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Brian Andrews  is a contemporary artist, critic, and visual effects supervisor currently living in San Francisco. His work employs a range of technologies in photography, video, and taxidermy in order to confront the viewer with images that reside on the uncanny line between the living and the automaton.

When someone at a cocktail party asks you…”what do you do”, what do you say?

It changes all the time. Previously I have said “Artist”, “Educator”, “Art Critic”, “Filmmaker”, “VFX Artist”, “Visual Effects Supervisor”, “Director” and “Barbeque Enthusiast”. Currently I just say “I direct animation and film projects”.

What city(s) do you spend most of your time?

I live in San Francisco, but adore Portland and Chicago and try to visit them as often as possible. I have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles, which I travel to regularly. When I can, I like spend lots of time out in the woods.

What are your favorite hobbies and how do you like to spend your free time?

I love Food & Drink. I consume it, critique it, and make it. I also try to get outside as often as possible.

At what point did you know you wanted to do what you do for a living?

I always knew I wanted to work in a creative field, but I have never felt completely committed to one filed. My desire has evolved with my career. Or visa-versa.

Can you quickly highlight your career path that gets us to today?

I was a theater kid, who ended up studying radical performance art in college. After a while the photographic and video documentation became more interesting than the live performances to me. In graduate school I started picking up some VFX skills, which infected my work and allowed me to do some freelance compositing and motion graphic work as well. Then I came out to California, where I have been lucky to teach visual effects as well as direct my own animation and film projects.

How would you describe your artistic style right now?

The horror of the human condition collides with sparkly rainbows. I like to use luscious VFX as a method to ask deeper artistic questions. Contrary to the popular notion, special effects are not just reality simulations, cinematic spectacles, or surreal aberrations; rather they are visual mechanisms that expose political and ontological undercurrents of contemporary culture. My filmmaking practice inquires into how technology distorts these relationships, and examines how they are often understood through the filters of perceptual experience. To make these inquiries, I intercede within images of animals and environments through the use of digital cinema, photography, and installation.

What is an example of something that inspired you recently?  Why?

Recently I have been going back and watching old, pre-digital visual effects sequences. Films like the Wizard of Oz or Un Chein Andleu. The work of Douglass Trumball or Ray Harryhaussen is always mind-blowing. 

Do you have a routine or a system that helps your creative flow. How do you find inspiration and get yourself in the creative zone?

Finding a creative zone is always somewhat elusive. I start by doing tons of research to immerse myself in great work and ideas. Then to create, I have to step away from all of my preconceived ideas and daily habits in order to have the mental space for the idea to form. This is why most of my good ideas come on when I am getting around town, on a day off, or on vacation. 

Give us a little window into how you work through a creative process, once an inspiration comes to you.  Do you start in digital, on paper, other?  

I need to see things move, so I jump into creating animatics early- that is where a lot of the creative decisions get made. I jump back and forth between Photoshop and Aftereffects until I have figured out what is the heart of the project. Then -this is key- I step back to paper. With a solid idea in place I organize and develop the project from the ground up, and then finally begin production with a well developed plan of action.

What are your favorite software programs when working in Digital Format and what do you like about them?

I love the flexibility of Nuke. Once you get Zen with the node-based workflow it is wonderfully liberating.

What wisdom can you share with upcoming visual artists who would like to try and follow in your footsteps?

Learn how to teach yourself- both artistically and technologically. You need to be able to adapt and evolve in order to stay relevant for the future.