Lyndon Barrois is an accomplished artist, award-winning director, animator, and visual effects professional. A native of New Orleans, Lyndon played a pivotal role in creating groundbreaking visual effects for critically-acclaimed feature films such as The Matrix Trilogy, Happy Feet, Tree of Life, and The Thing, for which he received a Visual Effects Society Award nomination. Lyndon is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a Commissioner for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, and a board member of the California Institute of the Arts.

This week, we welcome Lyndon to talk to us about how some of the amazing visual effects we see onscreen are created and how he got his start in the industry. He lets us in on the app he uses to shoot stop motion animation films on his iPhone and highlights that anyone with enthusiasm can leverage the tech they have in their pocket to get started. Lyndon also discusses his experiences of directing both animation and live-action movies, the differences between the two from his point of view, and shares why he prefers to direct animation projects.

“You have to adapt; that’s one of the things that we always have to do in this industry. You’ve got to adapt to the medium, the tools, the whole shebang.” - Lyndon Barrois

“Movies and TV shows are not so much about the way the world is, but the way we want the world to be. And VFX help us see anything that we can imagine.” - Adam Leipzig

“Visual effects are like alchemy — you have this little piece of something to work with, and you can turn it into anything that you want.” - Tamika Lamison

• How Lyndon entered the film industry via graphic design and miniature modeling
• How he lost his first job before he even got started
• Lyndon’s opportunity with Disney and what he learned on the job
• Lyndon’s recent miniatures and stop-motion work and the other independent projects he is involved with right now
• When Lyndon is brought on board a project and why he prefers to get involved at the storyboarding and pre-visualization stage
• Why pre-visualization is so critical in the context of planning the film as a whole
• How Lyndon brings the context of the world we live in into the work that he does
• Lyndon gives his advice to a listener interesting in making a career in visual effects
• Some of Lyndon’s favorite projects to work on and why he enjoyed them so much
• Lyndon’s work at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and why they try and explain and correct omissions in the history of cinema

Lyndon Barrois on IMDB

It’s a Wrapper! Website

Stop Motion Studio Pro for iPhone

Jon Poll is a director, film editor, and producer. He attended the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and graduated in 1981 with a major in film production. As an editor, Jon worked on 18 films between 1982 and 2004, including Weeds, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Mystery, Alaska, Meet the Parents, Scary Movie 3, Forever Young, and Death to Smoochy. Jon made his directorial debut in 2007 with the comedy-drama Charlie Bartlett. He was also executive producer for The 40 Year Old Virgin and co-producer for Brüno and the television series TV 101 and Eerie, Indiana.

On the My Creative Careers show this week, Jon explores what it means to be a film editor and describes his role in the movie-making process. He shares the differences between what an editor looks for and what a director looks for in a cut and why that difference in perspective can lift a film to the next level. Jon also gives his advice and insight to an emerging editor moving up in the business and highlights the pros and cons of niching down as an editor.

“Editing is a very, very much of a hidden art. It's a little bit of black magic.” - Jon Poll

“Movies need a lot of love ... And sometimes some movies need more love than others.” - Jon Poll

“When you make movies, one of the most interesting parts is your preview which means you go to a real live movie theater and you get real-life people who want to see a movie, and they watch it, and you screen it, and your heart is in your stomach. - Jon Poll

•  The moment when Jon realized that he needed to trust his instincts when cutting a film.
• The differences between editing a big-budget movie and an independent movie.
• Why Jon believes that a film is a communication device between filmmakers and their audience.
• How editing influences the ways a film elicits feelings in an audience.
• Times when Jon has had to choose between performance and visuals when making a cut.
• The three key things that Jon looks for in a movie.
• How technology has changed over the last 50 years and how Jon thinks it will evolve in the future.

Victoria Rose Sampson has been a renowned Feature Film Sound Editor who learned her craft by working alongside her mother, Kay Rose, the first woman to win an Oscar for sound editing on the Mark Rydell film, The River. Victoria’s credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Speed, Donnie Darko and Return of the Jedi, and she now teaches post-production sound at Video Symphony in Burbank. She is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Local 700 of the IATSE, and serves on the Board of Directors of The Alliance of Women Directors.

On the My Creative Careers podcast today, we're diving deep into the world of sound engineering with sound editor extraordinaire Victoria. She shares her insights into the relationship between the language of sound and the storytelling process and why the sound editor is so much more than a technician. We explore how sound editors take production sound recorded on set or location and clean it up to eliminate unwanted noise and create the director’s vision. Victoria also discusses how her career has evolved since the 1970s, what made her fall in love with the discipline and gives her advice on achieving great sound on set.

“I wish that more directors would know the language of sound a little better. I mean, they learn the language of actors, they learn the language of DPs — to learn a little bit of sound language isn't going to hurt too much. But I find people just get a little overwhelmed by the technical side of it.” - Victoria Samson

“A sound editor is a person who tells stories with sound. I learned that from my mom; she used to tell mixers that you're not just a technician, you're not just a recording mixer, you're a filmmaker. And we help the filmmakers tell their stories using creative sound, sound design, sound effects backgrounds.” - Victoria Samson

• Victoria’s illustrious film industry heritage
• What a sound editor does to help the filmmaker’s vision using sounds
• What made Victoria fall in love with sound editing, and how her career began
• Why there are fewer women sound editors now than there used to be 20 years ago
• Why it makes sense for sound editors to get involved in movies early
• What Victoria wishes people knew specifically about what she does and her golden nuggets of wisdom gleaned over her long and successful career
• The movies Victoria has worked on that contain the most interesting sounds, what those sounds were, and how she found them
• Films that Victoria hasn’t worked on but that she admires for their amazing sound editing — and what she really notices about sound when she’s watching films
• How Victoria finds focus and blocks out the many distractions life can bring

An Open Letter From Your Sound Department handout

Victoria Rose Sampson on IMDB