SXSW Panel Part 2: Women Leading the Charge in Indie Visual Effects
In Part 2 of our South by Southwest 2025 panel discussion, we dive deeper into the craft, community, and challenges of working in visual effects for independent film. Host Paul DeNigris reunites with panelists Laura Skowronski Nattam, Joey Cade, Shaina Holmes, and Laurie Powers Going to discuss practical VFX advice for indie filmmakers, share war stories from groundbreaking projects like Enchanted, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Faceless Lady, and shine a light on gender inequity and evolving career paths in today’s VFX landscape.
From VR filmmaking to tax incentives and mentorship, this episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and candid honesty.
🎥 Watch Part 1 of this conversation: https://youtu.be/uhDRNHbAXUg
🔗 Book Discount and Links:
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https://www.routledge.com/Visual-Effects-for-Indie-Filmmakers-A-Guide-to-VFX-Integration-and-Artist-Collaboration/Holmes-PowersGoing/p/book/9781032282060
📖 Visual Effects for Indie Filmmakers | Amazon Affiliate Link
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🔗 Find out more about all our panelists at: https://linktr.ee/VFXforIndies
🔗 Women in VFX: https://linktr.ee/WVFX
Transcript
Paul DeNigris (00:00)
We're continuing our conversation with a powerhouse team of veteran producers, supervisors, and artists who presented a panel at South by Southwest 2025 titled Visual Effects in Indie Film? Yes, you can. On this episode of VFX for Indies
Welcome to VFX for Indies, podcast about the intersection of visual effects and independent filmmaking. I'm your host, Paul DeNigris VFX artist, filmmaker, and CEO of boutique visual effects shop, Foxtrot X-Ray.
Joining me for a second episode today is an incredible panel of guests who, as I mentioned, presented at South by Southwest on the very same topics we discuss here on every episode. So let's welcome back to the podcast, Laura Skowronski Nattam, Joey Cade, Shaina Holmes and Laurie Powers Going. You can check out part one of my conversation with them by following the link in the show notes, going to VFX for indies.com or clicking the link in the upper right corner of the screen right here on YouTube.
Thanks for joining me on the show again, ladies. Let's jump right in where we left off. We were talking about advice that you would give to filmmakers who are new to using VFX and you all had some great advice that definitely builds on a lot of what we talk about here on this show. Let's just continue on that thread. What can a filmmaker who has little to no experience with VFX do to educate themselves?
or to find the right artists, the right people to help them achieve their vision.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (01:45)
Find similar films to what your vision is. Watch them over and over. Study them. Watch the BTS scenes, behind the scenes. Go find all of the extras. Used to be on the end of the DVD menus or Blu-ray menus, but you can find a lot of things online. Network at local meetups. Find people that are approachable professionals and start up conversations because...
We all wanna talk through these things. We all love the work, wanna do the work, we wanna help you, we wanna get a vision, bring it to life. So watch for events at local schools. I've been to a few events at UT here in Texas a few times here in Austin. There was like an animation celebration. They've brought in amazing leaders in the animation and film industries. So just watch for all of those.
kinds of events and get out there and talk to people.
Laurie Powers Going (02:39)
Yeah, we're members of Women in Film here and I've gotten a lot of work and introductions through that organization. We have like 500 members here. So I don't know what organizations might be local to any particular filmmaker, but there's always some kind of organization like that, you know, that you can look into. And then also as an independent filmmaker, I've gone to a lot of film festivals and met a lot of filmmakers and especially
you know, if you're like doing short films and really low budget films and you go to a film festival, you're going to meet a lot of filmmakers who are working with the same budget and film types that you are. And you can talk to them about who they use. I just went to one this weekend, the Chicago Horror Film Festival, in case you're interested. every single film there had a visual effects artist or visual effects supervisor listed. So.
You can see visual effects is very popular for short films and low budget films now. So I'm sure you could get a lot of recommendations through for the from those filmmakers there and whatever film festival you're going to.
Paul DeNigris (03:45)
Yeah, especially in in genre horror, sci fi, fantasy, that sort of stuff. VFX is just part and parcel of those genres. And, for sure, you know, if you're going to work in those genres, you just need to know what's possible, you know, at the budgets that you're talking about.
Shaina Holmes (04:01)
Yeah, I will say that when you approach visual effects producers or supervisors or artists, they always want to see some kind of reference. watching similar projects that are kind of at the same level of what you want to create, even if it's not the same effect, even if it's like I want to make my character turn into a wolf, but
here's a movie that does it in a similar way, but they're turning into a mermaid or something like that. trying to find similar level projects that also seem kind of your budget level. And then looking at the credits and seeing who worked on it, and then seeing if you can reach out to them because usually visual effects.
facilities or artists specialize in certain techniques and if they've already done it once for someone else, they've got practice. So it'll be easier to talk to them about what they did on that one versus what you're looking for. Because every time visual effects is always inventing something new. ⁓ You may think it's the same exact effect every single time, but visual effects are used to as a
Paul DeNigris (05:12)
Mm-hmm.
Shaina Holmes (05:19)
creative storytelling technique to create something that doesn't exist. So everyone's looking for something completely different. So having these references is really helpful to getting your point across of your vision without having anything that looks like it somewhere else.
Paul DeNigris (05:39)
Joey, your thoughts on this?
Joey Cade (05:40)
mean,
you know, these days you can also Google VFX supervisor or VFX producer. You can look on your local Film Commission website usually and find references. But I will say if you do that, I personally always advise ask around, you know, talk to people you actually trust to get references because just because you find a VFX producer or VFX supervisor doesn't mean they're the person that is, you know, you guys are going to automatically hit it off or they're going to become your trusted advisor. But, you know, if you can find that person out there, hold on to them.
Paul DeNigris (06:09)
Yeah, the relationship between directors and VFX supervisors, I think it's as important as the relationship between the director and the DP or the director and the editor. You know, you have to all be on the same page. We're all rowing the boat together. We need to be rowing in the same direction. Yeah.
Joey Cade (06:16)
Yes.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (06:17)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (06:23)
Thinking back on your careers in visual effects, can you pinpoint,
one or two shots or sequences where you felt like, we really, pulled off the impossible. We did something that a filmmaker came to us with and maybe at the start of the conversation, you were like, I don't know how we're gonna pull this off for the budget and the time that we have and all of that. But you and your teams, you know, really pulled something magical out of
Joey Cade (06:50)
For me, feels like every project from 2002 to like 2008 or nine, 10, something like that. It felt like every project was like that because that was sort of that phase, right? Where we went from everything having to be in a, you know, on like machinery that was.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (06:53)
Ha!
Joey Cade (07:10)
not everyone could use, right? To desktop, everyone's able to produce VFX. And the studios were like, throw everything at VFX, let's make everything VFX. But they didn't know anything yet either. And so it felt very Wild West. And I remember basically everything we bid on. We would be like, how are we gonna do it? And we'd be like, I don't know, just tell them it'll be great. And like show them references, it's gonna be amazing. And you would land work and then we would be like, oh my God, no, how are we really, how are we gonna do it?
