Making IT big in Hollywood
A Malaysian-born visual effects artist Kevin Pinga shares his Tinseltown journey with Izwan Ismail
IF you’ve watched Billie Eilish’s Bury
A Friend music video, you must have seen the part where she got stabbed with syringes and the syringes continue to stay in her back, waving and following her body movements in a natural way.
The whole scene looks so real that it gives the impression that all those syringes are real.
It’s all the creative work of Kevin Pinga, a rising Malaysia-born visual effects artist in Los Angeles, USA.
Beside Billie Eilish’s music video, the 26-year-old is also responsible for the lightning bolts scene in Taylor Swift’s Ready for It? music video.
In this video, there is a sequence where Taylor Swift, who is confined in a glass box, shoots lightning bolts out of her hands.
“I created the setup for the smoke that fills up the glass box in this sequence as the bolts touch the surface of the glass box. This setup was then deployed into about 10 shots that required the smoke to be in it,” says Kevin.
Kevin has been based in Los Angeles for about three years now and has done visual effects work for at least 10 music videos, 30 TV shows and two feature films.
“One of the most challenging projects that I’ve worked on was the latest Marvel feature film, Spider-Man: Far From Home.
“I was responsible for creating effects for a few shots in the film. The most memorable one was the scene where the good guy is revealed to be the villain,” he adds.
In this scene, the bar that the characters are in is actually an illusion.
THE JOURNEY
Kevin’s venture into the visual effects world started when he was in secondary school, which is SMK Derma in Kangar.
“In my last year in high school, I started learning video editing and visual effects with the support from my peers and teachers. One of my teachers encouraged me to enter a video competition for the Merdeka celebrations, organised by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. In the process of creating the video, I realised this was what I was really passionate about,” he says.
Despite getting good results for his SPM examination, Kevin found it hard to get scholarships to further studies in visual effects.
Not wanting to burden his parents, he contacted production companies and corporations in Malaysia. As fate would have it, one company decided to offer him a full scholarship to study visual effects.
“I picked Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta to pursue my Bachelor’s degree in visual effects. Three days after graduation, I moved to Los Angeles for my first industry job and have been in this city ever since,” says Kevin.
WORKING IN HOLLYWOOD
Making visual effects has always been Kevin’s passion.
“One of my favourite movies as a teen was the first Transformers film. I’ve always wondered how such a movie was made. It set the path of my dream of working on projects in Hollywood, be it feature film, TV or music videos.”
Like everything else in life, you just have to put the time into it to get good at it. Kevin Pinga
Before moving to Los Angeles, he sent out applications to at least 50 studios and got one reply.
THE JOB
Kevin is an effects artist responsible for creating elements that are dynamic and/ or needs to be simulated. They include explosions, smoke, water, destruction... pretty much anything that is difficult or impossible to film in the real world.
“From a technical standpoint, this involves creating an art-directed setup which can then be simulated by the computer,” he says.
The ultimate goal as an effects artist, he adds, is “to create pretty pictures on screen”.
Completion of a visual effects work depends on the project, client budget, complexity of the shot and the actual deadlines of the project.
For music videos, the turnaround time is usually very quick, between a week and a month.
“For episodic TV, it may take anywhere between two and six weeks. The longest that I’ve had for a feature film was three months.”
His primary software is Houdini, a fullfeatured 3D animation package that specialises in simulation and dynamics.
Another software for compositing effects together is Nuke.
There are other packages that are used in the visual effects pipeline, including Auto desk Maya, 3Ds Max, Zbrush and Katana.
THE CHALLENGES
Kevin says landing a job is one thing, but keeping it is another.
“As a visual effects artist, being creative or having an eye for art is not enough. Being a technical field, it often involves a lot of mathematics and pseudo physics.
“I must have a good balance of being artistic and technical. This means being able to problem-solve efficiently to deliver shots that are not only aesthetically-pleasing but also within the required deadline.”
Another aspect of being a good artist is working well with other people in the work environment.
“I was shy before but living in such a social city like Los Angeles has allowed me to outgrow this and become a very social person as well,” says Kevin.
Indirectly, this has helped him communicate better and be more relaxed with the people around him at work.
“Being good at what you do will land you your job but being a person who’s easy to work with will ensure you keep the job,” he adds.
HIS ADVICE
Kevin consider himself lucky to receive a scholarship that allowed him to learn visual effects in college. However, he thinks there are enough resources on the Internet to allow one to learn visual and be just as good, or even better, than someone with formal education.
“The unique thing about this field is that it doesn’t matter where and how you’ve acquired your skills. In all my years here, there has not been a single employer who has hired me because of the school I’ve gone to or the degree I’ve obtained. It’s all about your portfolio and your demo reel,” he says.
“Like everything else in life, you just have to put the time into it to get good at it,” adds Kevin, who hopes to be a visual effects supervisor one day.