Today we’d like to introduce you to Zhehao (Fred) Qiao.
Hi Zhehao (Fred), we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I came to the US in 2014 for college. I spent my first four years in Pittsburgh, studying math at Carnegie Mellon University. After that, I went to Savannah College of Art and Design for a Master’s degree in animation and visual effects. During my two years in SCAD, I did an internship at Psyop in LA as a rigger. At the time, because I did not have my car here, I thought it was very inconvenient to go around LA, AND I did not like LA that much. After finishing my graduate school in 2021, Psyop hired me back. I chose to stay in Savannah to work remotely for about one year and a half due to covid and my reluctance to move to LA. In 2022, I finally decided to move to LA after being hired by Ingenuity Studios. I think it’s important that I need to be on-site in the office once in a while since there are more responsibilities coming along with the new job. After actually moving to LA, I found that I actually loved everything here. LA has so much food, so many culture events and everything. LA is such a nutritious land for me to grow.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
My biggest struggle was in my first couple of years in college. At the time, even though I studied really hard, I did not do well in math classes. All the schoolmates around me were extremely talented. I constantly compared myself with them, and I lost my confidence. I did not know what I should do in the future. At that time, I always regretted that I did not study design or film. With all my regrets, I was not courageous enough to change my major either. I felt lost. Things started turning around in the second semester of my sophomore year. I took an animation class from a CMU program called “Ideate”. The program is designed to combine art and science. I took an intro course there and I just fell in love with 3D animation. I’ve been a movie fan since I was a child, and my mom took me to movies every week. So it was such an amazing feeling the first time I moved the camera around and shoot in 3D space. It felt truly like being a director. After that, I kept taking 3D animation courses provided by CMU. I had a mentor back in CMU. His name is Spencer, and he was my rigging instructor (Rigging is my profession now too). He taught me so much about the 3D software Maya and rigging, and he had been so encouraging and helpful to me. There was a period of time when I was very depressed because I could not find a job in the animation industry, but he always told me that I am very talented and provided me with helps.
In my last year of college, I helped another animation professor James Duesing with his AR project. I did modeling, rigging, and motion capture cleanup for him. It was fun, and I was inspired by the creativity of his 3D works. Then I chose to go to graduate school to continue studying animation and visual effects. In SCAD, things finally went well for me. I did lots of cool animation projects and I loved the art atmosphere in Savannah. SCAD also has lots of connections and career fairs for animation students. It really helped me to find my first job and break into the industry. After starting my career, I found my math and computer science background is actually super useful. My math and CS knowledge does help me stand out. Now I am grateful for everything along the way.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I work in the visual effects industry as the Lead Rigger and CFX artist at Ingenuity Studios. My job as a rigger is like making puppets for the puppeteers to do the performance. But all of them are happening in 3D software, not in real life.
Rigging itself is both technical and artsy. Since 3D software are generally very complicated, and a lot of math and programming is involved in the rigging process, building rigs is very technical. But at the same time, it’s artsy because the rigs need to have beautiful and anatomically correct deformation. For example, for a human rig, when it bends its arm, I build it in a way that its bicep bulges at the same time. So that the rig is anatomically correct and looks appealing on the screen.
The interesting part of rigging is that I have learned so much about how different things work along the way. As a rigger, I rig all kinds of things from natural creatures like bumble bees to drones. And I need to know how all of them are functioning to build the rigs. For example, I did not know shark fins have inner bones and can expand like fingers before I rigged my first shark. There was another time that I needed to build a jeep rig. I watched so many reference videos read lots of articles about the jeep suspension system to build it.
My responsibilities coming along as the lead rigger involves communication and decision-making. Since almost every 3D production project needs rigs, I am involved in lots of projects, and I need to communicate with project leads all the time to know what their needs are. For example, if a bird rig never needs to fly in shots, we will not build a full wing system for that rig. It’s about making decisions on the best use of time of the rigging department.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
My favorite part of Los Angeles is that it is so entangled with the film industry. I have been a huge movie fan since high school. In LA, I can feel the love about movies everywhere: billboards about TV shows and movies are all over the place; in the theaters, auditoriums are always full of people, and the audiences laugh and cry with the movie. There were a couple of times that I chatted about the movies with the strangers sitting around me. I can talk about movies with almost anyone in LA. The atmosphere here is like a dream to me.
The thing I like the least is that the city is too big. Everything in LA is 30 minutes away. It feels empty to me somehow.
Contact Info:
- Website: fredqiao.com
