Senior Lighting & Compositing Trapeze Artist
Helen Paul
I am a resourceful and imaginative Senior Lighting Technical Director and Senior Compositor with 23 years experience in cutting edge visual effects for film, special venue projects and other mediums, with proven artistic and compositional skills, wielded across multiple disciplines and generations of software.
The majority of my time in the industry was spent at Weta Digital/WētāFX. I also worked at Mill Film/Mr X and as a freelancer. At Wētā I contributed to many of the Academy Award and VES Award winning visual effects projects Wētā is known for, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, Avatar, and The Planet of the Apes franchise, and both of the technically complex theme park rides, King Kong 360 and Avatar: Flight of Passage. I have experience with leadership roles, on and off during my Wētā career, and more recently supervising a lighting team as a Key lighting artist at Mill Film which included many duties normally associated with a lighting lead.
I am known for being able to leverage my compositing experience to streamline the delivery of lighting elements to compositing by understanding the strengths and limitations of both lighting and compositing. I am also known for quickly achieving looks that please clients and supervisors, especially in situations where the target look has not been defined.
Strengths and Key Skills
14 years experience in lighting to senior/key level, at times taking on lead duties
10 years experience in compositing up to senior and lead level (overlapping with lighting)
Ability to produce good looking shots with minimal direction
Problem solving lighting and compositing difficulties within constraints of time and resources
Primarily worked in feature film VFX, but also TV, commercials, theme parks rides, special venue projects, buzz reels, and film restoration
Excel in a team environment, collaborating and communicating with other team members, supervisors, and across departments
Upskilling of more junior artists
Software experience - Current: Maya, Katana, Nuke, Shotgun
Previously used - Mari, Photoshop, Shake, Boujou, Elastic Reality, Liberty Paint
Proven ability, in both lighting and compositing, to
deliver high quality shots that meet artistic expectations
assist sequence leads with establishing looks, generic set ups, and problem solving
work with supervisors and interpret client feedback to establish a look for shots and sequences
solve challenges on technically complicated shots
support other members of the team and mentor newcomers
effectively prioritise to meet shot delivery schedules
effectively collaborate across the team and with other departments
Lighting Showreel 2018-2023
Lighting Showreel 2011-2018
Designed the lighting look for the large scale, all-CG Piccadilly Circus environment in Cats.
Established the lighting look for two Motorball scenes in Alita: Battle Angel, as well as contributing many character and environment lighting shots to this beautiful project.
Delivered shots efficiently by doing both the lighting and compositing them on The Hobbit Trilogy, the Apes franchise and other projects.
Used the combination of my depth of knowledge as both a lighter and compositor to complete very technically challenging shots in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Was the lighter for two sections of the Avatar: Flight of Passage theme park ride, a year-long effort involving many technical challenges, render budgeting, and artistic demands.
Created the library of brickmapped clouds that was used by the compositors on Avatar: Flight of Passage.
Established the look of one of the main angles and helped create the generic rig for the “Ballroom Banquet” scene in The BFG.
Worked as a compositor on the technically challenging Universal theme park ride King Kong 360. 6k wide, this was the first stereo deep-compositing project done in Nuke. Dr Peter Hillman developed the Nuke deep tools for as as we worked, feeding him requests and immediate feedback. The basics of that deep toolset now ship with Nuke.
Created or supervised the creation of master light rigs for several scenes, gave daily feedback to lighting artists,
provided troubleshooting and advice, and approved shots to render.
Created both the lighting and comp look for several scenes in the Hobbit Trilogy, effectively acting as lighting and comp lead in the absence of an official lead.
Developed creative lighting solutions in the “Dream Country” and “Dream World” sequences of The BFG.
Developed, with my fellow paint artists Quentin Hema and Phil Van Der Ryden, our own paint techniques for the removal of motion captured actors on The Lord Of The Rings. Extensive paint out was required for many shots, with Gollum actor Andy Serkis grabbing, fighting and stroking the other actors.
