Creature Special Effects Q&A: Prosthetics vs. VFX

WFTV members are invited to this online panel discussion exploring behind the scenes to making monsters.

We will hear from prosthetics and animatronics specialist, Millennium FX founder Kate Walshe, as well as lead creature animator from Goodbye Kansas, Christina Sidoti.

Kate and Christina will discuss their roles, talking through examples of their work and how they work together to create the creatures we’ve come to know so well in film and TV. They’ll also advise how best to work with their departments as a director, producer or creator, focusing on some of the logistics and costs involved.

There will be an opportunity to ask the panel questions during the last 15 minutes of the session.

Event Schedule

18:25: Please join the webinar waiting room

18:30: In conversation with Kate Walsh and Christina Sidoti

19:15: Audience Q&A

19:30: Finish

Kate Walshe

Kate is Company Director and co-owner of Millennium FX, one of the leading prosthetics and creature effects companies in Europe. Hailing from the flattest county in Ireland, she now resides in the Chiltern Hills where she surrounds herself with werewolves and aliens. Having received a BSc in Film from Dublin Institute of Technology, she worked first as a film editor but returned to study, earning a Post Grad Dip in VFX and SFX from the National Film and Television School in the UK. On graduating, she worked as a freelance prosthetic artist before coming on full time at Millennium FX in 2007. Notable recent projects from film and TV include: Doctor Who, Silo, This is Going to Hurt, This is England, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Foundation, and the upcoming Toxic Avenger, Red Sonja, Kung Fury, Return to Silent Hill, and Starve Acre which premieres at the London Film Festival in October.

Millennium FX

Millennium FX is a multi-award-winning company creating prosthetic makeup, animatronics, speciality costumes, models and props for film, television, commercials, theme parks, theatre, and corporate projects.

Christina Sidoti

Christina is a Lead Animator for Goodbye Kansas Studios working in TV, film, game cinematics, commercials, and broadcast. Some projects that you may be familiar with where she animated creatures and characters are Fear The Walking Dead, I'm Here by Spike Jonze, Carnival Row, Jack Ryan, The Irregulars, Pan, and Let Me In. She has supervised animation on The Walking Dead,  A Series of Unfortunate Events, Dancing on Ice, the Battlefield 1 Reveal Trailer, and the Horizon Zero Dawn E3 2016 Trailer. In addition to keyframe animation, Christina has on set experience and actively works with motion capture. She uses the virtual camera and her love for cinematography for previsualization and planning shoots. Christina studied Computer Animation at Parsons School of Design in NYC in the early 2000s, graduated from William Paterson University in 2005, and completed Animation Mentor in 2012.

Goodbye Kansas

Goodbye Kansas Studios offers award-winning and uniquely integrated services for feature films, TV series, commercials, games, and game trailers. Expertise includes VFX, FX, CG productions, 3D Face & Body Scanning, Digital Humans, Creature & Character design, Performance Capture, Animation and RealTime expertise.

How will the online event work?

This event will be live streamed via Zoom.us. Viewing details will be sent via your confirmation.

Attending participants will not be visible to others and will be muted throughout the session. After the talk, there will be an opportunity for audience members to ask questions by using the Q&A feature.

This event is for existing WFTV members only.

If you are not a member and would like to join, membership costs just £100 + VAT/yr , please click here or email admin@wftv.org.uk

At WFTV we’re really keen to ensure that all our events are accessible for everyone. So if you have any particular access needs, please can you let us know before an event and we will do our best to accommodate you. We would be grateful if you can give us as much notice as possible – please contact admin@wftv.org.uk