Paul Franklin Visits Escape Studios

Another amazing event at Escape Studios! At our recent 'An Evening With' we were joined by Paul Franklin, a friend of Escape Studios and a Filmmaker with over 30 years of experience. After working in video games, television and film, Paul co-founded DNEG VFX in 1998, setting up the new company’s 3D Animation Department. For over a decade, Paul worked with Director Christopher Nolan, supervising visual effects for all three films in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and winning two Oscars for Inception and Interstellar. 

Thank you to all who attended in-person and everyone who watched online. This was a truly special ‘An Evening With...’. It was an honour to hear about Paul’s career, from his humble beginnings starting out on PS1 video games (anyone else remember those?) all the way up to present day! 

Paul was extremely generous with his time and went in-depth with behind-the-scenes details of some of his biggest films! He told us the secrets behind creating the black hole in Interstellar and how real science was used to create the visual effect. Paul spoke about the concept of the film being created by Professor Kip Thorne who stayed onboard to advise on the film and work to create a scientifically accurate black hole. 

He spoke about how the world-bending scene in Inception came to fruition and revealed that it’s the camera movement that sells the shot which was created by the Pre-Visualisation Department. Christopher Nolan loved the shot so much that he ended up setting the camera to match the pre-vis exactly. 

Paul was very generous with his time and stayed to answer all the questions, and we talked about what to look for in a portfolio, what his challenges are in his role, the fear of AI and how we can use it as well as what we can do to stand out. Make sure you stay tuned to see what else we have in store for you. We are excited to announce the next ‘An Evening With…’ event soon! 

Check out the video below to see five quick questions we asked Paul! We wonder, “What is your favourite crunch time snack?”, “What’s your favourite film that you haven’t worked on?”, “What’s the best bit of career advice you’ve received?”, “How would you describe your Oscars experience?” and “Who’s the most famous person in your contact list?”.