We meet Victor Perez, a leading international figure in the visual effects (VFX) industry, with over 28 years of experience. He began as a photographer and cinematographer before specialising in film post-production and becoming a visual effects supervisor renowned for his work in photorealism. His approach combines science, technology and art in the service of storytelling. Winner of the David di Donatello Award for the visual effects of Il ragazzo invisibile – Seconda generazione, he has worked on major Hollywood productions such as The Dark Knight Rises, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and with directors such as Christopher Nolan.
Interview curated by Stefano Paradiso CCS
I would like to begin our conversation by talking about Gabriele Salvatores’s film Napoli, New York. During a masterclass at the Trieste Film Festival, which I attended, you shared some fascinating stories about your connection with Fellini, the author of the film’s original treatment.
The fact that the film had been written 70 years ago was something we simply could not ignore. We needed to step into the mindset of that period, to understand why this story mattered then and to tell it in a way that would make it resonate today. It is a story of migration, an extremely topical theme, especially in Italy. Long before shooting began, Salvatores and I discussed it extensively. In our approach, visual effects are not created in post-production; they are conceived well beforehand. Post-production is when they are executed, but the design belongs to the preparatory phase. It was essential to understand what Gabriele had in mind, considering that the story was written in 1948 and that the New York of that era no longer exists: today’s city is completely different. Gabriele offered ideas that were rich and stimulating. He spoke about the journey – a theme he is deeply fond of, as shown by his road movies – and he drew parallels with Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, films that depict journeys into other dimensions of reality. The crucial point, however, was to preserve a neorealist foundation, in keeping with Italian cinema of that period. We therefore decided to begin from that framework and then transform it into a visual language capable of speaking to contemporary imagery. When I began my research phase – two years before filming – I realised I had never been to New York. I had studied near Boston and also in Philadelphia, yet somehow had never found the time to visit NY. When I started designing the visual effects, I told myself I ought to go, but then, while reading Fellini’s treatment, I found the key to everything. Fellini wrote: ‘We know Naples well, so I know how to portray it. But we’ve rather invented New York, because I have never been to America.’ That sentence became the pivot of the entire visual language of the effects. I was deeply fascinated by the idea of a young Fellini of 27 who, despite not knowing America, constructed its image. I imagined Fellini’s New York as filtered through the films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. And that was precisely the image of New York to which Salvatores often referred. For two Neapolitan children in the 1940s, marked by war and hunger, finding themselves catapulted into post-war New York – the very heart of capitalism and economic boom – really meant landing in another world. This is why I decided not to visit the city before making the film: I realised that if I did, I would ruin my imaginary vision. I wanted to depict a New York that was not real, but reinvented by cinema.
Because otherwise you would have contaminated the imaginary that Fellini had at the time he wrote the treatment?
Yes, it would have been a betrayal. To remain faithful to Fellini’s vision, I tried to understand which films might have influenced him as he conceived this story. His treatment, 56 pages long, is essentially a screenplay, rich in detail. Fellini imagined Naples and New York as two completely different planets, and Gabriele Salvatores wanted to preserve that same idea in the film, making the journey feel like a passage between worlds. My first and most immediate source of inspiration was Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939). I have always been passionate about the technology of cinema, about cameras. In a sense, I see myself as a cinematographer manqué. When I was studying film, during our classes Luciano Tovoli would speak to us about the Mitchell cameras, the Process Four and three-strip Technicolor. I was deeply struck by the way colour was introduced into cinema: an extraordinary, almost mad invention of irresistible beauty. Even today no digital camera can reproduce reality the way Technicolor once did. In The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming performs an operation similar to the one we wanted to undertake: a visual and conceptual journey. The film begins in black and white, but when Dorothy opens the door and steps into the world of Oz, colour explodes on the screen with overwhelming force. I can only imagine the impact of that explosion in 1939, when colour was still a rarity.
With Gabriele, we wanted to recreate precisely that sense of wonder and discovery – to convey the feeling of stepping into another world. So the film begins with a sober style, close to Rossellini’s neorealism, with whom Fellini had collaborated. As a screenwriter, Fellini had worked on Paisà, which is referenced in Napoli, New York. Starting from that realist imprint, the film then makes an abrupt shift with the arrival in the United States: the land of marvels. The New York in the film is the one of 1940s and 1950s advertising – saturated colours, perfect families, an idealised world.
You mentioned earlier a shared approach between you and Salvatores, with whom you have collaborated on other occasions…
I have been working with Gabriele Salvatores for many years. There is a deep understanding between us: we talk more about emotions and characters than about technical matters. I believe this is the most important aspect: everything starts from emotions and from the story; the rest comes afterwards. Working on visual effects is, ultimately, very similar to working in cinematography: it uses a different language, but it belongs to the same substance – that of cinematic storytelling. I am reminded of something Gabriele once said during the promotion of Il ragazzo invisibile – Seconda generazione: when asked why he made films, he simply replied, ‘I make films because reality is not enough.’ We love cinema because reality is not enough, because we want to live many lives and visit places that do not exist.
Let’s continue with your references…
Another point of reference was Alice in Wonderland. The second book in the Alice in Wonderland series is Through the Looking-Glass, and here Lewis Carroll tells us that beyond the mirror the world is different, creating a sense of estrangement, a feeling of detachment from reality. This is an idea that also belongs to Salvatores. Gabriele comes from the theatre and has always loved Bertolt Brecht, who began to break the fourth wall, reminding the audience that they were watching a performance, not real life. I am very fond of this approach because it takes a realist framework and puts it under pressure, exactly as Gabriele does in his cinema. Napoli, New York is not a Fellini film, but a Salvatores film influenced by Fellini.
So can we say, then, that it is a continual entering and leaving reality, as if we were inside the mind of the original author?
Yes, it is a complex intellectual exercise: one must respect the Fellinian element, which lies at the heart of the project, and at the same time honour the vision of Gabriele Salvatores, a profoundly visionary director. I admire Gabriele enormously: he is the man who made Nirvana years before The Matrix, tackling themes such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality when no one was discussing them yet. He is an artist ahead of his time. Today we are friends, but my admiration remains unchanged, and it is the same admiration I feel for Fellini. To remind the audience constantly that we are in an altered reality, I introduced a visual device I had developed with Italo Petriccione, who was initially meant to sign the film’s cinematography. Because of a health issue – fortunately later resolved – Italo was unable to continue, but we had already prepared everything together. I told him: ‘We need to ensure that all reflections – those in windows, in car bodies – are artificial, created by computer.’ To achieve this, we needed 600 square metres of black fabric to place as a backdrop. We were essentially working in negative: removing real reflections so that we could recreate them digitally. Italo and I had produced a very detailed storyboard to plan this complex operation. The idea was to place reflections of the “real” New York within the New York reconstructed on set. I found this principle very amusing: if you cross through the mirror, the world you see is stylised, but what the mirror reflects must be authentic. I therefore inserted numerous photographs of real New York into the reflections, so that the image would generate a sense of estrangement. The reflections, harsher and more realistic, contrast with the idealised city seen in the frame, creating a continual dialogue between reality and imagination.
Yes, the contrast between the reflections and the set filmed by Gabriele is very striking.
This visual approach gave the film a fairytale, almost magical tone, which audiences embraced with enthusiasm. I believe it was the only possible way to tell this story: had it been narrated in a purely neorealist key, it would have become a dramatic, perhaps even sombre film. The idea was instead to turn the narrative into a realistic fairy tale, a journey suspended between truth and imagination, where there was still room for sweetness and hope. The aesthetic dimension was essential: we needed to achieve a delicate balance, avoiding any indulgence in visual illustration as in The Wizard of Oz, while preserving that luminous sheen typical of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In a way, I felt as though I were working with Fellini. In a romantic sense, I sensed his spirit hovering over the set. But, as Gabriele often says, at a certain point one must ‘lose one’s respect’: only then do you stop being afraid of making mistakes. Although we were fully aware that we were working on a Fellinian treatment, we reminded ourselves that Fellini made films just as we do: he had to place a camera, face the exhaustion of shooting days, and solve problems. So we needed to approach the work with lightness.
I would like to return to a point you touched on earlier. Citing… Nirvana…you mentioned artificial intelligence, a theme that is now everywhere. What is your view on the impact of AI, particularly on VFX? Do you think it could replace your work, at least in part? And regarding cinematography, what is your perspective?
There is a great deal of confusion at the moment, and many different opinions circulating. I can only speak from experience: I remember perfectly when digital cinema arrived, with the first mini-DVs and low-cost cameras. At the time people said, ‘Now everyone can make films, the democratisation of visual storytelling has begun.’ The software I use today once cost as much as a flat in the centre of Rome; now all you need is a computer and an affordable programme to make a film. Today, as then, any innovation inspires fear. Many see artificial intelligence as a threat, a sort of Terminator ready to wipe out human labour. I, on the other hand, believe that AI is, above all, a tool for the cinema craftsperson: a powerful utensil, but still a means in the hands of the artist. Its ‘price’ is that anyone can now give visual form to ideas that were once the prerogative of a few. Everyone can make anything, but that does not mean that everyone is an artist. True artists are those who, in some way, refuse to grow up: children trapped in an adult’s body, who continue to look at the world with wonder.
It’s a beautiful image.
I believe artificial intelligence will give many artists the chance to emerge, especially those who until now have not had access to the necessary means. Cinema, unfortunately, is an expensive art, and for many it has been difficult to express themselves. Today, thanks to these technologies, it will be easier for many – though not for all – to access creative tools. Ultimately, artificial intelligence is just a new instrument. Cinema has always grown through technology. Film stock, although now considered something ‘vintage’, remains one of the most extraordinary inventions ever made: capturing the world on a thin strip of plastic and projecting it on a large scale is pure magic. When colour arrived, the language of cinema changed radically, and many had to adapt. The same happened with the arrival of sound: many celebrated silent-film actors disappeared because they could not reinvent themselves. But true geniuses, like Charlie Chaplin, turned transition into opportunity. His first sound film, The Great Dictator, contains one of the most powerful monologues in the history of cinema, spoken by an artist who until then had never uttered a word on screen. This, to me, is the sign of true genius: the ability to adapt and to transform limitation into creation. As Vittorio Storaro says, true authors survive because they know how to read every obstacle as an opportunity. A true filmmaker does not stop in front of a problem: they use it to create something new. A perfect example is Toy Story. When John Lasseter began developing the project in the early 1990s, no one believed it was possible to make a fully computer-generated film. All digital images of the time looked like plastic. Lasseter had the brilliant intuition of transforming that flaw into a style, setting the story in a world of plastic toys. That is how one of the most beautiful animated films in cinema history was born. In the same way, I believe artificial intelligence will have a huge impact: many will not know how, or will not want, to adapt, but those who embrace it will find new forms of creativity. Still, human mediation remains essential: you always need a mind capable of interpreting the director’s vision and guiding the technology towards an expressive result. Those of us who work with images know this well. It always makes me smile when someone outside the field looks at a beautiful image and asks the photographer, ‘Which camera did you use?’ The truth is that photography is born first and foremost here – in the mind, in the eye, in the sensitivity of the person who sees. The camera is merely the tool that captures what the artist has already perceived.
The tool is only the tool…
And there will always be people like Christopher Nolan, for example, who – despite all the digital tools and all the latest technologies – prefer to work in a way that is closer to the 1970s or even the 1960s.
Since this is the continuation of the translated interview, ecco la versione in inglese britannico, nello stesso registro delle risposte precedenti: Picking up on this reference to Christopher Nolan, since you have worked with him and dealt directly with IMAX, could you tell us something about this marvellous technology?
