Industry Pro: VFX Supervisor and Artist Stephan Fleet

YII first approached Stephan Fleet to be included in “New Media Month” for his work as Director of Digital Media on “Ghost Whisperer.” Little did we know we were dealing with such a multi-talented professional who has managed to become a serious hyphenate relatively early in his career. As you can tell by reading his profile, he is also a strategic thinker who has set and is working toward big goals. He is setting his own course to his ultimate dreams and doing great work along the way.

Hometown: I was born in Poland and grew up in Upland, CA.

Current position: Visual Effects Supervisor and Artist at Encore Hollywood. I work on about 10 shows, including “Castle,” “90210,” “Melrose Place,” “Big Love,” “House,” and “The Middle.”

College & degree: BA in Theater, UCLA and MFA in Film Production, USC

Internship: I did a Stage Management Internship back in 1999 at the Geffen Playhouse for some Davet Mamet plays. Met some great people who helped me get where I am today.

First job in the entertainment industry: This is a weird question for me to answer. Technically, I was a child actor. I starred in a film (not released) opposite Christopher Lloyd in 1986. However, my first job in the television industry would be Director of Digital Media at “Ghost Whisperer” / Development Executive for Sander/Moses Productions circa late 2006. Note: Sander/Moses produces “Ghost Whisperer” – I wore two hats at once.

Big break: Ian Sander, one of the showrunners of “Ghost Whisperer,” taught a television class at USC. It became clear to me that Ian liked to pitch TV shows with a lot of visual aids. Having been a graphic designer in a past life, I decided to go all out on a class project and make a full on, hard cover bound pitch book with about 30 pages of graphic design. I also produced a sizzle reel pitch video. The project went over well and got me a meeting with Ian and Kim Moses, his wife and also another showrunner of “Ghost Whisperer.” (As a wise teacher once told me, “When you see the door to opportunity ajar, jam your foot in the gap and pry the thing open.”)

Eureka moment: I’ve always known I wanted to be in and around the entertainment industry. I’ve dabbled in (almost) every aspect of film, television, and theatrical production and I love it all.  I’ve naturally gravitated towards the things that I like to do more (also the things that the industry wants more of from me). There was a stint, right after my undergrad, when I was scared of not having work. So I did about 2 years as a graphic designer for some dotcoms and Virgin Entertainment. I could tell that I definitely had taken a turn down the wrong path. Then 9/11 happened. Virgin canned me while I was on vacation, and I met my beautiful (now) wife Becca all at once. Becca quit her job (at Virgin) and together we spent some great years poor, but focused on what we love to do: filmmaking. It was during this time that I directed my first short feature, “The First Person” starring Ed Begley, Jr. (I met Ed Begley, Jr. at my internship at the Geffen Playhouse. Everything matters.)

Career path: Ian Sander (Ghost Whisperer) is mostly responsible for my current career path and attitude. At first, when I went back to film school, I purposely hid my graphic design, VFX, and computer skills. I didn’t want to be stereotyped and categorized as “that techie guy.” Ian taught me to use all my strengths, not to hide anything. There are so many people dying to get into this business… anything that gives you an edge you simply have to exploit! Thus a year after school I had proven myself to Ian and Kim and was trusted with the position of Supervising Producer for  the “Ghost Whisperer” webisode series (Season 2). Ian and Kim also involved me in the creation of pitch materials for their production companies development slate. I learned a great deal from them about pitching TV shows.

After “Ghost Whisperer,” I was able to take my knowledge from producing webisodes and produce an indie film for under $40,000! I used all the tricks I learned on GW to line produce that sucker tightly. I’m very proud of the film. It’s called PLAYER (player.legend44.com) and we just locked a distribution representative. My father wrote/stars in it and my mother directed it. It was a family affair.

I then reconnected with a close friend from USC who, with his brother, had worked their way up to a really cool opportunity: to do a few visual effects per episode for NBC’s new “Knight Rider” series. They brought me on to help out, and within three months, we had beaten out the main company involved and built our own company, Master Key Visual Effects. At our peak we had 20+ people working on “Knight Rider” and I was a VFX Producer on a network show. Again, it was my understanding of the “languages” of VFX, Cinema, Computer Geek, and TV Producer that helped me there.