And I remember one in particular was, we we bid through Walt Disney Studios, live action, you know, feature production studio to do VFX and they dragged us on. I feel like it went on for a year that we were bidding, but once they finally awarded something to us, it was very specifically, you guys are going to do these transitions where it will go from the live action into the 2D. was for the movie Enchanted.
And we were so excited because we were going to work directly with Weta and Tippett and who was the other studio? Well, there were three studios we were working with. yeah, was Disney Live Action. Weta created basically all the CG assets, was the book, the big story book that opens up. So we got the live action plates and everything from Walt Disney. We got assets from Weta.
And with, and Tippett were basically the head, VFX supes. And so the supe would come to the office all the time, which was great. But we had to make, basically all the live action shots when they wanted it to transition, they wanted it to look like a pop-up book. and we were like, totally we can do that. No, no, no, we could not do that. It was super freaking hard. We literally physically had to make all the actual, we had to physically make pop-ups because
Laurie Powers Going (08:45)
Yeah
Joey Cade (08:49)
It was just so complex to figure out, you know, it was crazy and I don't think any of us slept for months, but it was amazing and we're super proud of it. And yeah, it looks great. So, but very much so we were just like, yeah, we can totally do that, but we had no idea.
felt like everything, all those jobs at that time period were like that.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (09:09)
I appreciate your honesty there. does feel like every single project, especially from a producing standpoint, you have to be strategic, especially you're on a tight budget, whether it's indie film or not, like even the big productions, everybody's got a tight budget these days. so like, you've got to have fancy footwork and figure out where the battle scar is going to be. And then where are we going to have to say,
you know what, the back of that spaceship, we don't ever see that on camera. Let's just leave it be gray box. Let's just leave it without any detail. Let's not spend any time or money or effort on something that we can be creative and cut around or not show. So, you know, we've, had a few things like that in places that I've worked from a producing standpoint. Now, from an animator standpoint,
I remember back to one of my first jobs in animation, which I got to work on the Sesame Street show. There was an animated show called Abby's Flying Fairy School. when we started, I think we had to animate something around 700 frames a week to get to our goal. And by the end of the last season that we did, I think we were
pushing 1500 frames of animation a week or something crazy like that and multi-character shots with interactions, physical and conversational. So when I look back at it and anybody who's in TV animation or anything that you do frame by framework, that sounds insane. That number of frames is really crazy.
Paul DeNigris (10:43)
Mm-hmm.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (10:45)
How we got through it, mean, like I said, you have to be strategic. What are the biggest movements that people are going to see? What are the small things that people aren't going to see? we're not going to spend any time, you know, whittling down to like, what is this last joint on this thumb doing? You know, when it's like, it doesn't matter. It's TV animation. We got to get through it. You know, we got to get the biggest sentence seen and then everything else is just extra, you know, icing on the cake. So.
That'd be my, you know, spin off to what you were saying, Joey, that everything has to be strategic.
Paul DeNigris (11:19)
Shaina, Laurie, anything come to mind in terms of a place where you felt like a real miracle worker?
Joey Cade (11:25)
Yeah
Laurie Powers Going (11:25)
I
mean, I'm trying to think and I feel like surely there was something, if there was.
Shaina Holmes (11:30)
I mean,
we worked on, so the thing I always bring up is it's always better when the filmmaker is actually there in the studio with you. Things progress creatively at a much faster rate with live feedback. So Laurie and I worked on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and ⁓ I know. ⁓
Laurie Powers Going (11:50)
That's what I was gonna say.
Paul DeNigris (11:53)
I've heard of that.
Shaina Holmes (11:55)
the director
actually basically lived in our studio. so, Michelle Gondry was just sitting next to us and giving us live feedback of everything he wanted was so particular and specific, but he couldn't explain it very well with words.
to have him act out something that he wanted or take photos of things he wanted us to utilize as assets to manipulate the images and things like that were just really, I don't know, that was the best possible situation we could have had for that film probably.
Laurie Powers Going (12:35)
So
He also gave us so much leeway with our creative input, you know. He was like, he would describe the effect that he wanted and then let us free, you know, to have like creative freedom to make that impact come to life in whatever kind of method we wanted.
which was cool. So I feel like that was definitely one of those things where, you know, going in, we didn't know how it was going to turn out, but somehow it just turned out really, really well and really effective. And every time, you know, maybe we heard a description of how this shot was supposed to look like, you know, somebody's head's supposed to turn upside down and it's supposed to go blank and blah, blah, blah. And we're like, okay.
You know, and we didn't have 3D or, you know, any kind of CG at that place. It was all, you know, compositing and we're like, all right, well, let's do it, you know. Yeah. Very organic.
Shaina Holmes (13:30)
So we would shoot our own elements and things like that. But yeah,
he turns his head around and it's the back of his head on the front of his head.
Paul DeNigris (13:38)
Ha ha ha ha.
Laurie Powers Going (13:39)
Okay, yeah, well, got it. But you know, I think on a smaller scale, talking more like independent, I was thinking that a couple of years ago, had a director producer come to me and she had a grant to shoot a short film, Sharon Arteaga, she's shooting a film called In Tow and it all takes place in a trailer house that's being
towed down the highway where her two main characters are in the trailer house. And obviously you can't actually shoot that because that's entirely illegal to have anybody in a trailer while it's being towed. What'd you say, Joey? yeah, it'd be horrible. You couldn't actually do that. That would be just a disaster. So, you know, she came to me in pre-production and we were talking about how we were going to do that. You know, she had a limited budget even
Joey Cade (14:13)
And the sound would, the audio would be awful.
Laurie Powers Going (14:28)
She did a really nice grant and everything, but even with that, you know, a limited budget, how are you going to do this? Because you have all these shots, you're going to see through the windows, you know, you need that sense of motion and everything. And just this kind of being able to talk through it in pre-production, we really talked about how, what are the money shots? You know, what do you really need to see? What do you not need to see?
Like, do you really need to see the motion through the windows or can you put up window coverings, that kind of thing? You could save a lot of money by putting up window coverings and just not seeing it because a little bit of implied camera shake. So they got it to where the camera guy was. They practiced a lot with the camera movement. And so it totally looked like it was shaking. But you don't actually have to see anything through the windows to assume that, especially once you've seen the camera being towed.
Joey Cade (15:17)
Mm-hmm.
Laurie Powers Going (15:19)
I mean, the trailer being towed. And so it's just a lot of little things like that that we got it down to a series of what we would call money shots. Put your money into these shots that are really going to sell it. And so that is kind of one that I think was a triumph that we really honed in on what the shots were that were going to be the best place to put the money.
that they turned out really, really well. And then the rest of it was just all in your mind. And we didn't have to shoot like probably two thirds of the shots that she had on her list.
Joey Cade (15:57)
That's awesome.
