This week we talk to legendary London FX artist and director Jon Hollis of Nice Shirt Films, who was a co-founder of Smoke and Mirrors. In almost all respects his career has been a statement as of the current state of the art. Hollis once lead the boutique post house movement – he now shines the light on a new path for senior artists.
You can click here to subscribe to our fxpodcast in iTunes to automatically download new podcasts to your computer as they are released.
Without ever asking for nor seeking the role, Jon Hollis has been leading indicator of future trends in high end post. Although trained as a musician, Hollis started his career as a tape op at London facility SV at a time when the best path forward was to start in the tape room and work your way up. He soon become an editor and became a high flyer favourite of the influential UK video magazine Clips.
With spots such as Levi’s Swimmer, some people just focused on director Tony Kaye, but many other noticed the amazing effects. Hollis’ brand of realistic yet fantastic compositing and visual effects was perfectly reflected in the new global creative audience, and he started to become a household name.
Exactly in sync with industry wide trends, Hollis left full time digital editing to concentrate on the emerging creative explosion that was Flame. Cutting edge on-line and Flame work for projects such as Dunlop’s The Unexpected and Orange’s Bar Chase established him as one of London’s leading flame artists.
True to form, Hollis served spells as both head of editing and visual effects at The Mill, at the peak of the “client excess glory days” when clients had gyms and spas setup for them next to the suite to use between sessions (even if they tended to be used more as hair and makeup rooms than client fitness centers).
When The Mill it opened in 1990 it was the most luxurious post house London had seen. Today the facility has grown to over 30,000 square feet and is one of the most awarded post houses in Europe. With over 14 flames and 2 smokes it has lead the charge of effects solutions for the advertising industry. It continues today to be a cutting edge post facility, turning out such spots as the famous Sony Playstation Mountain produced using the first use of Massive software in the advertising industry.
Hollis again found the sprit of the time when he co-founded the hugely successful visual effects company Smoke & Mirrors in 1995. It was the premier ’boutique’ post house with the best artists, the best gear – but small enough that the you knew everyone’s name. Smoke & Mirrors were the very first facility to be designed around flame suites and the first fully networked open architecture facility in Europe.
The model of a ’boutique’ flame house would fuel one of the greatest expansions of discreet logic Flame systems. Flame ended up holding a near lock on high-end suites and causing Quantel to nose dive from the preferred premier equipment position. The company has continued to be successful and today the company retains 3 of its original founders: CEO Penny Verbe, CCO Sean Broughton and CTO Mark Wildig (ex Rushes). The company expanded to the United States in 2003 with the establishment of Smoke & Mirrors New York.
Hollis is alone in having earned the distinction of being both Best Editor & Best Flame Artist in both Campaign & Televisual magazines. He became the archetypal ‘flame god” of the 90s, – relaxed, friendly but masterful at award winning campaigns. He has also won numerous awards for animated typography, working extensively with design collective Tomato. Again capturing zeitgeist by working with the hottest generation of independent designers at the height of the ‘grunge indie photoshop artists as design gods phase’ of the late 90s of post-production.
Tomato design collective was started by nine artists in the 90’s and it rose to be leaders of the design movement. Tomato’s work includes television and print advertising, corporate identity, art installations, and clothing. The entity has built an international reputation for working across different media, creating designs for all manner of clients such as Reebok, Adidas and Levi’s; and identity for museums and cultural centers. With Tomato’s ties to music and the band Underworld, Hollis work with Tomato was again edgy as it was uber hip.
As his fame grew, Hollis began doing what in retrospect was the only next logical choice: directing. By this time, clients and agencies alike had come to understand that post was no longer ‘post’ the production and senior vfx artists could make brilliant directors. Hollis started directing and became pretty much a full time gig by 1999. His work for companies such as Schweppes and Sony Playstation is still copied and ‘creative referenced ‘ by agencies around the world to this day.
Recent directorial credits include work for Drambuie, Malteasers, Carlsberg, and the COI for anti-smoking. It is easy to see Hollis’ career as a leading the path in trends from large post house – via expensive post house – to Boutique and now solo artist with his own tools. But perhaps his career simply reflects the global trends caused by the triangulation of improved client education, cheaper faster gear and greater creative freedom.
It is interesting to check the barometer once again and see how Hollis is currently working. He now directs but also maintains a state of the art Flame/Shake suite at Nice Shirt Films, where he still undertakes the bulk of his own post production work. Hollis discusses his newly rekindled love affair with Flame in this week’s fxpodcast.
Hollis had recently moved away from Flame, preferring many new image processing tools such as the great tools from Pixel Farm — and in particular PFTrack. While he still uses and loves the new tools, there is a renewed enthusiasm in his voice when discussing his old flame – or rather his new Flame. Hollis still has a range of things he would like to have happen with the product and he feels it is far from perfect (he is looking forward to the 2007subscription bug-fix release due out soon). But it is still clearly a tool he feels he can be very creative with, on a daily basis.
Hollis’ film credits include the title sequences for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, The Jackal and The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. He has recently wrapped as 2nd Unit Director & Visual Effects Supervisor on Hammer & Tongs latest film, Son Of Rambow For this project Hollis looked at deploying a team of artists to tackle the 100 shots in the film. In the end decided against hiring a team — which he would end up having to manage — and instead he tackled the lot himself. He literally decided that with some help from a few assistants and animators he could do it all himself in flame.
The move was not made out of ego nor external pressure. Hollis simply decided that it was viable now for him to work fast enough that one man could literally tackle a medium sized film on his own. With a modest number of shots, he decided that it is cost effective compared to the same volume of shots run through a broader team using desktop solutions.
Hollis is first to admit that this option would not be viable for all films, but he is clearly happy and very comfortable with exactly how the project went. The ability to remain hands-on and not just become a supervisor may well be the new trend of post-production at this level. Huge films with tight studio deadlines – so called tentpole films for US summer release — will in no way entertain this route. But for many smaller and more expressive films it is clearly viable. It is cost effective to tackle a project with less staff, but with extremely experienced seniors. As flame costs fall and directors look for increased flexibilty and less “glossy” client services, the era of solo supervisors who can easily direct or operate appears to be increasingly viable.
