Our Big Adventure into the world of VFX

Well this module has had a long and interesting path.

After researching the vfx industry with the resources our group could find on the internet we contacted the various companies to see if we could have an interview or a studio visit. many of the companies didn't seem to respond well to the request of an interview but were happy to give us a tour. The company i contacted was Escape Studios, training academy in CG and VFX. Their first reaction to an enquiry about an interview was a bit non productive for our half, "I'm afraid we are a VFX training academy so not really the sort of interviews you want." but he also gave us a handy link to www.cgstudiomap.com which was rather nice of them. after a few days of thinking i decided to get back to them asking for a just a visit instead and got passed onto Paul Wilkes, head of training sales at Escape who was happy to show us. hear is the reply he sent;

Hi Charlotte

I'd be happy for you to come to the studio this week if you would like to find out more.

Could you come for around 10am on Friday?  How many of you would like to attend?

Best
Paul
.....

Paul Wilkes
Training Sales Director
Escape Studios
+44 (0) 20 7348 1920
+44 (0) 7920 584 978
www.escapestudios.co.uk

So i sent him my reply and that was that it was a date. The others had got at least one reply from the companies they looked up for a visit/interview so we finally made the decision to go down to London.

Booking the planes, trains and automobiles was a task and a half but i managed to get a place to stay at least. My aunt who lives near  central london was happy to put up me, Sarah and Jo up. It was a lovely experience, but so nice at the end of the day to come back from a days long interviewing to family and a nice meal. Landed in London round about noon on wednesday so i missed the interview with The Mill.

In the end, even whilst in London, we managed to get interviews with six companies;

The Mill and Cinesite on the Wednesday, Double Negative and MPC on the Thursday and then Escape studios and Smoke and Mirrors on the Friday

The first interview i had was with Cinesite. They were really warm, friendly and helpful with our questions, i have to say it seems to have been an on going theme with the other companies as well. to be honest i was quite surprised. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but certainly a level of austerity that i found was not present for such a prestigious company. 

We had a set list of questions that we had come up with before we got to London. They were along the themes of employment, recruitment, personal development and industry.

We got lots of feed back from each company, all were very hospitable. It shows the importance of human relations with these companies for clients and potential employees.