Paul DeNigris (15:57)
Yeah, that's an important lesson for indie filmmakers is to remember that the audience is your partner in this and all you have to do is imply and give them breadcrumbs that they can follow. You know, I'm currently revisiting Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and he's really I mean, there's tons of visual effects all through, but something that he could could have made a visual effect shot every single time is the height difference between the Hobbits and everybody else.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (16:22)
you
Paul DeNigris (16:25)
And he's very sparing with it. He just reminds you every once in while. yeah, these, guys are like half the size of everybody else every once in a while. It's a visual effect shot all the rest of the time. It's just a matter of like eye lines and where he's putting the camera to just feed into that illusion. And the audience fills in the rest of it, you know? So that that's an important lesson, right? Filmmakers do come to us. All of us thinking I need visual effects to, to do every single.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (16:44)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (16:52)
shot in this sequence. it's like, no, you just, if you're, if you're careful and you plan and you, just pay attention to what the audience is thinking at any particular time, you can, you can make them think they're seeing more visual effects than they are.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (17:05)
Did you have a story, Paul, as far as you asked us about?
Paul DeNigris (17:06)
end
geez, I don't know. I think, you know, pulling off miracles is our stock in trade, right? All of us. Like that's what we do. Geez, I have lots of things. Frankly, Laura, I was hoping that you were going to have a story about something that you and I had worked on together. A little disappointing.
Joey Cade (17:23)
Hahaha
Laura Skowronski Nattam (17:23)
I know, that's why, if you have, if
you've particularly felt like a superhero on one of the things, you know, I'm happy to rattle off about one. But.
Paul DeNigris (17:34)
yeah,
give me, give me something and I'll, I'll, I'll tag onto it.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (17:37)
well, I was asking the same thing. like, there a specific project that we've worked on? Okay, well, one project that we worked on together, Paul, is for MetaHorizons, and we worked in conjunction with LightsailVR and CryptTV to make The Faceless Lady, which was really, really cool.
ghost story out of Ireland in castles and it was done in stereoscopic as well. So that was a hurdle that... Yes. Yeah. ⁓
Paul DeNigris (18:04)
Yeah. Stereo 180 VR. Yeah. Yeah. And you, and you
alluded to, one of the challenging shots on that show in the last episode, you were talking about the, bird hitting the invisible wall. ⁓ yeah.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (18:13)
Yeah, I did.
Yes, yeah,
Joey Cade (18:17)
Amen.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (18:18)
there were definitely, you know, creative challenges that we had to address, but even just the technical, you know, one thing we've advised people in this and the other episodes is like, you know, get in there, get in conversations, find a mentor, find someone who can talk to you about the experience and we couldn't really do that for what we were doing.
Joey Cade (18:42)
Only.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (18:43)
for The Faceless Lady. was kind of a breakthrough sort of VFX project that we couldn't go to our friends over at Such and Such Studio and say, how did you do this? We had to bring on a stereo guy to help us understand convergence and disparity. We had to just sort of adjust our pipeline to understand that we would be tackling the monoscopic
you know, one eye camera shot first and get the VFX laid out and approved and then duplicate that VFX for a whole other eye at the right, you know, distance or whatever so that once you put the headset on, it reads and you can see the depth without feeling sick. that was a whole, I think if I were to pick one project we had together, Paul, that I felt was kind of a monumental task, I think that was one that
you know, required us to have a lot of patience and a lot of discussion with all of our partners, all of our creative and technical partners. We had to have just constant, thorough communication. So that's something that I think we really thrived and excelled at. I felt, you know, to your question of when did you feel like a superhero, you know, that one felt pretty cool.
Paul DeNigris (19:50)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure. There was a big learning curve. And in fact, I had Matt Celia from, from LightSail on the show Again, I'll, link to, to that episode in the show notes or we'll put it right up there on YouTube. Great deep dive into the, into VR tech and all, all of that sort of stuff. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. And like you alluded to in the last episode, the, you know, CG bird hitting an invisible wall and then having to transition to become a
Laura Skowronski Nattam (20:06)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (20:27)
a real practical bird that lands at their feet in the plate. You know, seems like a really easy shot, but when you can't hide the seams because it's stereo VR and you know, the bird that is just, you know, a tiny little thing on screen is suddenly blown up to this massive thing in your headset. Yeah, a lot of our traditional tricks as compositors kind of went out the window and it was like...
How do we make this work? How do we solve it? It was a really fun new frontier for all of us.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (21:00)
Yeah, certainly. it definitely, you know, maybe an independent filmmaker might not be able to relate specifically to that experience. But to be honest, you know, filmmaking in VR is definitely an up and coming thing that is, you know, being tackled all throughout that you can have a spectrum of budget. I think you could probably do a production, small, like short form production in VR.
and utilize some visual effects to help really sell your ideas, whether it's a series or whether it's a short or whether it's an independent feature. It is one of these, like we're gonna see more of it as the years go on. So I think as an independent filmmaker, never closing your mind to the possibilities of what form your story might.
Maybe it is a film, maybe it's a TV series, and maybe it's something that people are going to watch in a VR headset. You never know.
Paul DeNigris (21:53)
Yeah, for sure. then, you know, one of the, one of the topics that Matt and I discussed in that episode was the, the idea of shooting tests. You know, we, he talked about how accessible the technology is and, I can't stress that enough. I think when a filmmaker comes to us and they've got something really, really ambitious, one of the things I'll suggest to them is shoot a test. Here's a tutorial for this topic, for this particular effect.
that was done in this movie. Watch this tutorial, go shoot it, shoot it badly, shoot it with, you know, your roommate standing in who isn't an actor. Just shoot it, screw up the green screen, see all the ways that you can blow this, see all the ways that you can do this wrong. Let's get those out of the way before you're paying me to be on set, before you're paying your crew, before you're paying actors, before you've rented a studio. Go get the bad version of this out of your system.
So then you can go, okay, I see exactly how I shouldn't shoot this. This is what we need to do when we get to production. These tools are so inexpensive. a lot of the tools that we talk about. can put on your MacBook. You can shoot stuff with your iPhone. Just go shoot a crappy version of your effect to work through it. And even if you have to shoot that crappy version five times until it gets sort of okay, it'll maybe never be ready for prime time, right? You're a filmmaker.
You're not a VFX artist, but you can now understand the world that the five of us live in and you can communicate with us and our teams more effectively. so don't, don't be afraid to jump in and get your, get your hands dirty and, actually try this stuff. There's so much stuff on, on YouTube now that, that you can, you can look at just, just to figure it out and just to find out what other people are doing.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (23:33)
If shoot it badly isn't already
a t-shirt, it should be. Like, it's just that mindset of like fail fast mindset. Like what can we do to get the idea across and then refine that? That's why companies like Pixar, for example, you know, they'll board stuff out. Their entire film is boarded out. The first time they board it out is going to be wildly different from the film that's produced because
Joey Cade (23:37)
Yeah.
Paul DeNigris (23:37)
Ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Laurie Powers Going (23:39)
you
Joey Cade (23:43)
Yes.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (23:59)
they're iterating, they're changing, they're pulling boards off the wall, they're putting new boards up, they're scrapping entire sections, they're overhauling everything. You can do the same thing with filmmaking and planning for your VFX. You just shoot it and you envision it together. How best can we get your story told and hopefully implement that strategy to make sure that it's cost effective at the same time.
Joey Cade (24:23)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (24:23)
Yeah,
too often filmmakers wait until post to iterate and to experiment and to try new things. And at that point, they're fairly locked into a bunch of decisions they made months or even years earlier. All right, let's shift gears. I want to talk about the industry at the VFX industry, the entertainment industry as a whole, it's facing some real challenges right now. What are each of you seeing from your individual perspectives and where do you think things are going from here?
Laura Skowronski Nattam (24:50)
I got one. So production tax incentives are a huge part of the discussion right now, particularly in Texas, where Laurie and Joey and I are, where we're making strides with legislation to arm productions with more competitive incentives than there are in other states and even overseas where a lot of things are going these days. So it's something we're watching very closely. Right now, it looks like it's
most attractive to like big budget productions. But we're hopeful that attracting these productions into Texas will sort of shine a light on all the talent and capability that we have here, such that smaller projects, independent projects can also benefit from that wider pool of talent and resources.
Joey Cade (25:21)
Thank
Laurie Powers Going (25:38)
that still remains to be seen if that's going to actually expand to post-production, which has always been the thing. Even when production comes into a state or a location that's induced by incentives, seems like post-production often isn't included in that. So I would love to see more post-production spread out into localities like this.
It is something that I'm also seeing a lot going overseas, not in the US in general. So that's been tough too. And during COVID, there was a lot of being able to work from home. Now we're going back to working in office. And a lot of those in-office jobs are overseas to where it's not even an option for you or for us.
⁓ So
it is becoming for me a lot more of working on independent films just as a freelancer, know, piecemeal work right now rather than being able to sign on with a large VFX company where I am getting steady work.
Paul DeNigris (26:42)
Right. Shaina, Joey, your thoughts.
Shaina Holmes (26:44)
Yeah, I was trying to look something up, okay.
Joey Cade (26:47)
Well, I was just going to
say, like, as a professor, I'm, and I'm a new professor. so I'm very excited about it and loving, collaborating with young people, but I will say I'm very concerned for them because they still have a mindset that they're going to graduate and get a job at a studio. I don't know. It's hard to, know, cause you don't want to burst their bubble. They're 20, you know, so.
Cool, go do what you want to do with your life. Absolutely. But also be careful because you're not going to have benefits and they're going to put you on a contract. And then what happens, you need to have a budget so that you know when you lose, if you, when that contract ends, what are you doing next? And they don't know how to budget. And so I will say, like, I would love to hear more of where we think the industry is going. Cause one of the things I find myself trying to advise is like, you know, well, first of all, I tell them to
try to be generalist at the beginning. So you're learning as much as you can. You're trying a lot of things. You're finding where your aptitude is, you know, and really then you can start focusing more and more and becoming more specialist on things. But, you know, look at, mean, the industry is so vast now. Like we talked that you mentioned XR earlier, you know, a lot of stuff is going into the XR side. There's a lot in like medical imaging and
and architectural stuff, which may not sound fancy, may not be what someone who's 20 thinks they want to do with their lives, but they can probably get a real job with benefits to do something like that. And so I feel stressed in these days how to advise a young person to proceed, because it does feel like an odd time evolution-wise in our industry. There's a lot of holes in the sense of you used to be able to get a job and have benefits.
And that's just not very easy to accomplish at all anywhere these days. So it's tough. It's scary for young.
Paul DeNigris (28:36)
Yeah. Yeah, I can,
I can totally relate. I, taught college for 20 years and, uh, you know, I've been out of the teaching game for a bit, but, uh, yeah, I mean, in years past, I could tell a promising compositing student, you know, moved to LA and that's where the work is and they would go and they would get jobs. the kids I gave that advice to are, you know, by and large still working in the industry today. Um, I hope knock wood.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (29:06)
you
Paul DeNigris (29:07)
you know, but they could go, they could graduate and then go out to LA and within two years be working on Avatar or the Avengers or, know, a Star Wars project or something like that. And people have asked me like, would you go back to teaching? And I'm like, I don't know. Like I loved working with students. loved teaching. ⁓ but now I'm like, I don't know what advice I could give them because I I'm not, I'm not sure myself, which is why I asked this question.
because I'm looking for somebody to tell me what the hell's going on.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (29:35)
a good time for me to introduce my existential crisis duck lamp? Yeah, you you got to, and I also have, I'm going to just show off my desk toys. have this little this is fine dog, you know, where he lights up and glows and he tells you.
Laurie Powers Going (29:34)
I.
Paul DeNigris (29:40)
The existential crisis duck.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (29:54)
This is fine. These are tricky moments. And then you've got AI also in the conversation. And how many people think, ⁓ I could just do that with AI, right? Or couldn't you just cheaply do that with AI? Couldn't you just? Couldn't you just? And it's like, well, yeah, sure. But where's the quality? Where's the humanity? Where's the actual creativity? Are we seeing?
Joey Cade (29:54)
This is fine.
Paul DeNigris (29:55)
This
is fine.
Joey Cade (30:06)
Thank you.
Paul DeNigris (30:11)
You
Laura Skowronski Nattam (30:19)
Human souls anymore and human thought or is it all just regurgitated? You know nonsense that is coming out of a box. So Yeah, it's definitely that You know what you're saying about coming out of education and where are kids going. What can we tell people? It's it's a tricky thing but making sure people are well-rounded and understand that it is just a different world now than it ever was
I mean, it's always going to be that way, right? It's always going to evolve, but, you know, being ready to tackle those differences and understand where are the limitations, where do I feel strong enough to challenge the limitations or to challenge the boundaries of a system that maybe we don't agree with, or maybe that is, you know, prohibitive for us to move forward in a craft that we love. So I think that keeping your eyes forward on the tasks that are relevant to you,
and always keeping your eye on where is it relevant in the industry and being mindful of what's going on around you is super important.
Laurie Powers Going (31:22)
I just think that the industry that students are getting in today is not the industry that we got into. And the craft that we have been in for the last 20 years is not the same craft that they are going to get into. So any ideology that they have that they are going to get into our industry is false because they are simply not going to be in the same industry that we are in right
It's going to be a completely different industry. They're not going to be practicing our craft. And they're going to have to learn AI. They're going to have to be integrated with AI. They're not going to be necessarily even using the same tools that we're using in five years, much less 10 years. And you can guarantee that whatever tools they are going to be using are going to be AI driven. And I just think that's the way it's going to be.
Paul DeNigris (32:02)
Right. ⁓
Shaina Holmes (32:10)
There's an over saturation of artists. So either because they're out of work because the work has decreased over the past year after the strikes or just because it's so accessible that too many people are learning how to do it and want to get into this industry. So I still think it's about who you know.
