For Taos Whittaker, (Class of 2014) watching films like Star Wars and Lord of The Rings, led him to create an alternate reality of his own. Born in England, Whittaker spent the majority of his life as an expat. In 2003 Whittaker’s family made their way to Singapore. But it wasn’t until his junior year that Whittaker enrolled at SAS. Transitions are hard and expat life is not always easy. When Whittaker discovered his constant at Kinokuniya, a local bookstore, he held on to a 3D animation book that captured his attention and fuelled his passion for 3D animation and filmmaking.

Watching films inspired him to delve deep into his interests towards visual effects and filmmaking at SAS. At the SAS Film Society, Whittaker was able to tap into the resources available for students. By the time he started working on his senior thesis in university, he was skilled enough to create a short film with three other students taking roles of creative directors and visual effects supervisors. The scholarship-winning film was based on an old French folktale, that was filmed on the narrow streets of Fuveau in Southern France, where Whittaker spent a part of his childhood. This production won Whittaker a US$10,000 grant from Chapman University, and was the biggest production that year. Whittaker and his team were recognized and approached by AMD studios that provided them with thousands of dollars of resources to finish up the project.

Whittaker continued to explore his passion for digital media and virtual reality at Chapman University, California and majored in digital arts with an emphasis on visual effects and double minor in game design and advertising. At Chapman, Whittaker was exposed to the film industry, where he was able to work on projects and continue growing and learning as a filmmaker.

After graduation, Whittaker soon found a job at Ingenuity Studios, and currently works as a Computer Graphics and Visual Effects Generalist. He is training to become a Visual Effects Supervisor, which will enable him to go onto film sets and supervise the filming of visual effects scenes.

Working on a variety of visual and animated content for different projects is exciting. Talking to and learning from the visual effects supervisors and directors that were part of mass productions like Blade Runner, Coco, Lion King, Lord of the Rings, and Toy Story 3 was a welcome bonus for this artist.

“One on one sessions with Richard Edlund, the visual effects supervisor of the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies were a highlight of my time there,” says Whittaker. He learned much from visiting the studios of Disney, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Blur, as well as Naughty Dog and Blizzard.

Whittaker enjoyed working on Taylor Swift's music video, contributing to well-known TV shows like Orange is the New Black, and winning awards for Best Animation Short and Best Music Score at Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival and the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival in South Korea. Most recently, he was part of the Kanye West and Spike Jonze project for Kanye’s music performances, created some motion graphic elements for the new Lil Pump music video, and worked on the new Shawn Mendes music video.

Whittaker attributes a lot of his success to the lessons he learned at SAS. The SAS community provided him with incredible resources in order to create and learn the basics of his craft. Whittaker fondly remembers SAS faculty Mark Clemens, who was always able to help him with animation and inspired him to create more. “I am grateful to both Barton Millar and Steven Petraglia, who were instrumental in helping me with choosing the best college to advance my career. I am truly thankful for the opportunities SAS has given me, and I would not be where I am today without the incredible support of the community."

With all the opportunities and work Whittaker gets he reminds us about the importance of rest between college and starting work, “It’ll be the only chance you’ll get!"

Whittaker's Career Tips!
Career Tip #1

Create content. All the time! “I started off at SAS doing short VFX clips, that lasted only a few seconds. I’d film the school walls on my phone and sometimes even on phones borrowed from my friends, and searched online how to track computer graphics objects onto that footage. It was so cool to me that I was able to make it look like I was playing Donkey Kong on a flat wall in the film department. It started to make me think of other cool stuff I could do, which led me to create explosions, and shatter simulations.”

Career Tip #2
Check out YouTube, Pluralsight, and Skillshare.

Career Tip #3
For advanced students, the final two software to learn are Nuke and Houdini, which are the most widely used software in nearly every film and TV show you see in the industry.

Career Tip #4
Use state-of-the-art resources at SAS and free software like Unreal Engine 4 and Blender that will help you understand the different aspects of design and animation for a variety of purposes. Use After Effects, which is another highly used software in the motion graphics Industry, and one that I used for most of my content in high school. You can also sign up for the educational version of Maya, which is the leading software in the industry (used by Disney, Dreamworks, and Sony).

Career Tip #5
Watch and learn: My parents and I also reached out to Nanyang Polytechnic as well as Digipen during my time at SAS and I talked to their professor there. I attended talks hosted by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lucasfilm's VFX and animation studio (who made Star Wars) and Ubisoft.