sent from: London, UK. destination: London, UK

I started my career building pipelines. If you imagine a pipeline as the roads, the road signs, the overpasses, the vehicle lights, indicators, mirrors. When I started in VFX we had dirt roads and wooden carts, just getting everyone to agree to drive on the same side of the road was a minor victory. In my youthful naivete, I thought each new improvement would build on the last and that by now, almost 20 years later, we’d all be travelling on a clear Autobahn at 100 miles an hour. After a long work day arguing over issues hashed out too many times already and reading “Last Man in Tower”, I realised that our vfx pipeline is like Bombay. It’s modern, sure. The cars are nicer. The roads are paved, and there are flyovers and overpasses. There are laws on the books. And yet, the car mirrors are smashed, we beep at each other because we have no better way of communicating our presence. Roads will fit as many as can jam into the space, regardless of lanes, signs and rules. We drive into oncoming traffic because, why not, plus there’s a giant pot hole in the middle of the road. We get where we need to go, sure, the work gets done, and yet somehow it doesn’t feel any less bruising.