Christian Debney’s incredible career began awesomely and has only become more awesome: his first job was building lightsaber props for Star Wars: Episodes I and II. After learning 3D for his own short films, he created VFX for Farscape, directed music videos, made animations for the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, set up a VFX firm and second-unit-directed little-known but much-loved Australian comedy Swinging Safari. Phew!
Now, Christian is putting his 20-plus years of experience in the movie industry to good use as VFX supervisor on sci-fi thriller Ascendant and as director of three films (one in VR) and a documentary. In this podcast, Christian talks about his career so far and shares tips and anecdotes about how he’s learned to create great work within budgetary and time constraints.
Links:
Ascendant official trailer on YouTube >
Chapters:
6:22 Starting in practical effects
10:27 How to make a lightsaber
14:37 Christian’s generalist approach
19:28 Work on “Ascendant”
22:29 Swinging Safari
28:3254 Using Chaos Cloud to render “Ascendant’s” VFX
34:12 The enduring legacy of Alex Roman’s “The Third and The Seventh”
38:28 Architectural model making and rendering
41:34 What Christian has learned from working in movies
46:41 Neill Blomkamp’s influence
51:35 “Ascendant” and Christian’s future projects