[FRAMED] Lead Compositor, Pablo Vera, Melbourne

If you could travel back in time, which film, TV series, advert, or immersive project would you love to have worked on?

I know this has probably been said countless times before, but can I still say The Lord of the Rings? I remember watching it as a kid and feeling an overwhelming mix of emotions — camaraderie, excitement, fear, and a deep sense of doing the right thing. It was mesmerising! After that, I started collecting the toys and spent entire weekends creating epic battles with my sister. She commanded her Playmobils, and I led my own army of good and evil characters from the movies. She’d get mad every time because I’d use a Nazgûl and a Troll to crush her troops and win every battle.

Looking at what I do now, being part of the original LOTR trilogy would have been a dream come true for my inner child!

Which Framestore character do you feel you’re most like?

It has to be Dogpool! He’s my new favourite, even though I’m probably nowhere near as lovable as he is. But I’d like to think we share a similar adventurous spirit. In the movie, he bravely travels through the multiverse via the Sparkle Circle to find Nicepool, and I think that takes courage. That adventurous vibe is something I can relate to!

What fictional world or place would you like to visit?

Very opposite to my easy-to-get seasick nature, I’d love to get to know the world of Pirates of the Caribbean. Being aboard the Black Pearl, fighting the Kraken and meeting Davie Jones would be quite the anecdotes I’d love to pursue during my visit!

Your career highlight to date:

When my cousins in Spain told me they’d gone to see Deadpool in 3D, it felt like such a proud moment. I remember joking while prepping the stereo packages, “Who even watches 3D movies anymore?” So hearing that they loved it — especially in 3D and without knowing I was working on it — brought it all full circle. It reminded me of all the long days in the studio and how much effort went into creating something the audience would enjoy.

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in VFX?

In this case, the ‘Who’ was a superhero, and the ‘What’ was a university project. A few friends and I created a web series about a superhero called Raccordman — the superhero of continuity errors. That project introduced me to digital effects, and I was immediately hooked. Coming from a video editing background, I was amazed by how many creative possibilities there were. From teleportation and morphs to shockwaves and earthquakes, the basic effects we were doing to help us tell Raccordman’s story motivated me enough to change my career goals and set myself on the path to VFX.

The DREAM project would entail:

I’ve been lucky enough to work on some amazing projects at Framestore, across London, Vancouver, and Melbourne. But a dream project for me would be to gather all the talented people I’ve met and admired in those places into one team. That would mean a Dream Team for a Dream Project! It would be such an incredible experience, even though I’m pretty sure we’d run out of notebooks to write down all the tips and tricks!

How do you explain what you do to someone who doesn’t work in VFX?

Usually, I would start asking the person if they enjoy watching films or series. After that, I would tell them that I’m part of the team that specialises in adding all the possible visual cheats that help tell the story, even if the result is ‘invisible’ to the eye. At this point I would throw in a couple of extreme cases to try to show the broad scope from other work: From changing the landscapes and sky on a scene to integrating majestic creatures or monsters that the heroes interact with. And of course, (I always finish with this), adding all the fake blood necessary on the violent scenes to make sure no actors or animals were hurt in the filming!

Describe your career journey into the exciting world of VFX.

It all started when I was a teenager and got into Parkour, a sportive discipline where moving from A to B as fast and smoothly as possible using just your body is the goal of it. Because it was quite trendy back then, everybody was uploading videos to YouTube about their latest training and tricks. Naturally, I did the same, and soon enough I was editing not just my own videos but also my friends’ videos!

Wanting to do something related to video editing, I went to university to study for a Bachelor’s in Audiovisual Communications. During those 4 years I edited as much as possible: I was involved in the uni tv channel, did the video edits for all audiovisual projects and even got a job video editing weddings. It was during my last 2 years of uni when a group of friends and I started to work on an indie web-series called Raccordman, the superhero of Raccord. On this project, I touched After Effects for the first time and I fell in love with doing digital effects.

By the time I finished uni, I knew I wanted to get into VFX, but had no experience using Nuke, just After Effects. However, after some research, I put together my first student VFX showreel, and I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to get into a Master’s in VFX and 3D in Madrid. During that year, I practiced and learned Nuke from the professor as much as I could, while preparing my master’s thesis project on the side. On our last day, we presented our projects in front of some hiring managers of VFX and tech companies. After the presentation, I was interviewed by the representative of El Ranchito, the biggest VFX company in Spain. Three weeks later, I was offered an intern position in their comp team and transitioned to junior and mid-comper over the next couple of years.

When I felt I had enough to put in a ‘decent’ comp reel, I sent my application to Framestore, where also a colleague from uni who was doing an internship had put my name forward. I couldn’t believe how, one month later, I was packing my things and on a flight to London! — Special shout out to the amazing Suzanne Jandu, who believed in me and brought me in!

It’s been more than 5 years since I first joined the Framestore family and I’m currently working in its Melbourne office, where they have given me the warmest welcome I could have ever imagined. I couldn’t be happier belonging to the world’s first-class team!

What does a day in the life of a Lead Compositor look like?

Being a lead compositor is something that I started doing recently after, so probably there will be dozens of people suited to answer this one in Framestore! To me, being a lead compositor is all about trying to make myself as useful to the compositing team as possible, while also being a compositing artist.

