and I already always had it written on a sticky note on the sides I would just copy paste Josh Fox Chris and then crossfingers and then they used to put us in the break room with the mentor and they do always used to be Josh and Chris so it was so great like I wanted them and because I couldn't do Josh's 101 so I used to always try and chase him um every time I got yeah I used to chase him on LinkedIn I used to chase him on the London sea graph uh bring your own comp uh this thing I chase Chris fryer on that and then I should write back on LinkedIn to them like okay uh you gave me feedback on this shot and I have worked on it and then I used to like all the and I used to take since cash and they used to annotate on it on the during the event so we had one hour which he with each Mentor uh actually no one it's supposed to be 15 to 20 minutes but it went on for one hour sometimes and then even I think you might be knowing this person Katarina from She's fantastic she's a really good compressor she was the third one I used to get in touch with I think I just wanted to get in touch with Jamie but never happened and then uh I think these these were the these three were like the main people I used to get in touch with um so yeah that and so I used to work on the feedback from this cigar film and I think I attended seven of these bring your own comms I I think by now the count is seven of how many I have attended so it was it was a great place to network with people it was a great place to get feedback highly recommend for anyone who's starting out to try and get into these events and try to get feedback and then yeah that's how I kept building real I kept on networking with people on LinkedIn and then I made a good friend uh who's a roto prep artist uh on LinkedIn and then he and I did this freelance work for you for a client in UK so that was another exciting thing to do it you know approach a job yeah yeah I did quite a few like I think two um freelance works in the UK yeah this if you're wondering why I was distracted I was totally um but my daughter put my cat in so she decided to be on the show um with you today so you've got an actual an actual project a live project which is yeah different from a personal project because you now you had a client yeah so for the shot from like in the UK uh so we did it remotely and so he used to he was the Roto prep artist uh John William and I was the compositor and he used to send me the rotor shot the routers that he did for each shot and so that's how I got a hang of you know how the things supposed to be done and even think sketch gave a hang of how the RV is used like you know the when you when I got into the industry I got quite comfortable with it um uh after all of that and yeah I think I did the freelance work for quite a few months and then oh yeah my plans were always uh because it was not working out you know like for so many months I was trying uh to get into the industry and was not working out and I had planned for Obama University UK and I had an admit and I got covered the same no and I was supposed to pay the deposit I got covered so the plans scrapped but I had uh and that's the same month I had an interview with NPCs so it was like maybe it was meant to be who knows it was a kind referral I will say like it was a kind referral because of why I got MPC that's how I began at MPC and good thing at MPC was I was first put on a show which was 2D so I got and I think we were doing tracking ourselves on those shots so it was a good practice to like get my Basics cleared like I did a lot of paint work and tracking in Roto and the basics of keying and a lot of warping and stuff and then I was put on a shoulder to CG so I felt like I'm going in a it's a learning curve you know like yes it's a good project progression it was a progression for sure yeah and then my third project was so the cg1 was the prehistoric planet and then the third one was House of dragons which was both together like we had a lot of King and then we had a lot of CG so yeah it was like a combined uh combined thing it's fun it's a very good first project I've got to say I mean very lucky with your first um projects very big projects very cool projects and some good shots as well so I mean and also before you did House of dragons and I think before you depressed Planet you actually posted a dragon personal project yeah that you did yes so that was the um so I was participating for the rookie Awards of 2022 and I knew this was the last time I can do it because the criteria said that you have to do it within one year of being in the industry so it's like okay this time I'm going to do uh personal projects for it I did two personal projects to finish for the rookies again the same thing going on sing sketch running to Bjork chasing Jaws chasing Chris fryer this time I also chased this guy Javier very nice guy like he's from Canada he helped me throughout my rookies thing because we were doing this Dragon shot so for Dragon shot again the idea and execution from idea to execution Keegan for reviews Marcel Chris Fred Josh and this time Javier and that's how I finished my rookies thing and I did not expect like uh so yeah another interesting about the anime dragon thing it was a friend of mine from Germany who's an animator and he was interviewing for Pixel Mondo for hazard dragons and he told me I need to have a dragon shot for my rail because I'm into finger I was like okay fine maybe you animate a dragon and I'll comp it and he said okay fine let's do this because he was my friend from