James A. J. Miller

Environment & Generalist Supervisor - Industrial Light & Magic

July 2021 - Current

I supervise both Environment work (cities, planets, jungles etc) and Generalist work (bespoke one off shots) for ILM.

The Environment department works within the pipeline, using industry standard software. Houdini Solaris with RIS for lighting and rendering, Mari or Substance for texturing and Maya or Max for modelling. Meanwhile the Generalist department relies more on an individual artists ‘bag of tricks’ and is software agnostic. Often this means working outside of the pipeline with the best tools for the job for that artist - Vray, 3dsmax and Blender are some favorites. It’s the most fun I think you can have as an artist, where you are doing everything yourself, but it requires a special kind of artist to pull it off. Something ILM is very talented at finding and nurturing.

My job as the Supervisor of these departments is to wear an artist and management hat at the same time. I will be doing shots myself, while provide artistic feedback and guidance to the artists in my department. I’m the main conduit between Production and the Artists in my department, and my job is to ensure we are bringing the clients artistic vision to life, and communicate expectations with them, often covering concept to final pixel.

Houdini, Solaris, Clarisse, Photoshop, Nuke, Substance, Maya, 3dmax, Vray, RIS, Mari, Zbrush, Blender, USD, Reality Capture, Photoscan, Unreal

Environment Artist/ Matte Painter - Dreamworks

July 2018 - July 2021

I was brought to Dreamworks to help their Matte Painting department expand it’s 3d capabilities, and bring it closer to a Generalist approach that I’m familar with. The department at it’s heart has a traditional Matte Painting workflow - painting in Photoshop and projecting those as cards in Nuke - and we managed to intergrate Houdini using a USD pipeline, to expand what it could deliver. Weekly training sessions, setup up and rolling out software sequence approaches, as well as artists duties was the scope of my work.

Houdini, Clarisse, Photoshop, Nuke, Substance, Maya, USD

Senior Generalist - Industrial Light & Magic

January 2017 - July 2018

I was internally transferred from the Singapore ILM office to the San Francisco ILM office as 2016 came to a close, and was thrilled to be where I had always thought of as the top of the VFX mountain. I was transferred due to the relationships I had formed during my time at ILM, and the software knowledge that I had, which was hard to come by. Here I got to work on many of my all time favourite projects, including Star Wars and Avengers, and really got to spread my wings as a Generalist - experiencing greater artists freedom and responsibility than ever before. The types of projects also explanded to include amusement park rides and adverts, which I loved.

Clarisse, Houdini, Maya, 3dsMax, Vray, Zbrush, Arnold, Photoshop, Photoscan, Mari, Nuke

Generalist - Industrial Light & Magic

November 2015 - January 2017

I was transferred from the London ILM office to the Singapore ILM office, due to having software knowledge and experience that reflected where the department wanted to go. A large part of my role was to help support artists as they were picking up the software, develop workflows and standard, and host weekly Q&A sessions globally for the company. There sessions would eventually lead to my move to the San Francisco office as well. As well as this I continued all my previous responsibilities in the Generalist departments which included shot production from start to finish.

Clarisse, Houdini, Maya, 3dsMax, Vray, Zbrush, Arnold, Photoshop, Photoscan, Mari, Nuke

Generalist - Industrial Light & Magic

April 2015 - November 2017

The London office was where I began my journey with ILM, which I feel very fortunate to have experienced. I built upon what I had learned at Double Negative, and enjoyed stepping into a completely Generalist role. I got to work on the opening sequence of Bond: Spectre, rebuilding Mexico city for the helicopter fight, along with the death defying walk along the rooftops, and eventual collapse.

Clarisse, Houdini, Maya, 3dsMax, Vray, Zbrush, Arnold, Photoshop, Photoscan, Mari, Nuke

Texture/ Lookdev/ Lighting - Double Negative

December 2012 - April 2015

My first feature film VFX opportunity came in the form of the Double Negative office in Singapore. It was here I was challenged and built into the artist that I am today. I had the most wonderfully talented mentors, who are still friends to this day. I was lucky to be put in a position where I was given new opportunities constantly, as they explored what I was able to pick up. This resulted in becoming a Generalist, as I had a chance to spend a good amount of time in each discipline, and ultimately became self sufficient with all the parts of shot work. The moment I remember the mostly fondly was being given a large establishing shot in Godzilla, and being told “we’ll see you in two weeks” - and no other instruction. It was my first time getting to show what I could do - and I’m eternally grateful for the faith placed in me.

Clarisse, Maya, Renderman, Houdini, Mantra, Nuke, Photoshop, Mari, Agisoft Photoscan

Head of Post Production - Somethin’ Else

September 2003 - December 2012

My career in Post Production began at a studio called Somethin’ Else in London. It was a multimedia company with big ties to the music industry and the BBC. My job started as a Sound Engineer, getting to record interviews and music sessions for BBC Radio primarily. As time went on, we started filming these sessions, which was where I first held a camera and edited a video. As these grew, we branched into documentaries and animation, and slowly did more and more with visuals. I taught myself After Effects and was soon designing all the graphics for our productions on top of now being the Head of Post Production. I wanted to continue my growth in this area and eventually switched to part time, as I studied my Masters in Visual Effects, at the Oscar winning National Film & Television School.

Education

MA, Visual Effects - National Film & Television School

Diploma, Sound Engineering - SAE Insitute

A-Levels, Island School, Hong Kong

GCSEs, South Island School, Hong Kong