As a Senior Lighting Artist I also
created master light rigs for characters and environments
have been solely responsible for all the environment lighting in some scenes
created and maintained livegroups used across teams
updated workflow documentation for the lighting team
gave artistic feedback to the team and curated their work for presentation to supervisors
ensured the lighting was consistent across the scene
helped team members solve issues in their scenes
tried to maintain team morale in trying times
assigned work and balanced workloads for my team
As a Lead Compositor I also
established workflows and disseminated template scripts
ensured compositors delivered shots consistent with the rest of the scene
attended client calls to receive feedback on behalf of the team
Wētā FX ~ June 2021-present
Senior Lighting Artist
Recent projects -
Unreleased Marvel movie
Transformers - Rise of the Beasts
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3
She Hulk: Attorney at Law
Highlights
Created env lighting for Arete Spaceport environment (approximately 80 shots)
Created and maintained livegroups used across multiple teams
Took on lead duties for Arete spaceport scene to alleviate workload on the lead and CG supervisor. eg maintained scene-wide tools and settings, established workflow, assisted artists
Induction of juniors and remote workers to the show
Sole lighter for many scenes
Freelance ~ Nov 2020-Dec 2020
Compositor
Wellington Paranormal, Season 3
Short term work on 3 episodes of this low-budget television comedy.
Highlights
High degree of creative input, within the time and budget constraints
Presenting and discussing my work directly with the producers and directors
Working independently
Mill Film / Mr X ~ Feb 2019 - Oct 2020
Key Accomplishments
Held together a very junior-heavy team under very testing conditions
Shared many responsibilities normally taken by a Lead artist or CG sup on a big budget movie
Lit a large, complex, all-CG environment to the director’s rather whimsical brief
Was the first port-of-call for assistance from my team of up +20 artists, who dubbed me “VFX Mama”
Was the team’s go-to artist for lighting-look establishment
Key Lighting Artist
Cats - 2019
Yes, I worked on “that” movie. What began as a light-hearted project with the promise of pretty, quirky visuals became a raging bonfire of towering Tom Hooperisms, poor production planning, blood, sweat and tears.
Unique Challenges
Fickle director and constantly moving goalposts
Lack of solid technical planning during shoot
Mostly junior artists, Leads and Keys pushing themselves and their teams to the limit
Very tight render and OT budget
Outdated technology and lack of pipeline support
Achievements and Responsibilities
Lit the fantastical Cats version of Piccadilly Circus environment, which featured thousands of light sources and appeared in 60+ shots
Gave daily artistic feedback to my team and assisted with their problems
Curated my team’s work for presentation to the VFX supervisor
Delivered and interpreted VFX supervisor feedback to artists
Essentially shared the lead responsibilities with the actual lead
Finch - 2021
Coming on late to this project I provided back-up and cover for the new lead with a team of 25+, created master rigs for the lighting team, created custom eyelight rigs for close up shots for 10 or so scenes, maintained project and scene level Katana scripts, and was the general go-to for help for the team. As the show wound down I performed all the technical quality control, as well as became the “fixer” and the person tasked to pick up the shots of those who had left.
Wandavision, Episode 8 - 2020
Working in a tiny team of three lighting artists doing general lighting and problem-solving.
Weta Digital ~ 2001 - 2018
Key Accomplishments
Established the look for two significant sequences in Alita Battle Angel
Used my knowledge of deep compositing to deliver lighting passes that avoid common lighting/rendering pitfalls that can occur when deep compositing
Delivered shots efficiently by both lighting and compositing them on some shows
Developed both lighting and comp looks for short scenes in all three Hobbit movies, effectively acting as lighting/comp lead in the absence of an official lead on those scenes
Established lighting and comp looks in several scenes on various projects including The BFG, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Tintin
Used the combination of my depth of knowledge as both a lighter and compositor to complete very technically challenging shots in Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Learnt in house software to create a library of brickmapped clouds for use by the compositors on Flight of Passage
Worked with Dr Peter Hillman as an alpha tester and live user case study while he developed his deep-compositing tools for Nuke during King Kong 360, building the path by which we would finish compositing the project as we went. The basics of this toolset were sold to The Foundry and form the base of the deep-compositing tools in Nuke
Became an effective part of the texturing department after only a week’s training, independently lookdeving textures and shaders for props on The Adventures of Tintin and King Kong 360 for approval by the VFX supervisor
Senior Lighting Technical Director (June 2017-October 2018)
Alita: Battle Angel
Established the lighting look for both the Motorball Starting Line sequence (beginning of Motorball) and Screen Smash sequence (confrontation at the end of Motorball).
Lighting Technical Director (June 2016-June 2017)
Avatar: Flight of Passage
Lighting and rendering on Disney’s next-generation theme park ride, Avatar: Flight of Passage for Disney World. This was an immersive, 9,6k resolution, 60 fps, 160 degree field of view, omni-directional stereo, 4.5 minute 6D ride. The audience experiences the thrill of flying though the virtual world of Pandora. The ride has 14 kilometres of travel through eight different environments/ecological areas, and features millions of individual elements, including hundreds of thousands of creatures.