when I was doing the animation course so we were in touch this time and I we're in touch from quite quite a long time and I told him let's do this let's you know do a collaborative project and he got a job at Pixelmon done he worked on House of dragons and because of the Dragon shot that I put out because he insisted me to post it on LinkedIn so I said okay fine let's do this I posted on LinkedIn and even I think it was just a 12-day gap after which even I got put on Hauser Dragon so it was so in it exciting like I did not expect that to happen but yeah that's that's how it went like some things are like yeah something's meant to be and you put the effort in I mean it's quite good to have a very a personal project that's quite targeted to a show that's up I mean I didn't expect I I didn't know at the time that NPC had House of dragons coming up and like I had really no idea about it I was just like my consideration was just to get one person project done but then things worked out magically you know someone at NPC might have noticed and they decided maybe it was my heads I don't know but I got this it's very cool so um so uh where were you based in India I'm based in Mumbai Mumbai so obviously the most of the work is either in Mumbai or Bangalore generally I think for at least for the outsourced stuff that we do I think I think about[Music] the bank's always there but they're opening an office in Mumbai uh soon and I think uh I mean I reckon I'm not quite sure but Mumbai might become like an epicenter for VFX because if you see after 2020 2020 uh I think frame store opened in Mumbai Outpost has opened in Mumbai Fox VFX has opened in Mumbai ilm is opening in Mumbai they announced it on Diwali and then there's NPC opening so I think Mumbai might have a boom of VFX Studios are you working remotely yeah so you were working remotely via Bangalore before yes remotely because they haven't opened the office in Mumbai so I I requested for a transfer so I didn't want to go to the Bangalore office and I requested for a transfer from Mumbai and I got it so working from home yes yeah because they're not they're not near I looked on a map I would have had to fly and stay there like I can't even travel I mean these distances are pretty big I mean I think if you went that far in England you'd be in another country for sure um my cat has got she got I think she got a mouse and so my my daughter came and locked her in our room and now we have a mouse we have all the animals on this show we have dragons we have cats and we have we have a mouse which is now going to be taken out into the wild you have a cat and a mouse or the mouse no no it's just caught she caught the mouse and I think I'm afraid to say that it's I thought it was a mouse and it's gonna be freed but I think it's I think it's actually a dead mouse it's a very sad moment for the uh VFX Arts podcast let me shut the door dragon's mice cats I guess what you're working on now is on NDA um is there anything else that you've worked on recently that is out of NDA that you can talk about well I'm working now I'm not sure if I can say but it is my first film very cool very cool you're working remotely and so remote workers continued after the initial lockdowns and you're working remotely full time is is that generally normal or is it just in case it's like yours where you're not near the office no when they're going to open the office in Mumbai I'm sure it's going to be back to office for everyone for anyone who's working in uh for anyone who's not taken a transfer from Mumbai and they are loaded for the Bangalore one they have to they had to return like there's no hybrid either uh it's strictly work from office and I think quite a few studios are doing that they're not offering hybrid as far as I know um there are a few who have not opened up yet like I think as far as I know I'll post is not opened physically so you're working remotely if you're working for Outpost and I think even dnag is offering uh remotely for quite some time but otherwise they're calling you back to the studio the other thing I thought was quite interesting is you didn't actually do Roto prep for for very long actually um because within one year you're already composting so that's I I thought I was I was curious about that because I I joined as a compositor yes it was a yeah I joined as a compositor and but on the show we I had to do Rolo sometimes when it was like urgent client need and we can't send it to her that you know the rotor Department I think on House of dragons also quite a few shots I had to end up doing Roto because um there was like no time to send it back so on House of dragons as well I did a lot of manual rotor and yeah so it was like the shop was not Roto entirely so it was like Roto required in that shot but but that's again different because rotoring for your own shots um you don't have to go to everything as a compositor you know what you need to vote if you have to Roto for someone else you often have to go to a lot more right yeah you're not exactly sure what they what they need more than the uh cut right like yeah in that case so I mean but that's uh because initially when when obviously um Hollywood and big studios began Outsourcing to India the first work was I guess the grunt work the match move and the um the Roto and the Press A lot of times but it's prominent like there's a lot of photo and prep that comes into India lots lots but it's quite exciting that there's quite high-end comp happening there as well I think the industry is just going to keep growing