Christopher Jaques - Double Negative Lead Compositor

Recently I was on the Double Negative website having a look at some of the Career profiles of people who work for the company. I found it a brilliant eye opener reading how the big dogs in the business made it to where they are now. It makes you realise that at some people, the professionals were once at the stage we are currently, reading a few career profiles has really given me a little bit more of a push and a little bit more motivation to push myself during my time at uni. His route into Double Negative was nothing spectacular like you would think. He studied Art and Maths at A-Level and then went on to study a Computing and Animation course at degree level. I think when we see and hear about the professionals in this industry, it can be a bit intimidating. In a way, we see them as people out of our league on achievement level, but people like this were once at the stage of making a decision on what they wanted to do.

Christopher was asked if there was anything he wished had done before he joined the industry which would have better prepared him for his career is VFX for Film. His answer was;

     "I wish I had carried on with photography, and paid attention when I was told how a camera worked.. Having this sort of knowledge really does help to add effects that you would only expect from certain types of lenses, for example the way light bounces around inside the camera"

This is something that makes me realise that I should never stop doing photography. Photography is something I am very passionate about and after reading what the professionals have to say about it, It is definitely something I would on doing. Skills and knowledge in photography can be translated into a lot of things to do with film and media. knowing how to work a DSLR nowadays as a photographer means that you are able to film because of the progression of DSLR film making. I started photography before I started making films and because my camera also shot video, I was able to make easy route into film. Other things such as your knowledge about composition and the rule of thirds can easily be taken into shooting film as it is links in very well with shot framing and camera angles.

    "What Natural skills do you think lend themselves to doing your job?"

    "Being creative, a problem solver, a good communicator, logical, being able to take criticism and probably most importantly, being a team player"

I would class myself as a creative person. Through school and college I was always an arty person and I was someone who was always in my sketchbook. Being creative I believe is something a lot of the time is born in people. You are either creative or you are not at all. I don't really believe in in betweens on being creative. From being a big sportsman from a young age and being in full time work has meant that my communication skills with others is on the whole, quite good. I like to be involved in teams and I like to discussing ideas and issues to make things better. I have always been a bit believer in, If you want to make it in the industry, you need to be a likeable person, someone with a personality and someone who is willing to take a bit of criticism. These are only my views but again from reading about what the professionals have to say, like Christopher, they seem to have simular views.

At the end of the Interview Christopher mentions a couple of books and sites that he recommends.

• Steve Wright books
• 'The Art and Science of Digital Compositing' Ron Brinkmann

"They can give you a very good knowledge about the fundamentals of compositing. You would be surprised about how many compers in the industry don't know some of the stuff in there"

For more software related training:

• http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/
• http://www.nukepedia.com/