And so I think one benefit I have to being in New York is the industry in New York City is so close knit. And I personally know a lot of people at a lot of different facilities because it's always like, they're not there anymore. Now they're over here. And so everyone works with everyone in
the city and kind of collaborates a lot of the time to get the workforce to keep the work in New York. we have so many facilities both in New York City and upstate that you can shoot at for studios and post-production and visual effects. So it's kind of like always growing here. And so I always take my students
Joey Cade (33:08)
Thank
Shaina Holmes (33:20)
to New York City, it's four hours away, but it's still close. So they get to meet all the people that I came up with in New York who are now like heads of production everywhere. And they are the ones who would hire these people who are right out of school. I think for anyone.
In school out there listening to this, make sure you utilize your faculty and their network. That is now your network. So treat your class like it is an internship and then make sure you're always following up with them and creating that relationship because they want you to succeed and continue to.
keep them active in the industry through what you do in the future. So that would be my educational kind of note. And then I also wanted to shout out New York State this week. The budget just passed for the next tax credit program. So it has been extended to 2036.
Paul DeNigris (34:11)
Hm.
Shaina Holmes (34:28)
⁓ And the really good thing we do here in New York is everything's separate. So there's a production credit separate from a post-production credit, separate from a visual effects and animation credit, separate from a scoring credit. So they're all separated where most other states, I find it's production only or
Laurie Powers Going (34:28)
Mm.
Shaina Holmes (34:54)
everything's kind of lumped all together and it's kind of unclear how to do your production that way. But it's kind of amazing that it's 30 % incentive here and it's been reduced for the visual effects. I just wanted to read it. Spend thresholds for both visual effects and animation have been reduced from 20 % to 10%.
and the spend thresholds lowered from 3 million to 50,000, or sorry, 500,000, half a million, including overhead. So it's been reduced by one-sixth.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (35:25)
Great, that's, ⁓ well. I was about to get really excited there.
Joey Cade (35:31)
Yeah.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (35:38)
That's still a huge ⁓ improvement. And it's a great example for states like Texas that are coming into a new realm of production tax incentives. There are incentives for VFX and animation and post-productions, but it's just like what you said, Laurie, it's a little difficult to navigate that. And it's certainly
Joey Cade (35:39)
Yeah.
Paul DeNigris (35:39)
Yeah.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (36:02)
looks completely inaccessible to me and my personal projects that I have access to with independent film and television production and commercials and trailers and things like that that are nowhere near that threshold. We don't have access to that. And my question to Texas MPA at the last event that they held was how might smaller studios
reach those kinds of incentives on a smaller scale, because I think supporting local industry across all kinds of budgets is really relevant and there should be room for that. I think the marching, the expression right now is like, if you build it, they will come. If we build up our industry and support the big productions coming in with higher tax incentives,
then we'll have more going on. And I think I believe that to some extent, but definitely clarifications are needed. Definitely more conversations are needed to make sure that we all understand how we can access these things and how it can broadly affect and support our local industry.
Laurie Powers Going (37:10)
It's very difficult with post-production and visual effects because you have to build the infrastructure, which means there already has to be enough basis here to maintain a post-house or a visual effects house here. It's not like it can just come and pop up and then go away when the production leaves. I mean, guess it can, but there's a lot involved in that. There's a lot of money and infrastructure involved in.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (37:22)
you
Joey Cade (37:24)
Mm-hmm.
Laurie Powers Going (37:36)
doing that. It's not like where a production can roll in and set up, you know, and then roll back out when it's done.
Paul DeNigris (37:43)
Because the incentive has to do with hiring local folks most of the time, and it has to do with where they're actually seated. Right? It's not like a Texas visual effects company can outsource the work to people in California, as an example, and still get the incentive. It has to be Texas-based artists sitting at boxes in Texas for it to qualify. Yeah. I should move back to New York.
Joey Cade (37:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Laurie Powers Going (37:46)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Right.
Joey Cade (38:06)
Yeah.
Paul DeNigris (38:08)
That's where I grew up in New York. and, you know, when I was, when I got out of college, I was trying to get a film industry going in Buffalo, New
Shaina Holmes (38:16)
I mean, I'm one
of the only visual effects people in upstate New York, so come join me.
Paul DeNigris (38:20)
⁓ yeah,
nice,
Joey Cade (38:21)
I'm
Paul DeNigris (38:21)
⁓
Laura Skowronski Nattam (38:22)
Well, aside
from the tax incentives, one thing that we haven't really talked about is grants too. There's so many small to large scale grants that can be applied for. like, know, independent productions can like AFS Austin Film Society, they have a grant. I know this will air later, but tomorrow their applications for the AFS grant for feature films.
will close. it's a big boon for productions here. ⁓ Correct, yes. So there's lots of grants that might be more applicable to an independent filmmaker as opposed to necessarily right away a tax incentive.
Laurie Powers Going (38:57)
which is statewide, not just Austin's, Texas filmmakers.
Paul DeNigris (39:11)
That's great. All right, I want to, I want to shift gears again because, uh, elephant in the room. This is, this is my first all female panel of guests on VFX for Indies. And to be honest, I've only had one other female guest in two seasons of the show. And I think this really speaks to the inequality in the industry. It's not, not for lack of trying. Um, you know, it's just who's out there. You know, when I was at Encore Hollywood, for example, I was surrounded by hundreds of other artists.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (39:32)
Bye.
Paul DeNigris (39:41)
And I can only think of three or four of them that were that were women, you know? So this is this is obviously an issue. something that I I talked to my female students about when I was teaching and tried to prepare them for the fact that they were going into a very male dominated industry. tell us a little bit about your experiences with this inequality. Obviously, I'm not looking for you to name names or point fingers or anything like that, but just, you know, generally,
How has it affected you and what have you seen change over the years that you've been in the industry?
Joey Cade (40:08)
Thanks.
Paul DeNigris (40:12)
Laura, why you go ahead.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (40:13)
Well, I definitely noticed it as early as my high school and college computer graphics classes in which they were a male majority atmosphere. So in a way that early exposure to that lack of balance weirdly felt normal because I came up in that. You're focused on your studies and excelling at your own skills and you're not really thinking about the world at large or whether it's equitable sometimes.
And then, you know, towards the end of college, so I got this opportunity to go with just a handful of upperclassmen and grad students and a couple of professors to Poland for a month long exchange program. And we taught various aspects of computer graphics technology and software and practices and that sort of thing. And I was the only female on that trip. It was a small group, but I did go to the dean specifically to ask for that chance. And I'm...
grateful that I got it. It was at Purdue University in Indiana. So that was an important lesson. Women may not be necessarily selected first due to whatever reason. There might be a whole host of reasons. But if we stand up and let people know we're here and we're forced to be reckoned with, we're benefiting ourselves as well as the industry at large that we're the other
they would otherwise be missing out on half of the equation. So that's my experience.