Unique Challenges
Intense scene management and scene optimisation
Intense render management, including dealing with the logistics of render times for image sequences that could reach several weeks to finish on the renderwall
Inventive lighting solutions required due to the scope and travel of the camera
Maintaining close co-operation and communication with the lighting and composting artists working on abutting environments needed to ensure no discontinuities or rendering overlaps or holes
Close co-operation and communication with FX, layout, matte painting and animation departments
Working to a fairly rigid rendering schedule, as render times were very long
No FX budget for clouds, nor access to software such as Clarisse
Extensive cloud lookdev required by client. Placement, modelling and rendering, all had to be done by lighters.
Highlight Achievements
Led the exploration of using an in-house but basically undocumented software used only by FX inmates (Synapse) to model clouds, rough up layouts and test rendering methods. I
learned Synapse for volumes and documented it for the lighting team
documented cloud modelling techniques for the lighting team
contributed to cloud layouts across many of the environments
investigated (in tandem with a lead and with help from R&D) brickmapping workflows for clouds, which was ultimately not possible for large, lit clouds for various reasons
created a library of wispy and atmospheric clouds as brickmaps for use by compositing, and used throughout the ride
When compositing was unable to find a way to seamlessly composite the simulated splashes into polyplane water, I collaborated with a FX TD to engineer a method to allow it to be done, then passed this solution on to comp
Solved lighting conundrums such as the client wanting the sunlight coming from one direction on the landmasses, beaches and shallows, but the sunset in a different place, reflecting on the ocean
Using an in-depth understanding of deep compositing, I was able to fix issues with renders such as overlapping geo for the compositor, avoiding extremely costly re-renders
Finished my assigned eighth of the ride ahead of schedule, and picked up a do-over on another eighth, completing both environments on time
Compositor March 2016- May 2016
Pete’s Dragon
Lighting Technical Director July 2013-March 2016
The BFG, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part Two, and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.
Lighting Technical Director and Senior Compositing Artist July 2009-July 2013
During this time I served in both departments, usually doing both on one show, and often compositing my own lighting. Projects included Avatar, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Adventures of Tintin, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Gulliver’s Travels, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and Iron Man 3.
Senior Compositing Artist April 2010-July 2010
King Kong 360 Universal Studio Park ride – a theme park ride for Universal Studios. The brief was to create two, 6k wide, stereo, 60 fps projections for either side of a tram that would rock and roll on a motion controlled rig. This created several challenges for Weta at the time, such as memory issues for renders so large, limited data storage and limited renderwall capacity. Three 2k square images were rendered, composited and stitched together in comp. Each side of the ride was divided into three overlapping and interlinked sections.
Unique Challenges
The massive file sizes generated by comp renders that took two days to turn around, and lighting passes that could take a week to render required working closely with data wranglers and careful workflow planning
Working in partnership with the compositors of abutting sections of the panorama to ensure there were no inconsistencies or holes
Innovating and developing new techniques now known as deep compositing
Texture Artist January 2010-April 2010
The Adventures of Tintin, King Kong 360 Universal Studio Park ride
Lead Compositor January 2008-July 2009
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Lovely Bones.
Senior Compositor January 2007-July 2009
The Water Horse, The Day the Earth Stood Still, District 9, Jumper, along with three commercials, and other small, non-film projects.
Compositor March 2003-January 2006
The Return of the Ring, I Robot., King Kong, X-Men: The Last Stand, Eragon, and The Bridge to Terabithia
Senior Paint Artist November 2001-March 2003
The Two Towers
Paint Artist January 2001-November 2001
The Fellowship of the Ring
Voluntary
Board member, then Secretary-Treasurer for the New Zealand chapter of the VES (Visual Effects Society) 2014-2016. This included organising networking and educational events for members, to further the VES mission to recognise and promote the art of visual effects. Still actively involved with the VES, but no-longer as a board member.
In 2010 I donated my time and compositing skills to a feature film that was written, directed and funded by friends. “Good for Nothing” was a Nominee Panavision Spirit Award for Independent Cinema, and several nominations in the New Zealand Film and TV awards including best visual effects.
Videographer and graphic designer for the Zeal Youth Venue, January 1999-November 2000.
Education
Three years of a four year Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication, discontinued on being offered full time employment at Weta Digital.