I find Christopher Nolan’s understanding and love of the cinematic medium utterly fascinating. I don’t think there is anyone in the world who loves film stock more than he does. I worked on The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of the Batman trilogy, and I was one of the few visual effects artists working in the IMAX format. For those who may not know, IMAX has an effective resolution of around 32K. Today we talk about 4K, and already we are looking towards 8K, yet IMAX possesses such extraordinary depth and exposure latitude that even now there is no scanner capable of capturing every detail on the film. Working with it requires complex, almost extreme methods. Thanks to my experience with IMAX’s production company, I learnt to handle the technical peculiarities of the format and, above all, to understand how that level of detail alters visual language. It is a bit like painting: the process is entirely different when you create a small picture or a vast canvas like those by Canaletto. The relationship between breadth and precision changes. I learnt to think in terms of broad brushstrokes and fine details: to start from the whole and intervene only where detail is genuinely necessary. I remember an anecdote from the making of The Dark Knight Rises. I was working as a compositor on a scene created entirely in CGI – something extremely rare in a Nolan film. In that case there was no physical space to build the set, so everything was reconstructed digitally. Thinking as a storyteller rather than as a technician, I decided to make a light bulb flicker, to suggest that the environment had aged over time. Shortly afterwards I received a note from Nolan: ‘No, we cannot show decay. Bruce Wayne would never have allowed that place to fall into disrepair, because psychologically he cannot abandon the idea of being Batman, the protector of the city.’ I was struck by this: he had justified a visual choice through the character’s psychology. From then on, I understood that every pixel tells a story, that every decision contributes to the narrative. Cinema is a collective art: the director has a vision, but we all participate in telling the story. I also recall the final review of that shot, vast and complex. When I received yet another note – ‘This edge looks strange’ – I replied that that particular element was real, not digital. A small victory, but immensely satisfying. Working in IMAX is an extraordinary experience: I believe a cinematographer only truly becomes one after working with film stock. Working in IMAX with visual effects presents considerable challenges. The format is 4:3, and the greatest difficulty lies in visualising the entire frame: the resolution is so high that, at the time – this was 2012 – no monitor existed that could display the full image. One had to work in sections, enlarging one area at a time as if it were a single shot, then zooming out to evaluate the overall result, trying to hold both the whole and the detail together. It was literally a “mosaic” process. Each shot was printed on IMAX film stock at the Burbank studios and projected in an IMAX theatre for final review, so that the digital version and the film version could be compared simultaneously. I still remember the striking difference between a scanned shot and an unscanned one: Nolan insisted on maintaining an entirely analogue process for footage unaffected by visual effects. He even had a retired technician brought back specifically to oversee the chemical development of the film stock. Understanding the relationship between resolution and format was, for me, a major lesson: the power of an image depends on the context in which you view it. A 4K image on a gigantic screen completely envelops you; the same resolution on a small television set produces no such effect. Working with Nolan and with IMAX was, in this sense, a true life lesson.
Let’s move on to another subject. You have had two experiences with virtual sets. Do you think this technology could represent an alternative to your work, or are they two distinct fields?
A few years ago, I worked on a project for Netflix shot with a 48K LatLong camera array – a monstrous format, equivalent to roughly 24K in height. It was practically impossible to handle in playback: the amount of data was enormous, and the workflow extremely complex. However, that level of detail made it possible to obtain perfectly sharp close-ups while keeping the background impeccably defined. From a technical standpoint, though, managing it was exhausting: an immense pipeline and an unsustainable processing load, which ultimately makes you realise that working at that scale is not always meaningful. When does it really work? One emblematic example comes to mind: Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, shot by Néstor Almendros, with its famous sequences filmed only at dawn and dusk, using natural light for just half an hour a day. Today, with virtual production, it is possible to maintain an eternal sunset, as in The Mandalorian, where the light stays constant for as long as needed. In this sense, it is a highly effective solution. However, virtual production has one fundamental limitation: direct light. No artificial source in the world can truly reproduce the sun’s spectrum. Many things can be simulated and corrected, but natural light remains unattainable. Once again, it is a matter of compromise. Recreating the sun inside a closed space is, essentially, impossible. That said, in certain cases – when there are logistical restrictions or very specific needs – the virtual set can indeed be the best solution. But the logic remains the same as in visual effects: in theory you can shoot everything on green or blue screen, but my philosophy points in the opposite direction. If it is possible to shoot for real, it is always better: it costs less and preserves an authenticity no effect can replace. Only when it is truly impossible does it make sense to rely on technology. It is all a matter of balance and conscious decision-making. Returning to Nolan: when he wants to shoot a scene on Norway’s glaciers, he simply goes there. Because he is Christopher Nolan. But if a first-time director were to make such a proposal, the producer would stop them immediately. There are, therefore, different levels of possibility, and at the foundation there is always a compromise. At the same time, virtual production is a useful tool – but also an expensive one, and above all it imposes a major constraint: it forces the director to make decisions long before shooting begins. And this can be problematic. Not every director enjoys planning so far in advance. You therefore need a closely knit team and a great deal of mutual trust. Moreover, the director must have specific skills to work within such a system. In productions like Star Wars, things are much simpler: there, virtual production is part of the set’s culture, embedded in the everyday language of filmmaking. But for an independent director, or one with little experience in this field, it can be a complex and even traumatic experience, because it demands aesthetic and narrative decisions when the film is still in an embryonic phase.
