Quick Chat: Alkemy X’s Bilali Mack on Remote VFX Work

Bilali Mack is a VFX supervisor at Alkemy X, which specializes in design, animation, live-action production, original development and branded content. He has been working from home, along with the rest of Alkemy X, since March 2020. “Our technical team worked around the clock to adapt our robust workflow to be entirely virtual and seamless, which of course led to unique challenges when meeting deadlines with the delivery of cinema-quality files.”

Let’s find out more.

How have your remote workflows evolved from March of last year until now?
There is certainly better integration and development of workflow and communication. Now that we have overcome the initial technical barriers, we are able to focus our time and efforts on continuing to elevate the work rather than battling slow internet service or unexpected security permissions. We’ve also started to regain some of the teaching opportunities for our artists that were initially lost to the remote workflow.

What are some of the tools you’ve been using?
Currently we are using Shotgun, Slack, Zoom, Foundry Nuke, SideFX Houdini and Autodesk Flame.

Have artists been dialing into your servers or working locally?
Artists have been logging in remotely to our secure on-site systems in NYC.

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