Meet Giacomo Verri

The scope of our work is to integrate Computer Generated (CG) assets, which are pieces of live action footage, into footage which has already been shot. It should be as seamless as possible, and you shouldn’t notice or realise that something isn’t real. If you can see it, then we haven’t done our job properly. It’s all done in post-production and needs to look as believable as possible.

Very early into my apprenticeship, I managed to work on Watch Men which is an HBO Series based on the comics. It was very rewarding, and the team were great. They gave me simple tasks to get used to everything, and I even got my name on the credits at the end, which was a wonderful feeling.

On set, they used swords, which obviously weren’t real for safety reasons! I was tasked with incorporating Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) swords to make it look like they were actually there. The compositor then constructs the final image by combining layers of previously created material.

We are basically making pretty pictures - combining everything together and making it look real. We have to imagine it has been shot through a camera and recreate what it would look like if it was a real image.

Day to day, we mostly make adverts and false-perspective projections on to Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. These are adverts on a large screen which are made to look like they are 3D, or inserted into the building, or that they have something happening inside a box.

With my role, there are a lot of tight turnarounds, and we need to solve problems every day. There’s a lot of teamwork and working together is essential. At The Mill, there are a lot of employees, and we have six or seven jobs on at a time with teams ranging from two to three people right up to 20 people working on a project.

From an early age, I loved watching CGI movies like Transformers and also the Apple adverts which broke boundaries and were very creative. I was tunnel-vision minded that this was totally what I wanted to do!

After GCSEs, I did a two-year BTEC in creative media. After working in retail, it developed my soft skills and my ability to communicate, which helped with networking. I found a non-profit organisation in the visual-effects industry and managed to chat with the founder, and with his help, I managed to land an apprenticeship with The Mill and the NextGen Skills Academy at Westminster Kingsway College.

During my apprenticeship, we learnt the basics of the programme we would be using and then we were thrown in the deep end and worked every day! It was the best way to learn. Building connections with people already in the industry gives you a huge advantage.

I was 19 when I started at The Mill and I’ve been here for four years now. Some of my friends went to university, some changed their routes and some took sabbaticals and went travelling. Doing what I did worked for me, once you have your foot in the door, there are so many different jobs and routes which you can take in the industry. I think you can go straight into being an apprentice in this career, one of the apprentices that joined when I did was 15!