Sean Devereaux has fulfilled his childhood dream of making movies, and he started and sold a software company along the way. After being inspired by a viewing of The Wizard of Oz, Sean got a break at Digital Domain thanks to fellow alumni Jonathan Egstad. After working on movies including How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Vanilla Sky, he returned to Boston to found Zero VFX, which has created shots for American Hustle, The Equalizer, and Patriots Day.
Sean also discovered the financial and practical benefits of cloud computing, leading to the development of Zync, which was subsequently bought by Google. Sean reflects on his incredible career with contagious enthusiasm and a knack for storytelling. He recounts some great stories involving directors Peter Berg and Antoine Fuqua, and reveals how his work ethic helped him get hired by Digital Domain. He also reveals some of the important life lessons he’s learned, from how to balance creativity and finances, to how to deal with directors.
Links:
5:21 Starting down the Yellow Brick Road
9:45 Getting into DD thanks to Jonathan Egstad
14:21 How he got a permanent job at DD
20:11 Burning out; back to Boston to start Zero
24:01 The necessity of cloud rendering
30:46 Pranking the Yankees and saturated servers
34:31 Selling Zync to Google
38:32 Earning directors’ trust
44:06 Favorite projects
47:49 Getting into producing
50:21 Shooting through the pandemic
57:26 New requirements for movie previews