Zhe Chong

Head of Compositing

How would you explain your job to someone who doesn’t know VFX?

Creating visual effects for film and TV requires a lot of people working together, across several different departments and disciplines. My job is to ensure the work we do for a show, as a whole, is achieving our clients' creative goals, while staying within the time and budget alotted. This requires a lot of communication with our department leaders, production teams, and our clients, reviewing work and giving feedback, planning, bidding, and making technical and creative decisions on a daily basis.

What does a day in the life look like?

The days can vary quite a bit depending on the stage of a project. In pre-production there are a lot of client meetings, preparation, planning, and some kind of creative development of an idea. During shooting, I'm on set working with the production team to ensure the visual effects are achievable, answering questions, advising, and gathering data which will later be used for our work. In post, I'm reviewing work done by departments, having feedback sessions with our clients, and will often spend a couple of hours on the box working on a shot or look.

What are some of your favorite projects? Why?

Working on the Horizon film saga was a highlight for me. It was the three big things you want in a project - our client partners were fantastic and we developed a great working relationship, Ingenuity assembled an outstanding team across all departments that made working every day a pleasure, and the work itself was best mix of interesting, challenging, and rewarding. It was also a highlight to meet and work with Kevin Costner on a project he was so passionate about.

Horizon: An American Saga | Warner Bros.

What's something you wish people knew about what you do?

Visual effects is a huge team effort - involving the intersection of so many artistic and technical disciplines. With an international team, I'm often collaborating with people from all different walks of life. A five second effect in a movie, that you may or may not notice, can be the result of dozens if not hundreds of human beings all working together, bringing so many branches of knowledge and experience to that one moment.

What is something that excites you about your career?

While the sky is often the limit in terms of possibilities with visual effects, the rubber eventually meets the road, and those ideas need to be seen onscreen and married to any footage that was shot. That moment is what I love about visual effects - creating with a lot of smart and talented people, solving interesting and unique problems along the way. Despite technology constantly changing and evolving the way we work, the guiding principles of visual effects, and art in general, remain the same.

Are you learning anything new?

Visual effects involve so many artistic disciplines, along with ever-changing technology and methodology. Visual effects is also often an interface with reality, so I am always learning something new from one side or the other. On the artist side, I am practicing painting and studying light and form, on the technical side I am learning Houdini and pipeline / task automation, and on the real world side I am studying the anatomy of the chest cavity and heart, behavioral characteristics of white tailed deer, city planning in 1860s Chicago, whatever bespoke knowledge the job entails.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I am passionate about electronic music, collect and mix records, and see acts. I'm into jogging and am currently training for a marathon (scary!) I enjoy brewing beer, and am starting an astrophotography project, because space is wonderful. I kind of float around between different interests, hobbies, or trying new things. I really want to get into education and knowledge sharing soon.