Marc Rienzo is a Director, VFX Supervisor and Artist. He has over 20 years of experience of working in visual effects, including for studios like Marvel, Disney, ILM, Weta Digital, Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, and PDI Dreamworks. He’s been a creative Nuke Artist for 18+ years in both film and commercials.

Marc has worked on multiple projects including Spider-Man: Far from Home, Thor: Ragnarok, TRON: Legacy, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Mulan; I, Robot; Beasts of No Nation and many others. His work has received several nominations from the Visual Effects Society.  

In this Podcast, Marc talks about his experience as a VFX Artist and Supervisor, his past and current projects, and the importance of hard and soft skills for an artist.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/253.

There are mixed feelings around the topic of a formal college education versus online courses. Colleges are really expensive and they tend to not be pushing the envelope in terms of what you can do. When you invest in yourself, you want to have access to the best people in the world on any given subject. You want to learn the condensed version of their knowledge in a limited amount of time. Also, it could be cheaper by a thousand times than going to a college.

In this Podcast, Allan addresses a very common question: the pros and cons of college versus online education -- and how to pick the best learning route for yourself.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/252.

Have you ever reached out to someone and asked them for help -- and never gotten a response? This Podcast is about how to get a better result: How do you get people to want to invest in you, especially when they’re busy?

When you approach someone, you have to put in the effort to demonstrate that you’ve put the thought into it yourself -- and that you’re committed and that you will see it through. The more you do that, the more the other person is going to come onboard.

In this Podcast, Allan talks about how to approach busy and successful people, how to establish an authentic relationship with them that makes them invest in you enough -- to help you.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/251/.

It is so critical to know when you are reaching out to people who are extremely busy. If you put yourself in the other person’s shoes when you communicate with them -- and understand how they’re going to react -- that’s worth its weight in gold. And it helps you communicate better with them, knowing what their needs and problems are.

It’s something you have to be strategic about:

- How do you get their attention?
- How do you get them to read your message?
- And most importantly, how do you get them to respond?

In this Podcast, Allan McKay talks about the subject of how to contact hard-to-reach people -- Heads of studios, HR Managers -- and gives tips on how to get them to respond.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/250/.

Louis Castle Louis Castle is a prolific American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios and for his work on the Command & Conquer real-time strategy series. In 2017, he became the head Amazon Game Studios Seattle.

As the co-founder of Westwood Studios, Louis was instrumental in the launch of the C&C series, one of the leaders in the 1990s RTS boom. He co-founded Westwood Studios in 1985. After its purchase by EA in 1998, he held various senior positions at that company. In 2008, he collaborated with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Nintendo Wii console, based on Spielberg’s design ideas. Since 2010, Louis held a number of roles, including at GarageGames and Zynga. 

Louis Castle is a BAFTA and GDC Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

In this Podcast, Louis talks about founding Westwood Studios, the games he’s created throughout his impressive career, as well about the importance of passion, fearlessness and perseverance in an artist’s career.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/249.