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.”

Bilali Mack’s at-home setup

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.

What are some of the pain points of working this way?
Communication, culture and career development have probably been the most difficult challenges from the remote work standpoint. While I do make it a point to maintain a virtual “drop-in” policy with our team, it is pretty difficult to replace the happenstance interactions and collaborations that occur over a shared lunch or encounter in the kitchen.

One remote project from Alkemy X was Dragnificent!

What about the positives?
With great challenges come great opportunities. In many ways we have become very efficient with time. Diversified talent has also been a great new addition to the way we work, given that we are no longer tied to geographical requirements when it comes to staffing non-tax incentive-based projects.

What would help make remote workflows easier in the future?
I think If we could do partial remote and partial in-person that would be great. While there are major benefits when it comes to working remotely, there is certainly a creative shorthand that is dissolved without the face-to-face interaction on a regular basis.