AllanMcKay
VFX Supervisor + Technical Director
I’ve been working in Visual Effects for over 25 years now, coming originally from Australia back in the 90’s. These days, I work mainly as a VFX Supervisor and Technical Director.
Some of the more recent projects I’ve worked on include Transformers 3, The Equalizer, Star Trek Into Darkness, Flight, Superman, Metallica, 2012, The Last Airbender, Daybreakers, and many others.
I’ve worked on a few awesome projects in the past decade or so that won various awards I was tied to, from Emmy’s, Oscar’s, VES awards, ProMax and one I’m particularly proud of was in 2007 when I was awarded as an Autodesk Master — which I’m really honored to receive.
I’ve gotten to work with some amazing studios, and amazing directors, over my career, from Michael Bay, Tim Miller, Roland Emmerich, Robert Zemeckis, M Night Shamayalan, Brian Singer, and studios like Industrial Light + Magic (ILM), Blur Studio, Prime Focus, Catastrophic FX, Atomic Fiction, Pixomondo, and lots of others.
Some of the game projects I've worked on include God of War Ragnarok, Call of Duty, Halo, Prototype, Team Fortress 2, Destiny, Bioshock, and lots of others. I’m not a huge gamer, but I’ve definitely loved getting to work on some of these titles!
Sharing What I've Learned
I started building tutorials, training content, and writing for magazines like 3D World and others in the 90’s, and I've now been published in quite a few books. For over the past decade, I’ve been having a blast getting to speak all over the world at various big conferences like SIGGRAPH, Autodesk University and others, as well as collaborating with Autodesk on a lot of projects where I’ve gotten to travel.
One thing I’ve really enjoyed is training with studios, as it’s a chance to meet new teams and work on various problems or areas they want to learn more about — and to help them grow their skill-sets within their team. I’ve done intense training sessions, talks etc. at ILM, Ubisoft, Activision, Frantic Films, Prime Focus, Remedy Games and many others — and it’s always been such a great experience getting to do this! If this is something you might ever be interested in, let me know!
More recently, I launched my Podcast show, which is now ranked in the top 100 on “What’s Hot” section of iTunes, which still blows my mind! I’ve gotten to interview people like X, Y , Z and share a lot of insights on subjects like X,Y,Z. For me this has been something that has been so great and fulfilling to get to do — and to hear how this is affecting others' lives and careers! It’s definitely been a lot of work to do this consistently, but I’ve been loving every minute of it.
The AllanMcKay Podcast
Featured Episodes
Free Stuff
Mentorship Program
Teacher and Mentor
In the past, I’ve contributed high-end courses to Gnomon, CG Society, FXPHD, Digital Tutors, Autodesk and other training facilities. As well as more recently unrelated to film, I’ve had the opportunity to give various talks to many mastermind groups in Los Angeles on marketing and branding.
The other project I’m particularly proud of is my Technical Director Mentorship, which I started last year. It’s been a chance to work closely with a select amount of people over the span of a year, doing live sessions, reviews, webinars, and delivering the latest training every 2-3 weeks. (There’s now over 700+ hours of video training in the membership vault and growing!)
I've had to turn down a lot of really great movie projects to do this, but seeing artists getting their dream jobs, as well as building new friendships and sharing my knowledge with others, has been so rewarding. I’m truly loving life right now and every day keeps getting better and better. I devote most of my free time to sharing with others and helping them build — and strengthen — their careers, and I want to keep doing this.
Stick around this site as I’m literally sharing new content every week, if not multiple times per week, and I truly hope that this is a resource that can really benefit you!
Until next time –
Rock on!