Describe a typical work day in your current position: Hah! If I am going to the office – I eat my oatmeal in a paper cup, drink two cups of coffee, sit down at my desk, rifle through all my emails, then dive into working on any number of VFX shots. Sometimes it will be adding a skyline to an episode of “Castle,” or making a giant stuffed cat pull down a curtain for a crazy video for a famous director. Oftentimes I will be asked to confer with VFX producers, clients, and inferno artists on the best approaches to shots and help hash out a plan.

On other days, I’ll go on-set for a show and supervise. The hours are really random and each set has a different vibe. Generally I try and hang out near the director and writers at video village to get a grip on what they are shooting and what they want. When a VFX shot is up and it is my time to shine, I’ll run around like a madman taking all sorts of reference photos, measuring camera angles and lens lengths, answering questions for anyone and everyone who asks, and all in all trying to do my best job to ensure the VFX shot is shot right and I get the necessary data and info to help my company do the best job they can in post.

Worst job (or day) in entertainment industry: One specific day doesn’t stand out to me. I’ve been lucky. My skills have prevented me from having to be a PA. I don’t think I could maintain the humility involved with those gigs. I will say at one job, I did have some issues with a co-worker who was, quite frankly, wrong for the job. The problem was mine, though. I let this person’s ignorance get to me. I learned a valuable lesson – it’s not worth it to build up anger and frustration. It accomplishes nothing other than making you feel like crap.

Best job (or day) in entertainment industry: I directed a short film called “The Outlaw Emmett Deemus” starring Larry Hankin. We were invited to be in the gala opening of the 2008 Hollyshorts film festival. I get there and find our film amongst films by Josh Brolin and Jessica Biel. I found myself on a panel with them, in front of an audience of about, like, 500 people, at the Egyptian. It was filled to the brim. All I can remember is this one guy on the panel was yapping on and on about how perfect his film was. I could see Josh Brolin and Jessica Biel about to fall asleep. When the mic came to me, for some reason, I screamed out, “Fuck the rules” (in regards to movie making) – the audience cheered really loud. That was a good moment!

Best thing about your current job: The people! By some unexplained miracle of life, they are all really nice and cool.

Worst thing about your current job: It’s not producing my own TV show!

Brush with greatness: You meet lots of celebrities if you hang out in this town enough. They’re hardworking people like you and me. But I did get to go to the 10 year anniversary screening of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION a few years back. Morgan Freeman was there. That guy has a magical energy. Also, when I went to see “Flight of the Conchords” at the Orpheum a year ago, I sat RIGHT NEXT to Eric Idle. Holy crap no one even realized he was there! Oh, and lastly, Clint Eastwood spoke at my graduation and shook my hand. It was like shaking the hand of Zeus himself!

Secret of your success/advice to the newbie: Learn anything and everything you can. Figure out what makes you valuable to the industry. You have to be valuable to get the job. Valuable is NOT having an idea for a movie. Valuable is knowing how to save a production money, make someone’s life easier on a production, or make the production (and people involved) be better.

Next move (or next five moves): Now it’s about striking a balance between lending my skills to the industry and maintaining my personal goals. I want to produce, direct, and one day run my own show. My strategy: I’ve found that I can use my skills to help TV shows. And helping TV shows means making friends with all sorts of people – producers, directors, actors, one day superstars. Really, it’s best to make friends with everyone, and help everyone the best you can. I believe in Karma. It’s also amazing how many of my peers from UCLA and USC are now up and coming. I already know Junior Agents at CAA, and famous actors and actresses, but when I met them they were classmates and friends.

My new thing is sharing. I was reading John August’s blog (Editor’s note: More info on John August’s blog here.) and he said he wrote a blog because he believed that it was his duty to help people learn what he had learned. I like that attitude. I’m currently in the works on a series of video tutorials for my site exploring all the languages of movie making. One thing I have noticed in this industry is that everyone in every department speaks a different language. It’s kind of like we’re building a tower of digital-babel. Since I have a sort-of cross pollinated filmic education, I want to post tutorials that help give little tips and tricks to help communicate inter-department.

For example, I could do a 5 minute definition of “rotoscoping” that could easily help explain all the various pros and cons of this VFX technique to producers, directors, DPs, writers, and so forth. I have a ton of cool VFX tricks for After Effects. Or maybe I’ll do a piece on how to use EP Scheduling and Budgeting for an indie, lower budget flick. The sky is the limit, so keep checking my site, my first tutorials will be released soon and they will be on some practical After Effects techniques.

Stephan Fleet can be found online HERE (at his very cool website). Also, we provided an update on his career in June of ’11.

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