in India so like because it's like cheap cheap labor for the whole bit thing right so a lot of shots comes in like a lot of them and the crew is also big so yeah yeah it's insane crews are very big yeah I mean and potentially can be can be huge can you tell me about what what sort of hours do you do normally so it it's actually Project based like sometimes if the project is London facing so you will have the meetings with so we're always having cross-site meetings with London or Montreal and if your project has London facing then it's going to be like you're going to show the shots to London in the afternoon and if it's Montreal facing you're going to show it in the evening so for every project the timings are going to change based on the uh uh the supervisor over there otherwise it's uh any which way is insane like because um you are working uh quite before you have to show a version to London and you have to get it approved by your leads in India itself and then you're showing a version to the UK supervisor and after that you're working on the shot again once you get the call notes so it's like you're working before that call and you're working after that call same for Montreal like even though it's like a six six thirty seven so it get sometimes the meeting goes on in 78 but you're still working after that so you would you would be expected to do most of the call notes for the next day for that same evening essentially after the call sometimes I mean on this on this project um which we're doing it's a bit light towards like at this at this point of time I've had good comfortable team I've had a very good lead I'm having a very good lead on this uh show and it's been a different environment recently even the work hours are like fine as I said it's Project based sometimes it's crazy yeah and sometimes it's uh lenient but when the deadline comes it's crazy anyways like when you're closer to the end of the show it's crazy and there's no otpe that's I think it's not in UK either no although most most companies in the UK have um what they call time off in loo so essentially you won't get extra hours you do but if you for example come in on a Saturday or if you do work sort of late into the night you could potentially get extra days off that you can use after did you get it for your OT of the during the week as well you can do it is late night it depends on the company it depends on the company it does very bad company it's never exactly that but and and you often it's a sometimes it's more formalized you get this amount for these specific times sometimes it's very much you kind of ask you know especially smaller places it's much more of a sort of well you know I worked late last night but today I need to go and pick up my kids from school or whatever and you can do things like that but you can't necessarily like build up extra days off unless you work for example a Saturday or Sunday but right it's not it's not a standard there's a there's a general expectation that there will be time off in Lube but it's not it's not actually um it's not always in every contract so it varies all right we do Audi a lot sometimes for this project somehow OT has not been that much which is why I'm like surprised this project is like really good I'm quite happy it's coming to an end but then this has been the only different one otherwise it has been insane and on many projects it's insane workers so nothing you can do about it because a lot of what comes in so I'm going to go back even further now so before you okay like you say you you actually went to college and you studied something completely different but you did have did you always have an interest in this kind of creative work oh yeah so uh I've always uh I was creative uh even back when I was in the 11th and 12th I used to write comic books when I was in I think when I was in the 10th standard or the 11th when I started writing comic books so I always had this uh storytelling side of me that I I was always interested in and I used to hand draw them with a pen like I I never needed the need for erasing it I don't know everyone asked me why do you read right with the pen and I was like I just got quite comfortable with it and I used to write these comic books which were like 100 or 200 Pages or something it's like my hobby um so I knew I had the creative side of me but I didn't know exactly For What and whenever I used to watch movies I was always fascinated about it I was always like someday I want to do this but I didn't know what the right path was and uh it's quite it's quite hard when you're in Indian your parents are not quite open to the idea of visual effects and it's not that known either even today even though there's a big amount of people working in VFX in India still it's not the most appreciated project uh appreciated line by the parents so I yeah I didn't know exactly how to get into it but I always had that desire then when I was in college and I was uh so I was doing computer science and I was introduced to this subject uh computer graphics and I quite I quite liked it because it was it was like little animations that we were doing in it through coding and I was like uh I was interested in it and during the end of college you have to finish your final year project and everybody did machine learning or crypto or something or the other but I ended up doing making a game and first I began with unity but towards the end I moved to Unreal uh I think I spent two to three months on that and um because I think something happened in unity and it was