Harnessing Global Talent: How POP's 'Global Neighborhood' Drives Creativity and Innovation in CGI and Visual Effects

What does the concept of a 'global neighborhood' mean to POP, and how does it influence the studio's creative process? 

'Global Neighbourhood' is one of the key benefits of being a cloud based studio. We are building relationships with talented artists worldwide, as if they were on our own doorstep. This model opens up an unrestricted pool of talented artists, across time zones, enabling us to create niche teams and ensures the best skillsets are tailored specifically to each project, regardless of geographic location.

Can you share an example of a project where the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of your team significantly enhanced the final outcome? 

One of our artists from eastern Europe has an interest in Soviet architecture, which normally is in a state of decay. He often enjoys creating personal projects in which he masters the craft of showing the passage of time: dirt in the corners, drips running down the concrete walls, etc. All this knowledge from a niche architectural inclination became very handy when we had to depict urban environments in CG that always need some amount of deterioration to feel real.

In what ways do the different experiences from your international team members manifest in your projects?

The artists we work with are part of POP's online community hubs, even when they are not working on live projects, artists often remain connected, sharing ideas and knowledge with other like minded artists - from discussing pipeline and technical solutions, to sharing links and articles, personal work or feeding the food channels with homemade recipes and local gastronomies!

How does POP stay connected and updated with the latest trends and innovations from different parts of the world?

Mainly by following the news online from different curated channels. Google News is a great source of diverse global news on many different topics. After using it for while it learns the areas of interest (personally: technology, design, culture, creativity, computing, business, economy) and aligns its content to those areas. It avoids becoming an echo chamber by diversifying the news sources on the different target subjects and offering connected subjects outside those of main interest. Youtube is hands down the largest source of learning material for any subject. From tutorials on CG techniques to in depth interviews to technology leaders it is the best replacement for physical congress or workshops. In this case we follow channels that have been self-curated and allow the occasional discovery of new channels offered by the algorithm. We also discover and share content and articles on LinkedIn, garnded from individuals, companies and user groups that we follow, particularly within our sector. Finally we do recurring meetings in which we share and exchange knowledge among all our team members scattered around the world. That way we get insights and findings from people exposed to knowledge from their local spaces and connections that we would not get first hand otherwise.

How do you balance the challenge of integrating diverse perspectives with maintaining a coherent and unified vision for a project? 

We embrace it. The production journey is exactly that, it’s a journey of exploration, testing new processes and techniques, hitting dead ends and navigating the creative and technical challenges. Having more diverse approaches to problem solving enables more innovative solutions and actually enhances communication between artist, which leads to more cohesive alignment, both on the vision and the best approach.

What role does collaboration play in POP’s creative process, and how do you facilitate effective communication across different cultures, languages and time zones? 

Collaboration is central in the process and it’s important that each artists can bring their own experience and ideas into the mix. We have online tools that enable teams to see a whole production, beyond just the tasks they are individuality working on, so they understand where and how there own work fits into the overall pipeline. We also have technical support and RnD channels, where artists on separate projects can weigh in on technical problem solving for another project etc. This means artists can be highly focused on their individual tasks, without feeling silhoed from other project teams or support they might need. Time Zones is another huge advantage for us, as artists around world can drop into projects 24/7. It’s very flexible and scalable and helps us to meet very tight deadlines, as we can have teams working around the clock and avoids downtime during bank holidays and even school and summer holidays!

How does the philosophy of seeing the world through a kaleidoscope translate into tangible outcomes in your work?

The analogy of a kaleidoscope in one sense speaks to the endless creativity and ideas and the diversity of projects and people that we get to work with in our industry.  It also underpins our approach to projects and how we problem solve productions to find the best solution. Not every project has the desired timelines or budget, but we also know there are a multitude of different ways to tackle a project. We see our kaleidoscope as an array of possibilities and solutions that we can harness to provide the optimum approach and results, whatever the parameters of the project.

In what ways do you think the 'global neighborhood' approach sets POP apart from other creative studios in the industry? 

We have embraced a flexible remote working model that provides artists the freedom to manage their own time and achieve a work life balance, free from long stressful commutes and rigid hours. At the heart of this autonomy is trust and we help foster that through our POP culture, such as weekly coffee mornings, where artists get to meet fellow artists, across different project teams, learn more about each others interests, cultures and families. We have ’Nerd Talks’ where artists present a deeper dive into the technical aspects of their work, pipelines and specific problem solving they’ve achieved. A weekly POPcorn Showcase, where we review some of the live work, RnD development, internal work and artists personal projects. Experiencing your peers shared passion for their work, without ego or bluster, has encouraged an openness to ask questions, share knowledge, and build mutual respect between artists often on the other side of the world to each other. 

How does POP’s rich tapestry of global talent contribute to redefining storytelling and experiences in CGI and visual effects? 

We believe different cultural backgrounds bring unique perspectives and a greater richness of ideas, that help foster creativity. Different artists bring different techniques and styles, that enrich the visual narrative of both stills and motion campaigns and their varied backgrounds can help make the content more relatable for a global audience. 

How do meticulous attention to detail and a focus on perpetual evolution shape the narratives you create? 

Our passion as a studio is creating photorealistic and seamlessly integrated VFX. Whether it’s for 15,000 pixel wide stills images or 4k Motion and Animation, to achieve a high level of photorealism, you have live and breathe the details!  Our base line starts with photographic principles and rules of realism, but is also underpinned by a very disciplined workflow, well resourced teams and a lot of patience to craft.

What strategies does POP employ to not only navigate but actively shape the future of CGI and visual effects, particularly in the context of your global and diverse team? 

We actively explore wip versions of tools generated from the most recent CGI papers, like Neural Radiance Fields, or produced by the open source community, like ComfyUI. Normally those tools are not off-the-shelf and require some knowledge of coding, version control and other technicalities. That means that while they are available to everyone they are still not widely used or tested. We join the group of companies that are able to test those tools and be prepared for when the market is ready for them.

We are actively developing our own pipeline tools that allow our artists to work faster. To create those tools we ask for input from multiple artists to see what their needs are and what can we do to make their work more effective and smoother, so that they can concentrate on creative tasks and minimize repetitive actions.By using cloud services like AWS and Google Drive  we ensure to have access to the fastest machines using the newest graphics cards and have files and documents instantly accessible to our teams in different locations around the world.