Julia Frey, VFX Producer

College & degree: Loyola Marymount University, BA Communications

Internship: Four months on a low budget feature as an unpaid editorial apprentice my senior year of college. Learned a LOT.

Most Recent Job: VFX Producer on 2012 for director Rolland Emmerich.

First Paying Job in the Entertainment Industry:Assistant editor on a 35mm Red Cross film in Spanish that was about AIDs. $50/day I think! It was awful.

Big Break: My 2nd job! Assistant/Apprentice film editor at Boss Film Studios (visual effects house) which led to my first FX Coordinating job on ALIEN 3. I got the job through a teacher at school who knew a former student at the company.

Eureka Moment: I thought I wanted to be a film editor when was in college. I got editing jobs, then got offered a coordinating job and realized it fit my personality MUCH better. It taught me that you should be open to other things when you are starting out. You might find something you like better.

My Career Path: I started working in a Visual Effects facilities (aka on the vendor side) then onto the production (aka client) side of the VFX world. 

Best Job  in the Industry: Being the VFX Producer on CONTACT because of the amazing team and camaraderie.

Brushes with Greatness:
#1 Being able to contribute in a creative meeting (with the director, producers and other creative teams) in pre-production on CONTACT.
#2 Spending four hours in a meeting with Francis Ford Coppola on a movie that never went forward. Listening to him talk about the story, history, film history, Roman history, food and cooking… I could have stayed another four hours. There were only eight people in the room and I ended up right next to Mr. Coppola.
#3 Chatting with William Hurt in Mexico City on the set of VANTAGE POINT.

Nitty Gritty: In WALK THE LINE, we did a lot of crowd replication and separating the crowd from from actors in the performance scenes, we recreated the old Vegas strip, and actually replaced a painting they didn’t have the rights for that was on the wall in a scene. In MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, we removed lighting equipment from shots, incorporated special camera transitions (cross-fades, etc.), enhanced/added weather to scenes, and filled in the outskirts/outside of a village during a scene where a kid is climbing rooftops.

Hotel Miniature Shoot

Best Things About What I Do: Best things about working in VFX are getting to move up the chain of command much faster than if you started as a PA on a set (assuming you are good), getting to work very closely with filmmarkers, and being paid well (though the pay is good in a lot of entertainment industry positions once you reach a certain level).

Worst Things About What I Do: VFX producing puts you in the middle of creative people, but it is not creative work (most of the time)- it’s creating budgets and schedules, and hiring and managing people. In general, you get blame when things go wrong and, if something goes right, they talk to the supervisor because he is the creative one.

Career Path: If you work in an FX company as a coordinator/producer, then the chain of command is to end up as an Executive Producer overseeing all the projects within the company. If you become an FX Producer on the client side, you can potentially work your way up to film producer, but this is rare. (See Victoria Alonso, who was the FX producer when she started IRON MAN and is now the producer on the next 4 marvel films- IRON MAN II, THOR, etc. Though her main job is to oversee FX.) You could end up consulting as well. I’ve been to Macedonia to talk with FX companies about how “Hollywood VFX” work and how they can break into that market. I’ve also talked with Serbian companies and Indian companies and worked with smaller companies in LA about how to set up their books and do bids/budgets.

Secrets of My Success/Advice to the Newbie: Have a great attitude and work hard. Be the one willing to do anything and network with EVERYONE. You never know who will wind up being your boss/client/vendor/producer/etc in the future. Also, if you are asked to lie or steal or cheat or something equally wrong, don’t do it. Have integrity. Find a way to bow out gracefully.

When she is not busy producing visual effects, Julia can be found on her blogsites… Julia’s Mexico City, Safety Graphics Fun, Julia’s Bookshelf and blogging for Los Angeles Metblogs.

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