We’d like to introduce you to Zachary Berger, Creature Designer and Illustrator for the film industry.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I grew up on a tiny tropical island in the Pacific called Saipan. It’s a US commonwealth, about 12 miles long and a few miles wide. The way I like to describe it was like growing up in “small-town-USA” — just surrounded by water. Yes, we used US currency and spoke English. No, we didn’t live in grass huts or eat only coconuts! We had amazing tropical beaches and scuba diving, and the maximum speed limit was 40 mph on the whole island. I was there when the first stop light was installed on the island, and I remember my little kid’s mind being blown when we finally got our first McDonalds.
It was a unique upbringing. We had neighbors from all over Asia, the Middle East, Russia, the mainland US, and of course, the local population and people from other Pacific Islands, all living close to one another. Kind of a cultural melting pot, a lot like LA. I would consider myself lucky to have been exposed to such a wide variety of different cultures and worldviews from a very young age. In fact, I was often one of maybe one or two Caucasian kids in my classes growing up, and I think that affected how I look at the world today.
All of that being said, it was really small, so even though I was always interested in art — drawing velociraptors all over my homework assignments as a kid — I didn’t have access to a great art education until I left for college, just before my 18th birthday.
Somehow I found my way to Pasadena and ended up attending Art Center College of Design under their “Entertainment Design” degree, which was brand new at the time. Entertainment Design is kind of a catch-all term for all sorts of concept design for the entertainment industry. Basically doing illustrations and designs for film, games, theme parks, toys, etc.
I think like every introverted nerd that grew up in the 90’s, I had always wanted to work in video games, and I basically landed my dream internship right out of school at Sony Playstation – Santa Monica Studio. I worked there for a few years and eventually got an offer to jump into the film: doing costume illustration and creature design work for a Legendary Pictures project, and I’ve been in the film industry ever since.
Honestly, my whole career trajectory has been a dream so far. I consider myself incredibly lucky, and try not to take any of it for granted. It’s hard not to develop a sense of impostor syndrome about the whole thing, but I try just to take it day by day.
Please tell us about your art.
Well, the short answer is “whatever the client asks for”! I’m a commercial artist, and so most of my art is trying to solve other people’s problems, and not a vehicle for my own self expression. I pretty much only work on big blockbusters, not because I wouldn’t want to work on something smaller, but because that’s the kind of film that is going to need a creepy creature design or a sci-fi spacesuit.
I often get brought on to a film very early on, sometimes before there is even a script. Usually, I will get a written or even just a verbal description of my task (usually a creature, character, or set), may be accompanied by some reference photos that a production designer or director found online. My job is to try and translate the ideas of what they have in their heads into visuals, and with their direction, provide illustrations of what a creature or set “could” look like, and hopefully land on a solution before the production spends a whole bunch of money in visual effects or physical construction.
It’s an iterative — and never straightforward — process. Lots of two steps forward, one step back in trying to find an ultimate solution. Very rarely do we submit one image of creature design and the director says, “that’s it!” and we’re done. It can sometimes take many rounds of back and forth before we arrive at something that everyone’s happy with.
It’s also inherently a very collaborative process. Nothing that makes it onscreen is ever really one artist’s work. In essence, it often passes through multiple hands, each one improving on it until the final result is kind of a combination of everyone’s ideas. When I first started, I think I was a little resistant to this: getting a little territorial and wanting to have “ownership” of creature design, but now I’ve grown to enjoy this collaborative aspect of my job. Everyone brings something to the table, and I love working with and learning from other artists. In the end, what we produce together is better than something that anyone of us could produce on our own.
What do you think about conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
I guess I can only really speak to the entertainment industry in LA. It’s a really great time to try and break into the film and television industry to get a job similar to mine. With everyone and their mother starting a streaming service, a lot of the studios seem desperate for new original content to drive people to their service. New content means that they need artists!
You also don’t have to go to a fancy expensive art school and go into a bunch of debt anymore — there is a wealth of information and tutorials available online. A self-driven person could teach themselves almost anything these days with a combination of Google and YouTube.
My general advice to other up-and-coming artists is to “work hard, and be nice”. Almost all of my jobs have come from referrals from other people I’ve worked in the past. Since it’s such a collaborative working environment, getting along with people is just as important as having a great portfolio! Call it “artistic karma” or whatever you want, but I feel like if you’re a genuinely good person, people take notice, and it eventually returns to you. LA is an amazing place to earn your stripes as an artist. We are the birthplace of hollywood, and I think the caliber of artists here reflects that. Unfortunately, a lot of film work has been leaving LA. It’s a complicated issue, with a lot of nuance to it — more than I have time or space to go into here. It’s largely due to tax incentives offered by other out-of-state filming locations, which means that while production may start here, they often leave for cheaper pastures. This leaves the artists and other “below the line” crew with a choice of either shipping out and leaving their families to follow production, or getting laid off. California has taken some steps to try and stem the bleeding, but it’s still a pretty big problem — hopefully, more steps are taken to keep more films in LA.
That being said, my mantra of “work hard, be nice” has so far worked out for me pretty well. I think there will always be a desire for talented, cool people, regardless of the politics of the day. Work hard, be someone that people want to work with, look out for your peers, and good things will happen.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Well, I’ve been working on the Avatar sequels for the last few years. At some point, those will come out! I’m not allowed to talk about it a whole lot, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s going to be visually stunning. Please go see them when they come out. I had a pretty big hand in some of the creature designs for those films. As far as my past work, I did a bunch of creature design and illustration work on the “Kong: Skull Island” film that came out a few years ago, as well as a little bit on “Logan”, “Thor: Ragnarok”, and a whole bunch of other things. You can see plenty of samples of my work on my website.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.artofzachary.com
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Zachary Berger
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