This week for On the Fly Filmmaking over at Popcorn Talk Network, I was able to hang out and talk visual effects with some of the guys from VFX Legion.  James David Hattin (Founder + Creative Director) and Matthew Lynn (VFX Supervisor) were wonderful to talk to! They create the fantastic effects behind shows and movies including Scandal, How to Get Way With Murder, Suits, The Purge 2 and more!

I loved interviewing these guys because they gave me insight into a world that is still pretty foreign to me.

Its a bunch of geeks in a back room trying to figure out how to make things look cool – Matthew Lynn on the basics of VFX

OF COURSE there more to that! Don't we all just feel like we are trying to figure out how to make things look cool?! Recreating life or creating life out of nothing using technology is nothing less than magic to me. Once again proves that there are SO MANY PIECES to any production and everything matters.  As a producer, it is always good to gain some understanding about all steps of the process but LET PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO!

Its fine to have a split skillset but you can never be great at all things – James David Hattin on how choosing a focus accelerated his career

James David Hattin and Matthew Lynn of VFX Legion

If you are looking to try your hand at visual effects, the guys recommend tinkering around in Adobe After Effects.  I adore all of Adobe Creative Cloud and if you are already using Photoshop or Premiere, you should have a good base to get started.  Also, do some research on Youtube.  There are so many tutorials that you can try out!

I look forward to chatting with these guys in the future and learning more about visual effects. In the meantime, check out what I learned and maybe learn something yourself!

Here is the entire interview with James David Hattin and Matthew Lynn of VFX Legion