Over the past 15 years, Matan Abel has worked on lots of cutting-edge VFX projects, including the game Call of Duty, numerous car commercials and movies such as 2012, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last Airbender, Red Tails and Fast & Furious 5. Now, Matan’s getting into real-time via John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum’s virtual pre-production and The Mandalorian’s virtual sets.
In this podcast, Matan tells former boss Chris how his laid-back approach and honesty have helped his career trajectory. He talks about how he loves lighting tail lights despite knowing nothing about cars; overcoming cultural, linguistic and time barriers when he worked in China; and the practical and financial reasons behind the rise of real-time in movies.
Links:
Chapters:
4:09 When Matan met Chris
7:46 Videogames and working at Activision
10:21 Why Chris hired Matan
19:19 Going back to car commercials
25:12 Joining Pixomondo
28:37 Pop-ups and pipelines
33:52 Being a generalist
39:34 Going to China
49:54 Joining John Wick 3
57:45 Thoughts on the future of filmmaking