not like we were not able to finish it so we jumped into unreal and did a project and I finished the project and I was um displaying the project on the in this science exhibition like the exhibition that was held in college for all the final year projects whatever you're doing and there was a selection criteria and mine was a different one so they added the games there was one thing I observed when I was presenting my game nobody was interested to see or play the game everybody was interested in this the trailer that I made for the game like I made a starting trailer before the game started like uh and you could yeah you could like um I think you could click escape and just skip the trailer but nobody wanted to skip the trailer everybody liked those Dolly animations of the camera that I did and the audio syncing with the the shots that I was doing and that made me think this is something I liked that was all over yeah the the seek there's a I don't know there was this uh sequence see yeah yeah uh I think unreal has changed quite a lot after code with like the version five was it I was using Unreal Engine 4 so I have to see how intelligent 5 is I haven't seen it yet but during our religion four it was more game related and after that they brought it all with visual effects and stuff so yeah I made the game and I saw everybody was interested in the trailer and people asked oh you could do this trailer better because I didn't have that much of time from the trailer because I was focusing more on the game but I saw people were focusing more on seeing the trailer and they kept asking me how you did that uh so maybe that was another that was actually the point I realized I want to learn animation I enrolled for an animation uh with an animation guy again in the UK so and I did like for four months animation with him but animation was tough like uh I I had soft to animators like you guys are creating magic it's it's really tough I tried so much but it's it's really creative uh and then I did this um it was this uh Forum that's where I met this animator friend of mine and and it's interesting that even though animation views didn't work out it was a lucky contact right because then that led to these collaborations and that you know that has helped your career in other words even the Raptor shot I think the Raptor shot that you saw on my personal projects with by him it was one of his Raptor Run cycles and I said let's uh confident yeah yeah that's cool so you also at one point I know it was uh I think I think covered possibly put a spanner in the works but at one point you were planning on getting a camera and doing some of your own filming what were you what were you planning to do yes I haven't done that yet maybe when I have a better salary or something I wanted to buy I think I contacted you like a few months back and I was like I want to buy one but maybe next year like I maybe that's one of my resolutions I'll keep for next year buying a camera and learning that it's a luxury but it is good for compositing composite step to have some understanding photography but when it comes to like uh understanding when you need a lens flare or when you need your this I mean I really do want to learn camera for understanding it like being a good compositor like it's it's the stages that I want to grow in so definitely getting a camera and learning that is the next uh aim that I have the next goal so and it was like I wanted to buy it for my birthday which was in July and I think even last July I thought about it but never happened so maybe next year hopefully yeah hopefully sooner no but I mean your career seems to be moving forward so who knows um I'm sure you better get yourself a camera what kind of projects would you like to work on uh moving forward well House of dragons was definitely a dream project that came true maybe like Smallville lower Star Wars I don't know but but are we talking films you would like to move into to stay in future film I know you said you've recently worked on a feature film yeah films and TV series is what I would like to continue to remain in that one other thing I was going to ask is obviously we talk a lot about India regarding the Outsourcing but there have been some recent films like RR I'm not sure and that had a massive success and it's quite interesting that though these Indian Productions which are now you know getting this um reputation and they're not just executing Hollywood or or you know outsourced work but they're actually creating some some movies which are you know which people want to watch there is quite a potential yeah there is quite a potential I think tollywood is doing well when it comes to uh VFX and I think even brahmaster was another film that was of Bollywood uh which was heavily relied on VFX I haven't seen either of those I'm so sorry I don't have views on that but yeah it's it's the industry in India is moving forward not just when it comes to foreign companies coming in but also the films that are being made here are realizing the need of visual effects yeah so obviously you've been working with a lot of london-based mentors and you're working with um supervisors in London and Mumbai London and Montreal and how are you finding that what are you what are they saying about about um where you're working how do they when you describe your experiences at work do they find it's comparable or what things do you think probably different ah so I think it's it's quite a different culture here we don't speak to our supervisors directly right we never have like