Paul DeNigris (41:34)
Yeah, that's a great starting point. mean, again, when I was teaching, would make an effort to kind of push my female students more into leadership roles some of them would say, I'm not really comfortable with this, right? And I would say, well, you have to get comfortable with it because you have to advocate for yourself because you are going into this industry that is predominantly male. And I said, you being in a leadership role serves two functions. One,
It gets you used to having to speak up, right? And take the responsibility and prove what you can do. But also it trains all these boys that you're in class with that they have to be comfortable taking orders from a female producer. know, I said the only way we're changing the industry is if we start there, you know? So the next generation of guys going in are like, okay, yeah, I'm used to this.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (42:08)
You
Joey Cade (42:10)
Ding ding
Laurie Powers Going (42:23)
Yeah, I agree. Like when I was at Vancouver Film School, think, you know, we had a class of, I don't know, 20 something and there were only two girls, females in it. And, you know, I could get really uncomfortable sometimes because there was a lot of gamers in there who were studying 3D, coming out of gaming and, you know, they were like building these models of these women's with these giant boobs and like animated, you know I mean? And like watching like 3D almost
porn type things, right? You know what I mean? And it was just like so uncomfortable sometime that I remember at some point kind of speaking up about it, me and the other female, you know, we're just like, this is kind of uncomfortable, you know? And also just despite all this time they spent watching this, they always modeled the boobs coming, right?
here every time they model. Why do men always model your boobs coming off of your shoulders? What is up with that? But anyway, yeah, you know, so you do get used to that coming out of school so that when you go into the industry, I guess you're kind of prepped for that.
The first place Shaina and I worked, we actually were female heavy in the compositing department, which was a rarity. So I guess we got to experience that for a little while, and mainly because for a while Shaina and I were the only people there.
Shaina Holmes (43:42)
Well, I was going to say that when I started there, there were four people there in the digital department and three of us were women. And so I've kind of had a different luckier experience, I think. So film school, obviously I had 50 people in my major. They all wanted to be writers, directors. There were five women. The rest men, but
Laurie Powers Going (43:47)
Yeah.
Shaina Holmes (44:07)
once I got into visual effects, I think it was like the kind of a right time in visual effects that it wasn't like roles weren't specifically defined yet. It was like, come join us. We need artists and we need like technicians and we just want to see what you can do kind of stuff. so our boss at that company
Joey Cade (44:20)
Mm-hmm.
Shaina Holmes (44:32)
was really open to hiring a lot of women in our department. And since I had never worked anywhere else, I was like, this is normal. And so I've always had a female mentor supervisor. So Laurie was my supervisor there. And then when I moved to New York, I had another one there. And then I became that. So I've always kind of like been
on the hiring end. So when Laurie left that company, I got to be the one hiring who was joining our department and kept it very gender equal, I guess. But yeah, I think we were also seeing a lot of men get hired because they could talk their way into it.
Joey Cade (45:23)
Mm-hmm.
Shaina Holmes (45:23)
Whereas
a lot of the women didn't have the confidence to say they could do certain things. So they were either hired at a lower rate than what they should have been at, or they succeeded and kind of like stayed for the long haul. Whereas the guys who we hired like flamed out in a couple of weeks because they could not do anything that they were hired to
do specifically at that high rate. They were getting more than us. And it was kind of, I think later on as we were there, we kind of like learned that hiring kind of method and it was kind of disheartening.
Laurie Powers Going (46:07)
once I left there and went on to like bigger studios, you could really see how, that technique really works in bigger studios. Whereas that kind of stuff was more, you know, it became, it was really obvious in a studio where there's like five people. If one person is getting paid as a, at a senior rate and they're not pulling their weight, it's painfully obvious and they're going to have to leave. But when you have a studio where there's a hundred artists.
and somebody talks their way in at a senior rate, they can pretty much fly under the radar at that rate, producing just a little bit. And you can definitely see how in a studio where it's very male heavy and they can be one of the guys, like I'm not going to call out any studio names, obviously, but definitely I was in a big studio where a lot of the guys would go out
to lunch and go to these bars where there were scantily clad women, shall we say. You know what I mean? Huh? That kind of place, yeah. You know, get your beer and your lunch served to you by scantily clad women. And, you know, just have like this whole bro cult, I guess. And, you know, I could go sometime because I can hang, but it's not necessarily something that women want to do.
Paul DeNigris (47:04)
Hooters. Like Hooters.
Laurie Powers Going (47:23)
It's not necessarily something that women should have to do to be part of a company, you know, or to fit into a company or to get a promotion in a company. And so when you're in that kind of culture and you don't do that, you know, like I could be a top performer in that company and still not get promoted, which I didn't. But then some of these younger guys who could just talk their way up.
got promoted. And I'm telling you this story because I had this experience where at this company, I was able to create this particular tool in the pipeline. And it was working for me. So I introduced it to my supervisor. And he was like, wow, that's great. I'm going to send it up to IT. And IT implemented it throughout the whole company. So that's exciting. I made a tool that got implemented throughout the whole company.
Anyway, so we start a new project and I get this new supervisor who's like this kid, I don't know where he came from, but he was one of these, know, talked his way into the company, talked his way into the supervisor position. So we're working, I'm working on the shot. He comes around, he's like, do you want to show me how you're doing that? And I'm like, I'm just doing it, you know, and he's like, you know, we have a tool for that. And I'm like, well, you can't use that tool for this particular shot. He's like, let me show you how to use it.
and he proceeds to start showing me how to use my own tool.
Joey Cade (48:45)
Yep.
Laurie Powers Going (48:46)
And
at that point, that's when I was like, luckily my former supervisor comes by and he's like, dude, dude, come over here and let me talk to you. But yeah, I left that company shortly after that. And it's just one of my stories about how like being a woman in the industry just kind of sucks sometimes, you know, like why did that have to happen? And how did that happen? And you kind of want to just kind of go back and break down like, what was the process where.
As someone who had been an invaluable employee, how did I get overlooked and how did this guy?
you know, end up in that position and not even know who I was or what, you know what I mean? Like how did that go down exactly?
Paul DeNigris (49:26)
Right. Ended up mansplaining
to you your own tool. Yeah. And like I said, that goes back to the lessons I tried to impart to my female students. Like if you don't speak up, you will get run over. You have to advocate for yourself. So Joey, did you have something you wanted to add to this?
Laurie Powers Going (49:29)
Right.
Yeah.
Joey Cade (49:40)
Yep. Well, I was going to say that I had the opposite
experience to Shaina because I can't think of ever reporting to a woman. And honestly, there just really were very few women. I have always been in VFX and animation in Texas. So I think that, you know, makes it a little bit different. are fewer women in VFX and animation in Texas than there are in LA and New York, percentage wise. But,
Yeah, I've seen awful things for sure. And it's frustrating to me that our South by panel is sort of like feminist and subversive because there were four of us women on that panel and just shouldn't be like that. Frustrating.
Paul DeNigris (50:21)
Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why I didn't want to make that the focus of our conversation on the podcast, right? The four of you are visual effects professionals with lots of experience to share with my audience. I didn't want it.
Joey Cade (50:33)
And I, because I've
done it for a long time, have been able to sort of reinvent my own career to remove myself from studios like that. And it's not been the best financial choices, but it's choices that have made me so much happier. ⁓
Laura Skowronski Nattam (50:48)
Yeah.
