www.canstarnews.com
WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 26 | 2020 LOCAL NEWS THE TIMES 3
BY SYDNEY HILDEBRANDT
STAFF REPORTER
SHAUGHNESSY PARK
Kara Vallega was five or six years old when she first watched Toy Story, a 1995 animated film about toys that come to life. The film, which made Pixar Studios a household name and represented major innovations in computer-generated animation, was unlike any other she had seen.
She remembers how fascinated she was — and still is — with the animation; after all, it’s what inspired her to enter the world of visual
effects.
Her aptitude for discerning tiny details in movies when she was young foreshadowed where she would end up today — working on films such as Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, Maleficent: Mistress of
Evil, and 1917, which won an Oscar this year for best visual effects.
As a kid, she spent hours researching and watching tutorials on YouTube. Vallega, now 21, then had a chance to embrace her passion at Sisler High School, where she enrolled in animation and film courses and gained experience in Sisler CREATE, an entertainment arts training program.
“She is the most persistent person I have ever met,” said Jamie Leduc, Vallega’s former teacher. “She takes advantage of every opportunity.”
Following high school, Vallega attended and graduated with honours from Vancouver Film School in B.C.
“I knew I wanted to do this and I would just do anything to get to it. When I started going to Vancouver Film School I was dead on serious about it,” she said. “I had a schedule by every hour on what to do and make sure I was on track with everything, making sure my reel (project) was perfect before the
end of the year.”
She scored her first job as a compositor — someone who combines layers of visual elements to produce single seamless images — at The Moving Picture Company just one
day after applying. Now, she works at Mr. X
visual effects studio in Montreal.
“Basically what I see is the final image of
what you see in theatres. I think it’s always so
fun to be able to see that and just seeing all
the details that you put in there and making
sure everything blends seamlessly. I enjoy
that. I love the technicalities of it.”
As a fresh face in the industry, Vallega said
she doesn’t let her age bring her down.
“Basically everywhere I went since
Vancouver Film School and work, I was
always the youngest person there… I don’t
find it intimidating because if I’m there, and
I’m doing the same amount of work as them,
and I sometimes get bigger shots than them,
I think it doesn’t matter. If I can show that my
skills are just as good as theirs then it doesn’t
matter to me what my age is. I think it’s pretty
cool that I’m young and doing this kind of
work already that is being shown to multiple
people watching in the theatre,” she said.
Vallega stays motivated thanks to her
mom, from whom she draws encouragement.
“Every time I just want to quit and do
something else, she just inspires me to keep
going. I’m always talking with her, every
single day.”
On a professional level, Vallega looks up
to Trent Correy, an animation supervisor at
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whom she
met while at Sisler.
“Just meeting him was amazing. His story
is amazing. I got to draw caricatures with
him; I drew him and he drew me. But he is
really inspiring to me, so getting to work with
him would be pretty awesome.”
“He applied to Disney 11 times and got
rejected, and so when he finally got in he
really proved himself to be a great asset
to Disney,” she said. “I don’t know a lot of
people who would keep applying to Disney
after 11 times and not think, ‘Oh, wow,
maybe they don’t want me.’”
Another one of Vallega’s goals is to work at
Pixar, where she said everything would come
full circle.
“My dream project would’ve been something
Toy Story-related but they already
came out with Toy Story 4 and I’m pretty sure
that’s going to be the last movie in that franchise,”
she said. “Growing up on Toy Story
and then going to work at Pixar would be an
absolute dream of mine.”