The Rise of the Machines: Allan McKay and Ash Thorp Talk AI

If you’re wondering about the future of humanity and how the advent of AI is affecting it, you must check out this fascinating talk with Allan McKay and Ash Thorp! The two powerhouse artists tackle the questions of the now – and you should take a listen!

Ash Thorp is a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, and creative director for a multitude of media, including feature films, commercial enterprises, and print. Most recently, Ash worked on the concept for the Batmobile and the Batcycle, for the 2022 film The Batman directed by Matt Reeves.

Previously, Ash has worked on graphics for Ender’s Game and Total Recall, as well as contributed to the design concepts for Spectre, Prometheus, X-Men First Class, Call of Duty and others. His first directorial debut started with the assembly of an international team for his Ghost in the Shell tribute, as well as the main title for OFFF Barcelona 2014. In 2015, he was requested to assemble an international team of designers and create the title sequence for FITC Tokyo. Later that year, Ash co-directed “Ares — Our Greatest Adventure”, a promotional trailer for the feature film The Martian.

Allan McKay is an Emmy Award winning VFX Supervisor and Technical Director. He is responsible for many visual effects sequences including on hit titles like God of War: Ragnarok, Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones, Marvel’s Runaways, Bloodshot, Transformers, Blade, The Last Airbender, Star Trek, Superman, Flight, The Equalizer, and dozens of others; as well as many of the top video games worldwide: Halo, Destiny, Call of Duty, Bioshock, Prototype, Half-Life, and Team Fortress 2.

Allan has over two decades of experience working in the visual effects industry for many leading studios such as ILM, Pixomondo, Blur Studio, Sony, Paramount Picture, Atomic Fiction, Prime Focus, Ubisoft, Activision and dozens of others.

Whether you fear AI or you welcome it as the innovation that is changing our lives – it is here to stay! How to adapt to this life-changing event of machine learning is up to you. But in this quick career talk, Allan and Ash urge you to embrace it and to feel empowered!

So: Go for it!

LINK TO FULL INTERVIEW WITH ASH AND ALLAN:

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[AllanMcKay]

Although to some it seems that the speed of innovation has increased, in truth, machine learning has been changing the field of VFX for years! But now, it can no longer be ignored. I loved talking to Ash about his opinion on the subject. But I'd love to hear what you think! Please let me know by leaving a comment below.

[abrarahmedcgi]

Hey Allan! It would be great to see you make a video about someone who is thinking to join the Visual Effects industry in 2023/24 and what approaches should someone make. I know you have a video like this. But with AI and other stuffs things have changed so much A new video will be very helpful.
I feel like in coming days there will more film makers rather than vfx artist and etc! The storytelling will be more important than technical skills.