Perception is an Emmy nominated design lab pioneering the visionary process of Science Fiction Thinking to architect the future. They divide their time equally between the parallel worlds of science-fiction—working with trailblazing filmmakers and science-fact—collaborating with the world’s most innovative technology brands.

Drawing upon their vast experience of conceptualizing and developing future tech for the biggest sci fi blockbusters of the last decade, they’re able to inspire and guide the most cutting edge tech leaders across the globe. Using Science Fiction Prototyping, they create futuristic, forward looking experiences that look and feel as authentic as possible in order to open the minds of corporate leadership and stakeholders to the wondrous potential of what their technology is truly capable of.

The list of titles that Perception (http://experienceperception.com/) has worked on includes: Black Widow, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Black Panther, Thor Ragnarok, Captain America, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and many more.

In this Podcast, Perception Co-Founders Jeremy Lasky and Danny Gonzalez talk about their growth from a startup (21 years ago) to becoming a frequent collaborator of Marvel, as well as the influence of their concepts on today’s technology.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/339/.

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 of Amazon Game Studios Seattle. 

Most recently, Louis joined GreenPark Sports as Chief Product Officer.

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 shares valuable insights on how to start a business, how and when to sell your business; the importance of risk and lessons of failure; how to look for new opportunities, negotiate your salary and raises, give and receive criticism and so much more!

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/338/.

There's such a shortage of visual effects people right now. It's insane how many projects have been greenlit. And even for a 3D artist, there's so much stuff out there – and that's a good thing! Visual effects in general is such a healthy industry, but it's also about where there’s room to grow. There's always going to be new territory to cover. 

It's about training your brain to know what you want and then to see the opportunities to connect the dots. So, look for your opportunities! And when you start to pick up on it, you start to see that there are opportunities everywhere. It might simply be someone you meet and they mention that they're doing a certain thing. But if you were just to mention what you do and what you're interested in – or ask more questions about what they're doing – that could be your next gig. That could be your next way to break into the industry. 

You never know what opportunities are around the corner, but you've got to be aware that they exist. And the best way to do that – is to start figuring out what you want. Be more observant in identifying those opportunities, those omens that are hiding just around the corner.

In this Podcast, Allan shares his personal experience of looking for a recent staff position, how to determine what lifestyle you want and how to train your mind to look for opportunities that are meant for you.

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/337/.

Cinecom is a YouTube channel and a media organization from Belgium founded in 2014 by Jordy Vandeput. The goal of the channel is to provide educational content for filmmakers and video editors around the world.

Jordy Vandeput graduated from a film school in Brussels, Belgium in 2012. Right after, he started working as an independent freelancer for various video-productions. One of his clients at the time was Envato for whom he made online courses about various aspects of filmmaking and video editing.

After founding the Cinecom in 2014, Jordy expanded his team. By December 2018, the YouTube channel reached 1 million subscribers. By the summer of 2019, the team started their second channel Premiere Basics.

In this Podcast, Jordy talks about starting Cinecom Belgium, the secret to going viral, how and when to grow your team, the importances of deadlines — as well as some of his projects as a filmmaker. 

For more show notes, visit www.allanmckay.com/336/.