most of the times I think uh during one show uh I think when I was beginning and I spoke to one of the supervisors from London uh during the end of one of our projects I and he didn't know me because like I said we never speak to our supervisors he did say I'm uh it was good to hear from someone from Bangalore team I've never spoken to you people he said that because how it works here is when you're doing the dailies it's mostly the leads communicating with the supervisors over there and project wise it depends in on certain projects you're allowed to attend these calls but you're on mute you're not talking to anyone so when your shot comes up you're not directly speaking with the supervisor you're just hearing it and Notting down uh the points that he's pointing at I mean but he's pointing out and on some shows you don't attend the call at all so you will either look at the annotations that they received or you look at the recording of what the conversation between the lead and Super's been so I think I've never had I've never been in touch with any of my supervisors because of that because it doesn't work that way you are not and there are quite a few people working on uh from this end so that's why they decide only the leads speaking quite hard hierarchical you speak with your direct Superior and then they speak with the next person up and then they spoke with the next person yes there's it's quite hard there's an element of that everywhere but yeah there is a little bit more leeway in terms of speaking directly to the supervisor in the UK from quite a few people that they speak directly with their soups but yeah I've never done that no that's interesting and also another thing I've realized is your entire career has been remote is that right so far yes it's just the timing of it is quite unusual because something that was almost unprecedented and lots of people found difficult to adapt and it was it was I would definitely say it was difficult uh beginning as a junior compositor at MPC uh right after uh like it's quite different than your personal projects it's quite fast-paced and you you are so we have dailies like four to five times a day you know so it was it was quite taxing in the beginning and um I will say the first five months it was very difficult and it's even it was even difficult to communicate with people I used to still uh uh communicate with people and Linkedin to ask how am I supposed to do certain stuff uh because here it was difficult to ask around like I said hierarchy there's even hierarchy between the artists so not everyone is open to helping um sometimes they just leave you on read like when you're working remotely this is something that happens everybody's so busy with their own shots and deliveries are so fast that you you're trying to communicate but it's difficult and then you I would end up like just looking at the scripts and doing it on my own so the first five months was definitely definitely very difficult and um somehow I have managed through remote working but yeah four times a day so is that that's quite a lot I mean I've um most projects I've worked when we have I mean the most about these two two a morning and an afternoon dailies and uh you I've heard in the UK it's like twice a day uh and twice a day it's like you have a move yeah twice a day is actually often um sort of getting towards sort of the end of a project as it gets more intense um often it's like once it can be like babies a once a day I mean we have desk reviews at any time where you where your lead or supervisor will actually just review a shot if you're in the office they just walk past if you're remote then you would you know maybe on a one-on-one call but um or you just you know call them regarding a note that you're unsure about but yeah so you're you're having to produce updates for each dailies it's it's very fast paced like you will be no you'll not be working on one shot you'll be assigned like more than one say two two three sometimes even four shots and then you are working on it in the mod in the morning dailies you get a brief of each shot that you're supposed to do so it's like morning at 9 30 a.m uh you have the morning brief and then around 12 you have to show a version or some projects they expect you to show a version by two so let's take one example of one project where it was I think I had to show a version at 12. then I had to also show another version by 233 and then we used to have the London call at 3 30. then after that we show a version at 5 30 based on the notes we took from the London call and again at 5 30 we're showing it to our Indian lead and then again we are showing a version at around 7 30 or 8 or 9 depending on whatever notes he's given and that's your EOD version so it's five versions a day right okay five updates today that's that's quite yeah that's quite intensive um I mean it's quite common in uh it's quite common in um advertising to be that sort of pace really but it's it's quite interesting for for film and although I would say that the first dailies you talk about to me that sounds more like what we would call rounds so you're they're coming and they're giving you a brief yeah you're not necessarily showing something so yeah so but yeah sometimes what happens is if the brief is a sometimes what happens is uh if we got notes from uh UK or Montreal or whatever over the night uh some of us will start working on the shot immediately at 9am and some of them tend to show it by 9 30 or 10 whenever the dailies are so sometimes it's a brief for you and