You mentioned Star Wars — Guerre Stellari.. You also worked on Harry Potter. I know that for contractual reasons you cannot tell us very much, but could you at least share an anecdote — something — about one of the two?
Here is the translation into British English, in the same tone and register as the rest of the interview: I worked on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, directed by Gareth Edwards, a young director I admire greatly. In that case too, I worked in the IMAX format. They called me when the film was almost ready for delivery: I was promoting Il ragazzo invisibile – Seconda generazione when I received the request to take on a particularly complex shot, entirely created in CGI but which had to look perfectly photorealistic. I remember I was at Lucca Comics when the call came through. I told Gabriele Salvatores, asking him not to mention it to anyone. But as soon as we went on stage, he announced to the audience: ‘Let me introduce Victor Perez, who is about to start working on Star Wars.’ I couldn’t believe it! When I began the work, they asked me to deal with this ‘impossible’ shot because several artists had already tried and failed. I discovered that it was a homage to a shot George Lucas had planned for the first Star Wars in 1977, but had been unable to realise due to the technical limits of the time. The production diary still contained the original drawings and notes, and Gareth wanted to bring that sequence to life at last. So I found myself having to complete the one shot Lucas himself hadn’t been able to make forty years earlier. ‘No pressure’, of course. We managed to complete it with a photorealistic result. When I showed it, many people asked me where we had filmed it: ‘In Mexico, right?’ Yes, I replied, laughing, ‘in Mexico’. In reality it was entirely synthetic. The environment was inspired by the Mayan pyramids, but every element was created in CGI, with digital textures and paintwork. I decided to set it after rainfall, with puddles and wet surfaces, to introduce realistic imperfections. No one had ever shown rain in Star Wars, and I found it interesting to see how water and steam interacted with machines and with the environment. I was looking for details that would give the scene an unexpected physicality, small ‘imperfections’ that would make it feel more real. I had a month and a half, and there were sixteen of us working on a single shot lasting just three seconds – 76 frames in total. I immersed myself completely in the project, studying the clouds and the light in the original scene to reproduce them with precision. In the end, the visual effects supervisor told me that George Lucas had seen the sequence and said it was exactly as he had imagined it. There is no greater compliment: it was an enormous satisfaction.
A single, brief shot — yet an intense, collective piece of work… Victor, you often work with international productions that have large budgets, but you also collaborate with Italian cinema, where resources are far more limited. In your view, can small budgets stimulate creativity? Do Italians, in this respect, have an extra edge?
I believe a budget can be both a blessing and a curse. Cinema is made as much of what is shown as of what is deliberately left unseen. It is a matter of perspective: deciding where to look and what to leave out. The most illuminating example, for me, is Alfred Hitchcock. Suspense is born precisely from what is not seen: you sense that something is about to happen, but you do not see it. The most frightening monsters are the invisible ones, those you can feel without needing to look at them. A large budget, by contrast, risks pushing you to show too much, to reveal more than is necessary. I think of the Jurassic Park saga: the first film remains not only the best of the series, but perhaps of all monster movies, because it plays masterfully on anticipation. At the time, visual effects were in their infancy and every shot had to be calibrated with extreme precision. Spielberg, who is a brilliant storyteller, knew how to combine practical on-set effects and digital effects with perfect balanmi sono ricordatace. In the famous T-rex sequence, for instance, many of the shots show only a full-scale mechanical leg: the rest is suggested. As a viewer, I do not care whether the dinosaur is digital or made of papier-mâché: I want it to tell me a story. I do not want to “see” the cinema; I want to feel it. I do not want to notice the editing or the lighting; I want to be inside the narrative. Jurassic Park had fewer than sixty CGI shots, yet it gave the impression of showing an entire world. This proves that you do not need “more” in order to achieve “better”. A high budget often leads to filling a film with superfluous images, when it should instead be used to enhance what truly matters. The problem lies in the confusion between “more” and “better”: they are not the same thing. Visual effects are expensive because they involve many people and a great deal of time. But if resources are scattered across too many interventions, the overall value diminishes. Value and price are two different concepts.
