Q&A with John Montgomery, Visual-effects Executive Producer for Red Dwarf: Back to Earth

Fxphd members helped create director Doug Naylor''s (left) vision for Red Dwarf: Back to Earth.

John Montgomery is a visual-effects artist and a cofounder of fxguide.com, a website for high-end visual-effects professionals, and fxphd.com, a website that provides training in compositing and postproduction. Montgomery was the visual-effects executive producer on Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, which will see a U.S. DVD and Blu-ray release in October. Fxphd members, along with Fin Design+Effects, worked on the show''s visual effects. For more on fxphd, visit its Reel-Exchange profile at reel-exchange.com/members/c12dae75/profile.

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What were some of the challenges that you had to overcome on this project?

Montgomery:The difficulty was making sure work was being done 24 hours a day, seven days a week and managing all the different time zones. For distribution of information, we used Basecamp from 37signals. This is an online project-management site with messaging, chat, file libraries, and more. It was a brilliant way to keep the information flowing. For managing the actual shots and production of the visual effects, we used ShotRunner, which is specifically designed to manage shots in a production. The crew there was great, as they continually updated their code to help us better manage the project.

How was the storage/file system handled during collaboration for the sharing of files?

Material was stored on several secure fxphd FTP servers during production. This allowed members from all the locations around the world to download the materials they needed to complete their individual shots. Once they had completed their shots, they would upload the finished material back to the servers for approval.

Read the rest of Montgomery''s Q&A

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