sometimes uh you have a version and you're showing that in the morning okay that makes sense yeah depending on whether you already had a shot or not yeah of course for this project currently we have the brief bill later so I tend to sometimes do this like I'll just uh come in and then look on whatever shot I was assigned for during the week if on any of those I got an annotation or any notes from abroad and if I did and if it's manageable for me to do I'll just begin with it and if I can show a version in the morning brief I will otherwise I'll just say I've already started working on the shot and do you have notes for me or do you want me to show you a version in this call just share screen and show your version and that's also fine so yeah no that's the other I mean it makes sense I mean you're getting good I mean you're getting actually good really good results out of this so I mean I can't really argue with uh some of the methodology here if it's working let's uh I wanted to kind of conclude with what would your advice be to someone um in India now who's looking to move into the effects if they're if they're having this idea whether they're studying or whether they're like yourself in a different job well uh it is a hard industry to get in I will not deny that but you have to put in the efforts I will definitely recommend getting on LinkedIn communicating with people getting reviews uh putting your shots on sync sketch getting reviews on your personal projects improving on those reviews not just like you got feedback and then you did nothing about it you have to keep working on the shot you have to show the feedback that you worked on maybe get back to the same person they like it that you worked on it and you've gotten back and keep working on your personal projects and keep applying I know it's uh insane and there's a lot of competition and there's a lot of public in India so it gets difficult during the hiring procedure but keep doing uh working hard on that keep learning keep communicating getting feedback attendees uh bring your own com by London C graph it's very good like you're coming you you're getting like I think the first one that I attended and I got such massive notes I remember that was the point I was like yeah you know that uh the face where you're like I've been doing this for so long but I never expected that I would get so much of feedback and that was I think uh I don't know it was not George the first one on my London sea graph one it was some Owen Barack Carroll from uh frame store and I think he's a supervisor now at frames too so definitely like if he's a supervisor now it means he's he will have been a very good leader uh senior compa so massive notes and definitely I would recommend getting in touch with uh these people on LinkedIn um London C graph keep working on your shots um keep pause you can post it on LinkedIn I should not quite post it on LinkedIn but I used to at least message and get uh feedback don't get scared um be humble don't have an ego this field does not uh appreciate it I don't know why there's not much help that comes around in India when I'm trying and uh but but I've seen like I have to appreciate the fact that when I speak to people abroad there's always help there uh so what I mean to say is you should people should be helpful here as well I don't know why I never got that and it is hard but help each other I mean what's what's left to lose and um don't lose the big picture like if you are I know many people try and fail and then they just give up on the industry and that's fine uh but you know you have to keep trying and always have the bigger picture in your mind you have there's always been a Tipping Point for us to start in this industry like some movie or some series that we watched and we wanted to get into it so if you really want to get into it you have to put in the hard work uh don't get scared when you get the feedback because you're gonna do that four to five times a day you're gonna get feedback 45 times so you have to get used to that and find yourself a mentor I would I would really say that because it makes a big difference when you have someone when you have someone one to one so you have a role model to look up to you have someone who you can ask how you because you can take feedback from quite a lot of people right but if you are finding yourself One Mentor then you are very welcome he's having he's very well concentrating on your development you're very well concentrating on your development as well and you are working on your shots like I mean I'm nothing today if it wasn't for Keegan or Marcel or Josh you know I had to I had to chase these people and I had to get feedback I had to get reviews I had to learn through them and I did it because I wanted to so you have that fighting Spirit have that uh that chase them it's fine they're not gonna get angry or something maybe don't annoy them over and over but chase them uh get in touch I think Keegan does one to one as well now I'm not sure about that but Josh does one-to-one I'm sure uh get in touch with Josh get in touch with Keegan get in touch with Marcel if you want to get in touch with the ones I know of uh so it would be these three mainly uh Chris fryer and just keep learning keep improving uh and yeah keep trying brilliant thank you so much for your time uh Richard um and we'll definitely get back in touch and see how your career progresses in the future so thank you so much for your time and if anyone has any questions for your shop please post them in the comments[Music]