Among many others, these would be some of the key components that help describe my role on a daily basis:

-On one hand, giving in some extra thought and time to set up comp templates that would allow the team to iterate faster on their shots.

-As a goal, trying to take off as many ‘worries’ from Comp and VFX supervision shoulders. Identifying upcoming comp challenges and trying to be on top of them providing solutions is something that I try to make my priority, so they can focus on meeting the client’s creative expectations!

-Ensuring good interdepartmental and cross-site communication with comp is another of the aspects that is present every day. Making sure everybody can find and handle with ease all the latest and greatest assets from upstream is a good example of that!

-Team mentorship: Allowing extra time to offer guidance on techniques to more junior artists on the show or troubleshooting pipeline issues, is something that for me, is a big must in the role!

-Last but not least, comping, comping and more comping!

I would say that these, among many other daily factors, all add up to a very rewarding mix of technical, creative and managerial tasks!

Framestore is, to you, in three words:

Passion, Growth & Opportunities.

Best thing about your work environment?

The people and their talent of course! This is something common across the teams in Melbourne, Vancouver and London I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Their passion is vibrant!

Framestore is great at:

Making the people bring their best work to the table!

Favorite artform?

Within traditional arts, sculpture is the one that fascinates me the most. I can’t imagine how difficult it had to be to achieve high-end realistic pieces manually. It’s definitely what I stare at the most whenever I visit a gallery!

Out of the 7 major ones, can I say cooking?

Favorite image?

I’m not sure I have a favourite image, to be honest. While I love visiting museums that showcase all-time art, I would rarely feel like I would hang one of those on my home walls!

What’s your favourite movie/ series/ advert/ immersive experience and why?

Fleabag is the one that crosses my mind instantly. I rewatched it not so much time ago and I can’t think of any other series that made me laugh as much. Its ironic tone throughout the seasons along with the familiar, daily situations in the episodes, it’s something that made me enjoy the series very much!

What is the last piece of art that inspired you?

That’s easy, since last weekend my partner and I visited the National Victoria Gallery here in Melbourne! On its 2nd floor, there was this massive red room with high ceilings where paintings dressed top to bottom on each of the walls, and lots of sculptures were placed in the middle of the room for close admiration! A fairly small tribute to the Penseur and some Dalís that hang on its walls were my favourites! It was a really busy, stunning room that breathed art into every inch square!

How do you unlock your creativity?

I’m guessing, like many other people, I don’t have a ‘magic’ method to snap into full creativity mode. To me, it is something that I build up as I dive deeper and deeper into the tasks at hand. I would usually tackle a couple of easier ones to warm up and to boost a bit of morale, and by the time I’m done with it, I feel ready and in the groove to start and enjoy the bigger or more time-consuming challenges. Playing some electronic music on my headphones and a filled cup of coffee at hand usually gives me the best combo for this!

From where do you seek inspiration?

From all over the Internet! For some time now, I have been using Notion as a ‘second brain’ app to try and store every tutorial, article or newsletter I find interesting and related to visual effects. In the app, I’ll mark them as ‘pending’ (similar to Shotgun statuses!) and at least once a week I spend around a couple of hours going over whatever I have added during the last 7 days. It might sound a bit tedious, but I can’t name the number of times I have gone back to something I ‘studied’ some weeks ago and this has helped me to take a new approach to a compositing challenge.

Who in the industry do you admire most and why?

I have been fortunate enough to meet tons of talented people during my comp journey who have inspired me over the years. Some of them I’ve had the chance to work on several projects together, and their dedication to their job and their willingness to go the extra mile and share all tips and tricks with their team with no reserves or restrictions, deserve a very special shout-out.

I also feel incredibly grateful for the mentorship I’ve received from superstars like Adam Zanotto in Vancouver (FS), Matthew Thomas in London (FS), and Damian Binder in Spain. Their guidance has not only been invaluable but also serves as a constant reminder of the kind of professional I aspire to be.

Share the best piece of advice you’ve ever received:

Life-related: Relationships are the most important thing in life. Take care of them!

Work-related: This industry is beautiful. Work hard on it but don’t let it burn you out, try and take from it what you want to feel fulfilled. In my case, traveling the world and meeting new teams and people to learn from has definitely been my top goal — even more since I got it. Thank you Michael Baker (FS Comp Sup in IA, London).

What tech/innovation could you not live without?

Work-wise: ChatGPT of course! I use it constantly to troubleshoot my python and TCL whenever the code I write is doing something funky!

Life-wise: I would say Alexa. I know this sounds super simple, but I love how easily I can put music all over my home and instantly improve my mood!

What tech/innovation deserves the hype?

Machine learning and AI, of course! Making a lot of the most boring and tedious compositing processes easier and automated, the use of more and more gizmos that take advantage of these technologies has resulted in comp deal-breakers on some of the last projects I have worked on!

What tech do you need that hasn’t been invented yet?

Let’s say ultra super fast, eco-friendly and especially AFFORDABLE long-distance flights. Because of living in Australia and previously in Vancouver, there is nothing else in my mind I can think of that would be a game-changer to being able to visit my family and friends more often!

Pablo Vera, you’ve been [FRAMED].