What I admire most in Italy is the technical crew: the camera teams, the grips, the gaffers, the set builders. They are genuine craftspeople, capable of finding solutions with inventiveness and sensitivity. What is still lacking, perhaps, is full cultural awareness of the narrative potential of visual effects, but the strength of Italian cinema lies precisely there: in the ability to transform limitations into language. Sometimes very little is needed to achieve a great deal. It often happens that I remove effects rather than add them. Even on Napoli, New York we found ourselves facing a complex problem. There is a scene in which the young protagonist, Celestina, sinks into the water. Shooting that sequence would have been a nightmare: open water, at night, a nine-year-old child, and a long, continuous take. Impossible for reasons of safety, cost and temperature. I suggested doing it in CGI, but the idea was rejected. During a production meeting everyone was trying to find a solution. In the end I said: ‘Let’s try to tell it the way the neorealists would have done.’ I thought of those directors who, in the post-war years, shot with newsreel cameras and expired film stock, yet still managed to make extraordinary cinema. So I decided to give it a try. I went to my neighbour, who had an eight-year-old daughter, and asked if she could help me. All I needed was her hand. I set up a small foldable
some stock footage online for a few euros and edited everything overnight. The next day I showed the scene to Salvatores. He asked me, ‘Where did you shoot this?’ I replied, ‘In my living room.’ That shot — the simplest in the entire film — is also the most dramatic. It shows only the child’s hand sinking, her hair floating, the light moving across the water. There is no need to show her face: the viewer’s imagination completes the scene. Gabriele said it was far more moving this way, because it left room for anguish and mystery. This, to me, is the pact of cinema: we tell the story through the rectangle of the frame, and the audience tells the rest. And for this reason I consider it the most beautiful sequence in the film. And it was born before dinner, in my living room. Something like that would be unthinkable in a Marvel production. In Italy, instead, it is possible, because cinema here remains fluid, free, artisanal. That is what I love: the possibility of uniting creativity and craftsmanship, of making mistakes without fear. Every error becomes part of the process. That is why, whenever Gabriele Salvatores calls me, I drop everything else. With him I work in total freedom, with the mutual trust of those who know that cinema, at heart, is born precisely from that: from the courage to create.
What advice would you give to cinematographers — both young and more experienced — on how to approach the world of VFX in the best possible way?
Here is the translation into British English, aligned with the tone and rhythm of the interview so far:
**A very simple piece of advice: talk. Discuss, exchange ideas, and above all make sure that every project has a figure dedicated to visual effects — not only on set, but throughout the entire process. Not a purely technical figure, but someone with an artistic intention, someone with whom the cinematographer can talk about cinema, not about pixels. Someone you can say to: ‘Do you remember In the Mood for Love? Those shots, that light…’ — the pixels come afterwards.
A cinematographer must understand that their work is profoundly influenced by visual effects, more in some projects than in others, but always in a substantial way. To disregard the contribution of VFX is like imagining a film without colour correction: it would be unthinkable. And yet, even today, many cinematographers work without involving a VFX supervisor in the early stages. In reality, the collaboration should begin even before the shoot, in order to make artistic decisions, not only technical ones. Technical limitations can always be worked around; what matters is maintaining coherence with the narrative vision and with the humanity of the story.
The ideal creative process is born from a three-way conversation: director, cinematographer and visual effects supervisor. If it were a rock band, the director would be the singer, the cinematographer the guitarist, and the VFX supervisor the drummer: take away the drums and the band loses its rhythm. That is why it is essential to open the conversation. It is enough to be informed, to stay curious.
I am always happy to talk and to share experiences: dissemination is something I am passionate about. Anyone, regardless of age or career stage, can come to me and ask: ‘How can I integrate visual effects into my work? How can they enrich my cinematography? How can I grow as an artist?’ We make films because we love working in a community: we spend intense months with people who become a second family, then we part ways, but remain connected through that shared experience. If I can help someone improve, I do so gladly: an hour is enough to change someone’s perspective. It is a beautiful power, and we exercise it through art, which is our passion.
We must stop thinking of effects as something that simply solves problems or comes afterwards. Visual effects, like cinematography, are part of the film’s language itself. Understanding this from the outset means having already done 80% of the work. The rest is technique — and technique is learnt through experience.
Victor, thank you for your time and for the generosity with which you have shared your experience with Collettivo Chiaroscuro.
