{"id":4100,"date":"2021-09-13T12:13:18","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T12:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new-blog.artlist.io\/?p=4100"},"modified":"2024-01-22T13:39:18","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T13:39:18","slug":"john-fk-parenteau-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new-blog.artlist.io\/blog\/john-fk-parenteau-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Acclaimed VFX Supervisor John FK Parenteau Talks About How He Got Started, Working with Spielberg & Gives Tips for the Edit Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up in a little town in Oregon back in the 1970s and 1980s, no one knew about film, according to\u00a0John FK Parenteau<\/a>, a visual effects artist and producer with over 30 years of credits in countless Hollywood productions like\u00a0Sin City<\/em>,\u00a0Iron Man 2<\/em>,\u00a0Fast Five, Super 8, The Hunger Games<\/em>\u00a0to name a few. He knew he wanted to enroll in film school, but his guidance counselor wasn\u2019t much help. \u201cI have no idea how to advise you,\u201d the guidance counselor told Parenteau. For someone growing up in that time period, there was one person who might understand his dream. George Lucas.<\/p>\n

Parenteau wrote a letter to Lucas, or maybe it was to Lucasfilm or ILM\u2014he can\u2019t remember. But he did get a reply from one of Lucas\u2019 people, who said, \u201cyou should go to USC film school.\u201d Extremely naive about university admissions, Parenteau applied thinking \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll just go there.\u201d Luckily, he was accepted.<\/p>\n

After film school in the late 1980s, Parenteau cut his teeth as a cinematographer. But a parallel interest in 3D computer animation, then just in its infancy, led him down the path of a visual effects artist. The decision was a good one, as Parenteau ended up working for Steven Spielberg\u2019s\u00a0Amblin Imaging<\/em>\u00a0on shows like\u00a0Seaquest DSV<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Star Trek<\/em>\u00a0franchise. Over the last 30 years, Parenteau has formed 2 visual effects companies, directed short films and produced a web series, which he also wrote, directed and edited.<\/p>\n

Parenteau will be putting this wealth of filmmaking experience to work for\u00a0Artgrid x Artlist\u2019s second annual Edit Challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"701\"<\/p>\n

In anticipation of the challenge, we spoke to Parenteau about his path into the film industry and career pivot from cinematography to 3D animation and visual effects. We also talked about his time with Spielberg at Amblin Imaging, and his tips for working with stock footage and sounds, as well as making great music videos, ads and trailers.<\/p>\n

How did you get started in the film industry?<\/h3>\n

I focused a little bit more on cinematography early on. I didn’t feel like I had a voice for directing, and that’s a very mature way of saying right now what I felt in the past, which was I\u2019d get on set and had no idea how to talk to actors. I was kind of freaked out. The visuals I really loved, so I focused a little bit more on that technical side through college and was a cinematographer outside of college.<\/p>\n

I’m the kind of guy who likes to learn things. I like to do a lot of different things, and it\u2019s served me well in my career, whether I’m with a big or small company that I can sort of flex around a lot. So I taught myself 3D animation when it was just coming up in desktop form in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That’s when I got hired by Amblin Entertainment to work as a CG artist on a TV show called\u00a0Seaquest DSV<\/em>. I ended up getting promoted to running the visual effects division called Amblin Imaging, where I was the vice president\/general manager.<\/p>\n

It’s very easy to go shoot something very specific, but to be able to create something out of existing footage is a really unique challenge\u2026 [and] really helpful in developing that storytelling ability that all filmmakers need.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s been my career\u2014doing strange, cool things and always being open to new challenges. I ended up splitting that company off [of Amblin Entertainment] when DreamWorks was formed and moving into more producing but I’ve always shot [films] and started doing more directing. I actually directed a short film for a fun little challenge a bunch of friends did, and on set, I was working with actors for the first time in many, many years. One of the actors pulled me aside and said, \u201chey, you really know how to talk to actors. You’re really good at this directing thing.\u201d And I was like, \u201cwhere did I learn that?\u201d I don’t know! It was really just the maturity of having been in the industry long enough.<\/p>\n

I love filmmaking, I love storytelling, and that’s always been my thing is how to tell stories better, whether it\u2019s with technology or with writing, directing or whatever.<\/p>\n

Can you talk about the transition from doing the CG visuals to overseeing them?<\/h3>\n

I was really the lowliest of artists there at Amblin. When I got hired, there were a lot of other people already there. This is back in 1991\/1992, so the concept of having a visual effects division was very new except for the likes of ILM or Apogee, or a couple of the old school companies.<\/p>\n

\"803\"<\/p>\n

Sin City (Dimension Films)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Imagine I’m an animator and I’m assigned a shot, and the shot has a certain CG model in it, and I can’t find it on the server. So, I walk over to the modeler and say, \u201chey, did you finish that model? I need to use it.\u201d They say, \u201coh, yeah, I finished it.\u201d I say, \u201cokay, well, I’ll tell the texture artists that you’re done with it so they can start working on it. And next time you finish a model, just let me know, and I’ll help out, and I’ll let the people know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flash forward about 9 months (a year after the division started), and the original boss was leaving. Amblin asks all the artists (except for me because I was the youngest guy there), who could take over the division? And they all said, \u201cWell, you should just let John do it. He’s already producing it.\u201d I didn’t know that I was doing that. I was just trying to facilitate getting work done. I was so excited about the job and I just wanted to do whatever I could do to help.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m speculating but perhaps being able to talk to other creatives ultimately helped you break down this perception you had of yourself that you didn’t know how to talk to actors?<\/h3>\n

Yeah, in a way. I mean, my mom and dad got divorced when I was very young, so I really didn’t grow up with a father or father figure, so any person in power didn’t really intimidate me. It was very easy for me to talk to the artists that were my peers, as well as an executive at university or Spielberg. That was a big part of me being a manager: being able to communicate the needs of the artistic side to the needs of the business side. After that, when I did direct for the first time, all that communication and ability to talk to people made it a lot easier for me to direct actors. But, I really think it was the maturity of understanding how to tell an actor something to get them to do something without being a bad director and telling them the wrong way.<\/p>\n

So, after Amblin Imaging folds and DreamWorks is being created, what did you do?<\/h3>\n

The quick story there is that I talked to Steven about bringing us into DreamWorks and he said, \u201cwell, you know, (producer) Jeffrey Katzenberg (Shrek<\/em>) wanted to focus on the animation division.\u201d Katzenberg had certain teams that he wanted to bring aboard, and so it basically wasn’t a fit for us. So I asked Steven, \u201cif I started my own company would you be a partner?: He said, \u201cyeah, sure,\u201d and so he was a silent partner and wasn’t very involved at all.<\/p>\n

Think of sound as an emotional equivalent to what visuals do to your eyes, and build things using those sound elements, whether it be just music or sound effects. They don’t have to be big, they don\u2019t have to be in your face, but that underlying rumble of sound intention is going to really be a massive benefit\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was very cool because he enabled us to buy all the gear that we had at Amblin Imaging at a really good price from Universal Studios. And he enabled us to bring a lot of those contracts over from Universal that we already had at Ambling Imaging. We formed a company called Digital Muse\u2014myself and John Gross.<\/p>\n

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