Interview with James Madigan VFX Supervisor for HBO's Rome
by Wes Beckwith

We caught up with James last week and he was gracious enough to answer a few questions.

CGF - Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Please tell us a little about yourself and how did you get into the Visual Effects Industry?

JM - "I started working in VFX at a company called Dream Quest in the early 90's they were finishing the first Crow following Brandon Lee's death and starting on Crimson Tide. My whole life I have wanted to do this kind of work so I gave up my job in Graphic Design and started there as a runner. I learned compositing scanning and recording at night and eventually started working on shots. I then worked at EFilm/CIS for a bit and then went on a 6 week trip to travel around Europe and never went back. Through a quirk of fate in the mid 90's I wound up in the Czech Republic in Prague as the VFX Supervisor at a small facility there called Frame which was specializing in 3D character animation and supplying Visual Effects for smaller films and commercials. Around this time the film industry in Prague started to take off so I started working on set on films like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, and The Brothers Grimm, with The Brothers Grimm eventually bringing me to London for the post where I have been based ever since."

CGF - We noticed you have worked on several feature films like Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Waterworld and Eraser. Which project over your distinguished career has been your favorite and why?

JM - "Waterworld and Eraser were films that came through facilities I was working at and my involvement on them was limited only to post production. Without a doubt League was the most memorable. I've never seen anything like it before or since. Of course most of what made it so memorable unfortunately involves things I can't really talk about. It was like being strapped into a runaway train. But I will say that probably the biggest leap I've ever made as far knowledge happened on that film because of the VFX Supervisor/Producer team I was working for. I was the on set coordinator for Janek Sirrs (Matrix, Batman Begins) I really don't think there is a better supervisor out there today. I think I probably owe most of what how I approach things to the experience of working with him and Karen Murphy who was the VFX Producer. It was really a situation of watching 2 people dropped into an impossible situation and pulling it off against all odds. After seeing them pull that off everything seems easy by comparison.

Working with ILM supervisor Ben Snow on Van Helsing was also an honor and taught me a great deal but to be honest on Van Helsing everything went pretty much as it should making it easier while going through it but leaves you with less funny stories afterwards."

James' current project is HBO's original series Rome, set to debut tonight, August 28th."

A co-production between HBO and the BBC, ROME is one of the largest co-production deals ever by the BBC for an American series, and marks the first series co-production of the two networks. HBO and the BBC previously partnered on the 2001 miniseries "Band of Brothers," which won six Emmy® Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries.