My Journey Into The Visual Effects Industry – Jake Dobbie

Jake always dreamed of filmmaking and creating visual effects for film.

It was his love of films like Starship Troopers and Star Wars that inspired Jake to get a camera and start telling his own stories and creating his own worlds.

Jake found out about AIE through high school and applied for the animation and visual effects course. For his portfolio, Jake showed the films he’d made along with a sketch book of drawings with his ideas.

Jake enrolled into AIE’s Advanced Diploma in Screen and Media, specialising in 3D Animation and VFX. He particularly enjoyed his ambitious major visual effects project he created in the second year of his course, which he also starred in.

Jake’s first role after graduation was as a 3D Generalist at Plastic Wax, an animation and visual effects studio specialising in content for video games, film and television. Jake has since gone on to work with studios including Plastic Wax, Hammerfall Publishing, Animal Logic, and Cutting Edge Studios on such film projects as The Invisible Man, Halloween, and Peter Rabbit 1 and 2.

Jake has developed specialist skills in tracking and match moving. This involved recreating complex camera movements in a digital 3D space. This technique allows visual effects to be added to live-action scenes with the correct position, scale, orientation, and motion. This role is good for people that have a high degree of attention to detail as pixel perfect accuracy is required in order to be done successfully.

Jake is now doing freelance work and has also started his own studio Orbital Thunder. Jake’s advice for people following in his footsteps is to “Find something you’re passionate about, something you have a drive for and just pursue it”.

Check out the livestream below for me information about Jake’s journey, as well as general advice for landing a job within the film industry!