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Participants of the Film Spring Open Workshop 2018 had an opportunity to learn from one of the top special effects specialist in the world. Neil Corbould, the recipient of four BAFTA awards (8 BAFTA nominations) and two Academy Awards (5 Oscar nominations) came to Krakow to tutor the group of practical special effects in low-budget filmmaking.

He shared his immense knowledge during both the practical and theoretical classes. Most of the tutoring took place on the film set organized at the venue, which provided real-life working experience for the participants.

The British SFX supervisor best known for his work on major blockbusters such as Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Snow White and the Huntsman also discussed his work during a Q&A session. He answered questions about particular scenes featured in his showreel as well as more general questions, regarding for instance the presence of animals on set. The participants learnt that the development of technology enabled animal cruelty to be avoided, the use of animatronic horses being a great example of this. Corbould also discussed health and safety issues during filming, insisting that the safety of people should be considered the most important factor when creating and filming special effects.

He elaborated on production techniques of various special effects depending on such factors as the weather or the light. „You cannot make better fire than the real fire” he summed up the comparison between the SFX and VFX.

The expert knowledge and numerous examples were combined with a lot of anecdotes served with a great sense of humour, which made the meeting very informative yet entertaining at the same time.