Q: Share with us about your education background and work experience.

A: When I was in high school, I studied General Computer Science in Toronto, Ontario and San Jose, California. Unfortunately, I had to suspend my education and go back from the United States to Hong Kong because of some family issues. My first job in Hong Kong, I was a web programmer, and that is the era the web was beginning to rise. After a year, I gradually found that my interest lies in creative works. After talking to my company, they gave me the opportunity to engage in programming work, and also participate in design work at the same time. After three years, the “dot com” era burst; many web companies start to close their business. I had the intention to study media art at that moment, so I applied to Hong Kong Art School, Hong Kong Art Center of the Higher-Diploma in Computer Animation. And now, I have been living for about 6 years, doing media works related to movies, commercials, the web, events, videos and games.

Q: Share with us about your current job and the Hong Kong movie industry.

A: It is not an easy task to be an animator in Hong Kong where work occupies every single minute, and this just exchanges for bare survival in life. But being here has some advantages, because Hong Kong is an open pluralistic society, so it is full of opportunities in Chinese community. Most of the local directors are aiming their efforts towards the China market, that’s why many films are shot in China, and spoken in Mandarin mainly. During the shooting period, my duty is do the preparation of the effect shots, and also, I need to give some design input into a concept board and present to the director. When we have a consensus, I must communicate to all units and ask for our needs to be shot. So this is a good experience and opportunity to know different producers in the Mainland.

Q: How has your media education and past experience helped in your current job?

A: When I was in Hong Kong Art School, Hong Kong Art Center, besides learning traditional animation and computer animation, the most important thing is learning about storytelling from camera and the presentation of visuals. Although Hong Kong is full of commercial products, some of the directors try so hard to persist on their work in different art form. I need to communicate with them in this language and insist on what I learnt from school. We also enjoy perception and figurative from the visual, so the directors are very reassuring to give us some space, and I look forward to what “chemical reaction” will be given out. Based on my programmer background, it also helps me to understand the probability of post-production.

Q: What kind of responsibilities do you undertake in your organization?

A: My current role is to manage the compositing lead, teach and solve the technical aspects, and participate in the work of production. Some projects I have to be involved in the pre-production, filming, budgeting control etc.

Q: Can you share about some of the bigger projects that you have undertaken over the years?

A: Over these years,“Ultraviolet” and “A Chinese Tall Story” were the biggest, longest production period and I learnt the most through these projects; In “Ultraviolet”, I spent a year and in “A Chinese Tall Story” was spent a year and a half of my time. Although the movies were not enjoying good results (in the box office), but technically I learnt a lot, especially in “Ultraviolet”, I am full of pride for the scenes which I made. From my involvement in “A Chinese Tall Story”, I experienced the director’s perception and perseverance more than I expected. In the subsequent years, we kept learning from each other’s work scope, so limited to this project. The more important thing is extending our cooperation and communication in the future.

Q: What are some of the difficulties you have faced in the course of your work?

A: The most difficult project should be “Wait ’till You’re Older”. In this film, you can see there is a couple morphing shot from a child turning into an old man. One minute for each shot, they have got three shots individually included in the trailer. But in fact, this project had only a month for the post-production, and we had 60 effect shots with 6 peoples involved in this project only. The daily working hours began from 1500 until the next day morning 1000, then back home for a bath and sleep about 5-6 hours to return to work, seven working days for a week, and it lasted for a month. I profoundly remember on the way back home for few days, I felt heartache in the cab, and I really thought about whether I will die soon.

Q: What can newbies joining the visual effects/movie production industry expect?

A: In Hong Kong, the industry is tough, it kills your time, but this should be a great challenge if you get into it. The newbies have to prepare themselves to learn fast, think fast, because the clients or directors’ idea keep changing, they don’t even know what they want sometimes. Then, we need to have great observation, and provide some better options for them. I suggest play more, see more, think more; widening your sight can generate more views from different perspectives, it helps creativity.

Q: What advice can you give students that are interested to join your industry?

A: Work and school are always different; we always need a learning heart. Even in school, it can only provide a learning opportunity, but the key is the enthusiasm of learning. I used to be a web programmer, and I found my passion in visual media later, but there is not a big deal for change, because there’s nothing to lose.

Q: Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

A: I have been working in visual effect for video about six years and a half, and also work over ten years in the media industry. In the beginning of this year, I planned to develop my visual works in different media, such as web, game, print, video, etc. I hope in the next ten years I can bring more works that I am proud of.

Take a look at Mark’s show reel:

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You can take a look at Mark’s portfolio gallery here.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 12:39 and is filed under Feature Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.