Laurie Powers Going (50:49)
No, I totally agree with that. think,
you know, the last time I worked at a studio, it was so frustrating and you could actually feel certain people working against you and you feel like the only reason that that can be happening is just, and maybe not even intentional sexism, but maybe it's rarely intentional to be honest. It's rarely intentional, but
Joey Cade (51:04)
No, it's not intentional always.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that.
Laurie Powers Going (51:10)
Yes, since I have gone freelance and started my own company and especially since I've been getting so much work through women in film and working with women producers and directors, it's just been like a whole different atmosphere. But even the even the men I've been working with as an independent visual effects supervisor, you know, just getting personal recommendations. And I hate to say this to just slam my own generation, but the younger generation of people.
Joey Cade (51:22)
Yeah.
Laurie Powers Going (51:38)
of men like work with me completely differently than my generation and up.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (51:43)
Mm-hmm.
Joey Cade (51:44)
Yeah,
I was going to say it is really different. It's almost like upside down for my students, because I would say that, at least in my producing animation and visual effects class, there are more women than men in my class. And I will say, Paul, because I've seen a little, like you said, know, sort of cheerleading some of your women students to get them to push themselves out into leadership roles. Interestingly, I do in my young students, which are, you know, currently 18, 19, 20, they
It looks to me like the women are much more confident with being leaders. you know, I have group projects and one of my classes and they almost always the director and the producer were women almost always. But because of that, I actually noticed, weird tensions that would arise between the men having to have the lesser role and the rest of the team. it created a discomfort for that person.
And then they would sort of rock the boat. And, it was interesting because oftentimes again, it would be like two guys and like four women in all of my group projects. And the guys would be like, the women interestingly did what we do, which they would just ignore it and move on. Cause they're like, okay, you can have your problem over there, but we're going to finish the project. And they would just keep things moving. they, and so like, they all did great. I will say like the teams figured out how to work together and it was great.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (53:00)
That's so interesting.
Joey Cade (53:09)
But I will say like with the current culture and all the things that are happening, like I actually do worry now, which is insane because I have been so frustrated by sexism my whole career, but I actually do worry about the young men. Like they seem very angry, you know, very frustrated in the same way that I was. So it's interesting to watch that sort of like, to me it feels like it's totally shifted upside down. Yeah, yeah.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (53:30)
It's a seesaw effect. Yeah, it's like,
that was definitely a thing that I was thinking of too, is like, you grow up with this sort of imbalance and it's like, it's the whole question of like, if a woman is disagreeable in a conversation, is she a bitch or is she just being opinionated about or educated and relaying her information? Whereas a man can do that and not have the same, but yeah, if the roles are reversed and the women have more
Joey Cade (53:46)
Maybe.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (53:59)
say and more power now, now the men are experiencing that for the first time, like how it is to have to be catty with each other to claw and claw their way up out of it. I definitely didn't notice, we were talking about education before and it's like, I didn't realize until getting out in the professional world, just how unequally women are seen, onboarded, paid, respected in the workplace. And for me,
that we got to fight that with an empathetic approach to your point. Like I don't believe in a light switch solution. I think, you know, we have groups like Women in Film and Television, Austin, Women in Animation, Technology, and then we need to promote these organizations with a full heart if we're gonna address or overcome this, you know, together. We've got to like find allies and compare salaries, you know, project rates, experiences, because we,
we don't know when we might be undercutting ourselves, you know, just to find a competitive edge. just finding and making opportunities for women to showcase their talents and be recognized like effectively for everything they're capable of doing, not for stroking egos, but just so that they're more top of mind when, you know, within their industry when opportunities arise.
Joey Cade (54:56)
We
Laura Skowronski Nattam (55:17)
And then when the disrespect happens, rather than lashing back, being catty, whatever, taking patient steps to like name it as it happens, ask questions about why did you get to here? Like why did you get to this point in your beliefs or what you're saying? And remember you can't change someone's mind necessarily, but you have the keys to your own mind and by making industry connections and.
you know, being open about our experiences. Hopefully we can arm ourselves with the support we need to push through an area of disrespect and encourage more respectful discourse and then foster and broaden a friendlier world for women as much as any other group.
Shaina Holmes (55:58)
so one thing I noticed when I left a smaller company to more studio structure, like bigger corporate, was that there were only kind of like one woman at each level. ⁓ So there could be only one. We can go back to like Highlander. Yeah.
Joey Cade (56:13)
Hmm.
Yeah. The token. Yeah, the token.
Shaina Holmes (56:21)
so I, it always seemed like there were, say there's five people in a department, like if there's two women it's like they're pitted against each other, to fight for the same promotion. whereas the men don't have to do that because they're in the Hooters club, right? The Hooters luncheon.
So, I also was one of the only female supervisors who was in manager meetings every week and just hearing the way other male managers talk about people behind their backs is with HR in the room and knowing HR is on the side of corporate, not the employees was really like a struggle.
so I tried to, whenever I am a supervisor of a team, I try to hire and protect the people who are in my department from anything above so that they don't feel these effects and they feel like they are in a safe and like really fun working environment that we all belong and we're all equal. but,
Joey Cade (57:20)
Yeah.
Shaina Holmes (57:32)
I kind of wanted to mention, I mentioned it in episode one, during COVID in 2020, me and some people in London, VFX artists in London created a global Women in VFX Discord group. And from all of us are in that group now, but.
In there, it's basically created for women who feel like they're the only one at their company and they have no one to talk to about anything from maternity leave to raises to am I even doing well? When do I talk to my supervisor?
And so we have this really great group that I'd like to promote. ⁓ So it's not a support group, but it talks about a lot of topics that none of us want to talk about in the company that we actually work at.
Paul DeNigris (58:20)
Yes.
That's great. you make sure you send me that link so I can include in the show notes, please. Yeah.
Laurie Powers Going (58:31)
I just wanted
to tag on and say that, you know, something Laura kind of said earlier is I definitely used to feel like, you know, I am not a feminist. I'm not going to be one of those people who's like, you know, you know, women power and all that kind of stuff. I just want to be a visual effects artist. You know, I just want to be an artist and that's it. I'm just like one of the guys or whatever. But then you get into the company and you realize, you know,
Laura Skowronski Nattam (58:41)
Mm-hmm.
I wanted to a bit effect.
you get into the company and realize you're
Laurie Powers Going (58:54)
you're not able to do that because it's not how you see yourself, it's how other people see
Laura Skowronski Nattam (58:54)
not able to do that because it's not how you see yourself, it's how other people see you.
Laurie Powers Going (59:00)
you. And that's the problem, you know, is that other people in the company do not see me as an equal, even if I see myself that way. And so that's when I'm forced to have to see myself as a feminist, you know, it's like, it's not something that I was
hoping to have to do or wanted to go in and do it's something that I've been forced to do.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (59:23)
the higher
calling of that, right? Like knowing where that goes, where that leads, even not wanting to take that step or be that way, you know, maybe.
