Living and working in Buenos Aires

What a ride! I’ve finished my work on a feature-length computer animated film in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I came on board at Catmandu Entertainment in July, 2011 to act as the Lighting and Compositing Supervisor for their upcoming feature film, Metegol. I worked out of their Belgrano studio with a team of around 100 artists, creating what will be Argentina’s first feature animated film, and it will be released in stereo 3D!

I was tasked with creating a lighting, compositing, and rendering pipeline from scratch, and helping the local artists get up to speed with production techniques for creating animated films of a high quality. I was also in charge of organizing and managing a team of lighting and compositing artists.

I worked closely with the director, Academy Award winner Juan José Campanella, and with the director of Photography, Félix (Chango) Monti, to create the look and feel of the lighting for the film.

We decided to use a relatively new software solution for our lighting and rendering pipeline, called Arnold. We were one of the very first studios to adopt this renderer for a feature animation film as an off-the-shelf solution, and were part of the beta-testing for Solid Angle, the company producing the software.

My time in Buenos Aires was unforgettable. I definitely learned a great deal about starting a production from scratch, and working outside the normal pipeline seen in well-established companies. Being in Argentina illuminated a whole new side to the inner business workings of how content is made in developing countries.

And, I was able to vastly improve my spanish!

After a hectic and rewarding 10+ months working on the project, it was time to take a much-needed break, and I returned to the UK for a bit of R&R.