Wayne Brinton, VFX Supervisor at Modus FX
The Importance of the Human Connection in the Digital Workflow
For visual effects supervisor Wayne Brinton, the secret to doing great work is great relationships. That means that the first task in every job is to put a face to the name. Not only does work move more smoothly that way, but for Brinton, even a short period of time together on set can save days of work back at the studio.
Everything starts and ends with people, said Brinton. Sure, you can talk about a project over the phone, but clients only really get to know you, and the skills you bring to their film, when they meet you and see you in action. The dynamic changes from a business relationship into a working partnership. That's why it's important for me to interact directly with our clients in Hollywood.
The most recent example of this came with Brinton's work on the set of Parker, starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez. Until Brinton was able to visit the director, producers and editor in Los Angeles, he was just a voice on the other end of the line and Modus FX was a facility in a faraway place.
Click here for the making of Parker
I went down to LA and met with the director, Taylor Hackford, the postproduction supervisor, Lisa Dennis and their team. I introduced myself, told them about Modus, and explained how we'd approach the work. Once you've met, and are comfortable with each other, you can do anything.
Wayne's style of dealing with people captures the way Modus approaches work with our clients, said Yanick Wilisky, co-founder and VP production at Modus FX. They have to have faith, not only in the quality of work coming out of the studio, but in the people who work here. With Wayne, they quickly gain confidence that he will support them to do their job on set and that Modus will deliver the work the way they want it.
Being On Set Means Saving Time
On set, Brinton can see live what's being shot and what the CG artists will be working with. Since he knows the visual effects tasks exactly, he can anticipate challenges before they happen. Sometimes it might take five extra minutes to reshoot something, but it can save days of CG work. This happened with their work on Parker, where Modus worked with the second unit.
A few of the shots were bigger than they had anticipated, Brinton explained. I went to LA to set up shots with the director. We helped Taylor with camera set ups, angles and framing for the shots. I was only there for one day, but it made all the difference when we got to post.
One gruesome scene in Parker shows a hand being stabbed. The original plan called for doing the whole shot with a prosthetic hand, but Brinton could see it wasn't going to end up looking realistic enough without a real hand.
I explained that they could shoot the actor's hand instead and then use the prosthesis only to show the knife being pulled out, Brinton said. Then we could take the blade, the wound and blood spurting out, and comp it onto the real hand. I could only do this by being on set. I'm guessing we saved three days of compositing on this shot alone.
The Path to VFX Supervisor
Brinton started out as a junior compositor in Toronto in 1997, before beginning an eight year stint at Hybride in 1999. There he worked on such high-profile projects as Art of War, the Spy Kids franchise and 300. His supervising career began when he moved to the Montreal office of Mr. X where he provided on-set supervision for Beastly and was VFX supervisor for the facility's work on Source Code, which was nominated for a VES award. Then, in 2011, he joined Modus FX, where his first job was as VFX supervisor on Mirror Mirror.
Modus was called in to help out on Mirror Mirror and we had only eight weeks to do almost 200 shots, Brinton said. The most rewarding part of that job was turning out such a large number of shots in such a short time. We accomplished it all without any stress on the company. Everyone worked extra hours, but we came out of it smiling.
In addition to Parker and Mirror Mirror, Brinton served as VFX supervisor for Modus FX on The Avengers and several other Hollywood projects. When on set, Brinton is directly available to the director, watching the video feeds and ensuring that the visual effects shots are optimized for postproduction.
Generally, we let directors go where they need to go with the story. They're more comfortable and the process is more organic that way. It's my responsibility to make sure we get shots that we can work with and I use my judgment about when to step in. This is where the trust and the personal relationship come in. We're there to support the creative process.
If we present a new idea to a client, it's my job as VFX supervisor to show them how we can do it and why it will work, Brinton said.
We brought Wayne on board, not only for his technical gifts as a compositor, but for the way he deals with people, said Marc Bourbonnais, co-founder and president of Modus FX. He's able to bring his team with him to produce high-quality work and is supportive of our clients throughout the project.
As a facility Modus is moving quickly toward being in control of the visual effects for entire projects, which is the way I like to work, Brinton said. As we take on more and more of the visual effects supervision on projects, the studios and production companies are seeing how well it works, and how much more efficiently we can deliver their shots. We enjoy this level of interaction with the client, and the projects benefit greatly from having a better pipeline. Ultimately everyone wins that way.
Directed by Taylor Hackford, Parker stars Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Nick Nolte. The film saw theatrical release on Jan. 25, 2013.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Wayne Brinton, VFX Supervisor at Modus FX