Laurie Powers Going (59:33)
I was going to say that a lot of times that sexism is not even like a recognized, you know, by what men are doing because I have, I have talked to some guys who totally think that they are feminist and that they are on your side. And then, cause I know like I was talking to one guy who, who totally supported me, you know, totally supported women. Absolutely. It was on my side and would have, you know what I mean? Like,
But I was saying some things like some things are very subtle. Like just like maybe spending a little more time with me asking me if I needed help than he does with men. You know, like if I ask for, hey, you know, where did you say that asset was you know, if a guy asked that he might just be, that's on the G drive. But for me, they'd be like, that's on the G drive. What are you, what are you going to do with that? You know?
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:00:15)
guy asked that, he might just be, oh, that's on the G Drive. But for me, they'd be like, oh, that's on the G Drive. What are you going to do with that?
Just that extra little bit of assistance, know, needing to understand what it is. It's justice. And so when I was talking to that guy about that, he was like,
Laurie Powers Going (1:00:23)
Like just that extra little bit of assistance, you know, or needing to understand or help me or whatever is sexist, you know? And so when I was talking to that guy about that, you know, he was like,
huh, have I ever done that? And so, you know, sometimes the education is not like, hey, you need to stop being sexist. It's just realizing for men sometimes that they are being sexist without realizing.
It's the little subtle things. And sometimes it's even when you think you're helping, you know, but a lot of times it's how we grew up, you know, like feeling like men, especially maybe have been raised to take care of women, you know, you're supposed to open the doors. You're supposed to make sure, you know, your sister and your mom get home safe and all that kind of stuff, which is great. But when you transfer it to like a workplace where you're paying a little too much attention and taking care of
Paul DeNigris (1:00:53)
Mm-hmm.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:01:10)
which is great, but when you transfer it to a workplace, you're paying a little too much attention.
Laurie Powers Going (1:01:20)
your female coworkers and assuming that they're not as strong in the workplace or not as strong of a worker, it becomes sexist and it's weird and it's uncomfortable. And it holds those people back from performing.
Paul DeNigris (1:01:33)
Yeah, that's a great point. ⁓
Joey Cade (1:01:35)
Well, and my tip that
I always give people who say they care and they want to improve it, I always say, well, have you filed into your brain that every single time you're looking for someone, first you ask, is there a woman or a non-white person who could fill this role? And I will say that when I've said that to people, almost invariably, they say, well, I'm not trying to like only think like that. Like I have, you know, merit. It should be the right person. And I'm like, whoa, I'm not telling you to lower your qualifications.
Paul DeNigris (1:02:00)
Hmm.
Joey Cade (1:02:02)
I'm telling you to just consider that as a first step, know, check it off the list that you have considered that first, because that's just not generally the way they consider it first. it takes asking those questions and getting used to asking yourself those questions to like actually make a real difference in just the hiring you do.
Paul DeNigris (1:02:20)
And if we had another hour or two, that would be an excellent segue into the current state of American politics. But that is a different show. That is a different show than the one we're putting on here. Yeah. So happy to join, join you on a, on a, episode of your podcast, Joey talking about that. So what's next for each of you really, really quickly, any upcoming projects that, that people should be aware of
Joey Cade (1:02:22)
Yeah.
⁓ god no, god no.
Totally different show. Yes, that's great, yeah.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:02:31)
We'll hop on Joey's podcast for that one.
you
Joey Cade (1:02:39)
Cool, yeah, let's do it.
Shaina Holmes (1:02:45)
I'll just pitch the same thing that I did at South By. So Summer of 69 premiered at South By. I provided some visual effects with it with some of my former students. So my company's Flying Turtle Post. And it
premiered on Hulu last Friday and it was number one on Hulu for the weekend. go watch, Summer of 69. It's got a lot of Saturday Night Live people in it and it's very fun.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:03:10)
Woohoo!
was a lot of fun.
It was a fun watch.
Laurie Powers Going (1:03:18)
and I watched it at
South By and it was hilarious.
Paul DeNigris (1:03:21)
Laurie, Joey, anything you want to promote?
Laurie Powers Going (1:03:21)
⁓
I currently have a short film that is making the Film Festival rounds, is called Wildcat. It has a lot of visual effects, and I am trying to get some visual effects breakdowns out on that one on my website. The last feature I wrapped up visual effects on was called The End of Nowhere, and it hasn't been released yet, so I'm still following that. working on, I just edited another short film called The Fires We Play With, and
waiting for release on that hopefully soon. I'm dropping in sound as soon as we finish this podcast. And other than that, I'm working on several things through my little company called Deacon Finn Films and Visual Effects here in Austin. And just continuing doing whatever I can, I guess, working on a feature script that I am hoping to get off the ground in the next year or so as well. Yay.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:03:53)
you
Joey Cade (1:03:57)
Mm-hmm.
I think.
I'm producing, let's see, I produce all kinds of content these days, which is one of things I really like about where we are in the industry right now, because I'm producing some VR, I'm producing documentaries, I'm producing series that are going out straight onto YouTube, know, indie stuff. So I like that I'm able to produce all different kinds of things these days. Most of it is cause oriented. Like I've got a VR piece we're doing about Juneteenth. All kinds of stuff. I love it. It's exciting.
Paul DeNigris (1:04:45)
Great. Laura, anything you want to promote?
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:04:46)
So cool.
Promote, I mean, right now I'm really focused watching what the industry is doing. So there's some really exciting things happening in pockets of our local industry. I'm hoping that I can attract visibility to it by inviting people to join my organization. I have a local organization called the Austin Professional Creatives. It's a warm and welcoming free.
community-focused group of creative people across multiple industries. So not just post or, production or people, but there's musicians, artists, writers, directors, all kinds of folks. And we meet once a month for mixers and anyone from students to industry vets who've been around for decades practicing their craft. We are in our second year and doing bigger collaborations with other creative groups that have been around for longer, that are kind of...
toying with merging with us and we're doing co-labs and it's been great. We're looking at expanding our offerings, again, free to include workshops and talks and reel reviews and other events. And again, just the whole purpose is to uplift our community, women and men alike and all the facets in between. It's something that's very near and dear to my heart. that's...
sort of personal, sort of professional. Of course, I work with Paul at Foxtrot X-Ray and we get the luxury of working with a lot of indie filmmakers, TV series folks, makers, video game or movie trailers, explainers. What am I not covering, so much that we do. Yeah. ⁓
Joey Cade (1:06:18)
Everything.
Paul DeNigris (1:06:16)
I think you, you covered it all. We just, we
just wrapped VFX on a documentary called Flag Day
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:06:23)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (1:06:24)
We've done we've done a number of shorts for for filmmakers in L.A. working through Issa Rae's Find Your People program. That's that's been a lot of fun screenings for those are coming up in Hollywood in June. Yeah. So that brings another episode of VFX for Indies to a close. Thanks so much once again to my guests, Laura Skowronski Nattam, Joey Cade, Shaina Holmes and Laurie Powers Going.
Laura Skowronski Nattam (1:06:31)
Mm-hmm.
Paul DeNigris (1:06:47)
for being here with me today and on our previous episode. And thank you for tuning into our discussion. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, follow, subscribe. Every little bit helps us get the word out about the show. For Foxtrot X-Ray, I'm Paul DeNigris. Thanks so much for watching
