This course, taught by Shannon Moran, is an overview of the role of a facility-side VFX Editor. The course covers various aspects of editorial roles and responsibilities, with the hope of clearing up any misconceptions that often come with the role. The classes break down the core aspects of the job and take a deep dive to cover all the different facilities and disciplines that Shannon has worked in. Having a background in all three editorial aspects (advertising, feature, and episodic) Shannon shares various real-world experiences to de-mystify the job.
Shannon Moran has worked in the VFX industry for 10 years and the film and television industry since 2006. She taught herself editing in high school and honed her skills in college, eventually moving into film school and studied post production and VFX in the United States and the United Kingdom. She has worked on some of the largest projects in her 10 years at VFX, including
The Jungle Book,
The Lion King,
Dark Crystal: Rise of the Resistance, and most recently
The Winter King and
Dr Who 60th Anniversary. On top of extensive VFX Editor experience, Shannon also has offline editorial and trailer editing skills. Shannon continues to work in the VFX industry as an remote VFX editor at Realtime.
Introduction to VFX Editorial
Watch our overview of the course
Class Listing
Class 1: What is a VFX editor?
A general overview of what is covered in the course. Some aspects discussed are who can become and editor, the software used, roles and responsibilities and where editorial falls in the pipeline. Also discussed is the difference between client side and facility side vfx editorial.
Class 2: The beginning of the pipeline
The start of the editorial pipeline begins with downloading and IO practices. The role IO department as well as the protocols and workflows that come with the department are discussed. The class also covers file structure and naming conventions and goes into the various kinds of ways media and files come into and out of the facility.
Class 3: Turnover
Turnover is the meat and potatoes of VFX editorial. This class covers a couple of different parts of the turn over process in both Adobe Premiere and Hiero. A breakdown of thesteps involved in turnover and how to communicate with production and artists.
Class 4: Sends and more
This class begins covering a few aspects of the position which may or may not happen at your facility. Next, the concept of sends is covered and we go over things to look for, the ways production communicate, and then making sure how these files and deliveries are sent to the client.
Class 5: Review
Client and review sessions are covered in this class, with a breakdown of workflows both pre and post-covid, as the role of the vfx editor has changed since the pandemic. This class pulls from personal experiences and covers some code of conduct and rules gleaned on the job.
Class 6: End of show process
A breakdown of various ways to prepare shots for archive and also for any marketing uses. Also, ways to watermark and prep shots for artists to use in their own reels in such a way that they follow studio guidelines.