SCAD Vision Alumni Spotlight

During the latest Vision event this past Saturday, October twenty-third, we had the opportunity of listening to SCAD alumni Jason Koh talk about his professional journey. He is a Senior Lighting Technical Director from Singapore that is currently working at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Jason graduated from SCAD in May 2016 and has worked on multiple well-known movies such as Mulan, Spiderman Into the Spiderverse, Men in Black: International, and Spiderman Far From Home.

In this event, Jason Koh discussed his journey of how he started his career at Sony Pictures Imageworks. After graduating from SCAD, he became an intern at Sony Pictures iPax, currently known as Imageworks iCAD. During his internship, Jason learned the pipeline, Katana software, and other proprietary plug-ins and programs. In addition, he had his “real world” experience working on Smurfs: The Lost Village. After this internship, he joined full-time as a Junior Technical Director at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Further in the conversation, the guest talked about his roles and responsibilities in the lighting department. He works as a Lighter, focusing on key lighting (match to lighting keys) and shot lighting, while also working as a compositor in animation and as a look development artist. In addition, he is responsible for matching closely with surrounding shots and sequence lighting. His job is to also break down his work into layers for the compositors to take it from there.

Jason Koh went over the Stylized Lighting techniques that he used in movies such as The Mitchells vs The Machine and Into the Spiderverse. He mentioned that with this method, he had the challenge of being able to tell form while at the same time keeping the style looking flat. He makes sure that the movie is similar to the art within comic books by keeping the hatching, screen tones, and enhanced outlines characteristic within sequential art. While developing stylized lighting within these films, Jason had to make sure not to break the depth cueing, which consists of more abstract and simplified objects as they blend into the background, a typical technique within illustrations and painterly art style.

The event ended with a Q and A session where Jason Koh answered a few questions from the audience. Some addressed questions were: What is the workplace environment like at Sony? For the stylized projects, how much of the look is determined in lighting vs in compositing?, How intensive was the collaboration between these departments?…etc. In addition to this, Jason shared advice to graduate students. He emphasized the importance of foundations and the importance of collaborative projects, which are great for experience and practice. He told the fellow graduates not to be disheartened by not getting an internship. Jason also went over his demo reel and emphasized how not every piece that is done should be part of somebody’s demo reel, particularly if those pieces do not match the quality of the rest of the projects.

This alumni spotlight is one of the many events that the Vision Lecture Series host. If you want to learn more about this event or others, you can access the recordings through the Blackboard community tab. To register for the Vision Lecture Series, you simply have to go to Blackboard, click on MyCommunities>CommunitySearch, and type Vision. Next, click on the organization ID, VSFX_Vision, and you will get the option to enroll. This community is rich in Visual Effects panels and tutorials from industry professionals, alumni, and students. You can also find the Digital Media Club recordings there!