How We Work

MPC Film is at the forefront of the VFX industry, imagining, innovating and inventing new possibilities in filmmaking.

Over the last 10 years we have seen incredible success and growth driven by a rise in the film industry’s demand for visual effects. Our artists’ groundbreaking work on movies, such as The Jungle Book and Blade Runner 2049, shows how far the industry has advanced in complexity and scale in just a few years.

In this rapidly evolving landscape, we believe that it’s time the inherent workflows and methodologies that the industry take for granted are reviewed and improved to help our artists do what they do best – create stunning visuals.

We’ve listened to our people, scrutinized how the industry is organized to create a new team structure based on the belief that these industry standards can be improved.

We want to offer our artists greater clarity on their career path, more opportunities for development, greater support and clearly defined responsibilities.

Shot Teams

At MPC Film our artists work in small, focused shot teams who join together to deliver a specific shot or set of shots for a particular show.

Each artist has a clearly defined set of roles and responsibilities which enable them to help create brilliant images as part of this creative unit.

Working in this focused and structured way helps both our artists and the studio produce world-leading visual effects that continually raise the bar for what’s achievable in the industry. 

Our Artist Classifications

The different members of our artist teams and their broad areas of responsibilities are: 

ARTIST

An Artist’s main focus is creating final shots using set-ups and rigs made by Key Artists and Technical Artists, enabling the department to deliver a large volume of elements downstream.

As an Artist, some of your responsibilities will be:

- Applying templated workflows.

- QC’ing.

- Running Tests.

- Presenting to Supervisors.

- Identifying and reporting issues to the team.

The role provides great opportunity to learn and have an overview of our pipeline, work closely with the team and progress into other roles.

An Artist has great career progression opportunities to develop into a Key Artist or Technical Artist.

If you like challenges and like to learn in a dynamic environment this role is perfect for you.

KEY ARTIST

A Key Artist is responsible for creatively raising the bar of their department. Their goal is to provide the best looking images in the world to our supervision team and to our clients.

You’ll be building set-ups, templates and rigs to pass to other members of your team to run in shots and sequences. Supported by Artists and Technical Artists around them, the Key Artist can focus solely on being creative.

A Key Artist has great career progression opportunities to develop their creative skills or transition into a Lead role, which has a split between creative and management responsibilities.

TECHNICAL ARTIST

The Technical Artist role is all about supporting the team technically.

In this role, you will collaborate with the Lead to plan through technical requirements and challenges and help craft complex setups for the team to use.

This role supports the Key Artist and Artist on day-to-day technical problems that may occur such as:

- Packaging problems

- Render Errors

- Scene slowness

You will also test software updates and support the Embedded Developer in tasks you feel ready to take on. No scripting is required but working in this role provides a great chance to learn some!

This role works closely with everyone in the team and there is opportunity to progress into a Key Artist, Lead or Embedded Developer role. This role is all about taking on challenges and solving problems and getting a great overview of the pipeline.

A Technical Artist has great career progression opportunities to develop their Technical skills either into Software roles, or transition into Lead roles, which has a split between creative and management responsibilities.

LEAD ARTIST

A Lead Artist works as a Manager as well as an artist. You lead by example and set a workflow that the rest of the team follows. You manage shot teams and look into delivery targets as a whole. Motivating the team to consistently deliver high quality visuals is a key part of the role.

You are responsible for ensuring the team work together like a well-oiled machine. 

Working calmly in a high-pressure environment is key to being a Lead Artist as well as having a hands-on approach to work, whilst being creative and picking up shots.

A Lead Artist has great career progression opportunities to develop into HoD or Supervision roles.

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The specific roles and responsibilities may differ between our various departments but the outline above is a good overview of how each artist level operates within our studio team.

How We Manage Our Teams

Each artistic discipline also has a Head of Department and a Department Manager, who together oversee the workflow and smooth running of the shot teams for which they are responsible.

The Department Manager is tasked with the organization and operation of the particular department - they are your go-to person as far as your job is concerned with things like holiday, sickness and training.

The Head of Department focuses on the creative direction of their team and the shows they are working on. The Head of Department also nurtures the talent in the team, provides visionary creative leadership and is a creative coach.

How Your Career Can Develop at MPC Film

When you join the team we’ll work with you to create a plan that will help you develop during your time in a way that will best nurture your skills and help you achieve your potential.

We’ll regularly let you know about how you’re doing, not only through honest and open conversations with your manager but also through our new bespoke Talent Evaluation System that allows us to share detailed feedback on your work and help you progress.

This approach is coupled with a structured and comprehensive Learning and Development programme that will give you access to the tools and learning opportunities to help you in your career development.

We’re similarly committed to our teams in non-artist roles (such as Production and Technology) to help them develop their careers at MPC as well. Members of those teams also have full support in guiding their progress as well as a raft of Learning and Development opportunities to complement their day-to-day roles and responsibilities.