OpenVisual FX is a blog I created to focus on high-end visual effects techniques, tools, and tutorials. My name is Sean Kennedy and I’ve been working in visual effects professionally since 2002. Before that, I had been doing physical special effects since 1997.

Doing physical effects, I worked on movies like Spider-man 1 & 2, Men in Black 2, AVP: Aliens vs. Predator, and many other productions and TV shows. I’ve done a bit of everything, from props and miniature models to animatronic creatures and FX make-up. I’ve worked in various positions, including mold maker, fabricator, model maker, foam running, and on-set make-up and effects.

Stop-motion armature, 1996.

Animatronic hand creature, 1995.

Animatronic hand creature with skin on, 1995.

Working on a giant hydraulic crocodile, 1999.

The crocodile finished, 1999.

Miniature spaceship model, 36 inches long, 193 fiber optic lights, 1997.

As a visual effects artist, I’ve been a compositor on over 50 feature films and TV shows, including the movies Meet the Fockers, Superbad, Sin City,  Alvin and the Chipmunks, Night at the Museum, and visual effects Oscar winners The Golden Compass and Life of Pi. I’ve also made my own short films and enjoyed some small festival runs.

Sin City

R.I.P.D.

Night at the Museum

Life of Pi

Big Miracle

Meet the Fockers

Golden Compass

Sin City

I currently work at CoSA VFX in North Hollywood, CA, where I contribute to the visual effects for television shows like The Orville, Lucifer, Lethal Weapon, The Gifted, and 2017 Emmy winners Gotham and Westworld, not to mention many more. I work mainly as a compositor, but also a bit as a 3D generalist, which keeps me learning and having fun.

Some of the many shows I’ve worked on at CoSA VFX.

A melting man shot from “Gotham” I composited.

As a freelance artist, I created the Season 14 opening titles for “So You Think You Can Dance”.

A title shot I worked on for “The Orville”.

In my visual effects career, I’ve used many commercial visual effects applications, and have also tried to embrace more Free & Open-Source (FOSS) programs. Working at home on film and TV projects has led me to discover a great deal of free tools that I think many visual effects artists could benefit from in the same way I have. I’ve been a Blender user since 2008, and have been lucky enough to not only attend the annual Blender Conference, but to have helped influence some of the compositing decisions the Blender developers have made. I’m also very interested in Natron, the first open-source compositor to be widely accepted.

Me (middle) with Bill Westenhofer & Erik-Jan De Boer, Oscar winners for Life if Pi.

VFX Supervisor Paul Ghezzo and myself

Tom Mahoney, one of CoSA’s founders, and myself

This blog is a place for me to share what I’ve learned, to share professional techniques with artists who are already using all the great free software out there, and to help commercial software users transition effortlessly to free software. Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s not so much about the software as it is the artist using it.

You can see my IMDB credit list here.
You can see my Blender Network page here.
I did a guest blog post over at RenderStreet where I discussed the software I’ve used throughout my visual effects career. You can check it out here.
I also contribute to 3DArtist magazine once in a while.

Thanks for checking out the site, and please feel free to contact me.