Houdini FX Supervisor Demo Reel 2024

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ABOUT ME

Hello! My name is Ahmad Ghourab. I'm a 16-year VFX veteran.

My portfolio includes 22 titles, a VES Nomination, 6 years in leadership roles (FX Supervisor/Head Of Department), and two relevent degrees - MSc (Distinction) and a BA(Hons) in Computer Visualization And Animation from the NCCA (National Centre For Computer Animation), Bournemouth University.

My expertise lies in technical development, namely; Efficiency driven FX setups, procedural solutions, dynamic rigs, workflows, and pipeline tools.

But I'm also an artist at heart with an keen eye for physicality and a penchant for perfectionism.


THE PROBLEM - MAKE YOUR WORK CLEAR WITHOUT BREAKING THE FLOW

Traditional reels have a problem. One that everyone hiring has struggled with. One that could prevent your demo reel getting the recognition it deserves.

They often use static, off-frame text to denote the author's contributions.

This can break the viewing experience by taking a viewers eye away from the action, sometimes even causing key portions of your work to be missed in the process.

But it can even end up confusing viewers, especially when coupled with obscure production terms or vague references in complex shots.

This demo reel is both my portfolio, and my solution to that problem


THE SOLUTION - CALL OUT CAPTIONS

To overcome the pitfalls of traditional reels, I used large clear call out captions that appear only momentarily.

This instantly catches the viewers attention. It clarifies their contribution without ever breaking the flow of the viewing experience. And it reduces viewer distraction from the overall viewing experience.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comments section below.


DISCLAIMER

This demo reel, taken as a whole, isn't meant to be the ideal format for getting hired.

I don't put all my best work in the first minute. You absolutely should.

Demo reel's should rarely ever get past 1.5-2 minutes long.

The OCD levels of editing were for the viewers enjoyment, and aren't necessary.


BREAKDOWN

__ MOONFALL __ Supervision ___
00:10 - Cloud Atmospherics
00:15 - Ground Dust, dirt, grains
00:17 - Meteor, snow mounds and ground interaction setups
00:28 - Explosion all, cloud cover all
00:30 - Moon reentry friction setups, moon debris setup, shock-wave
01:02 - Avalanche Volumetric
01:11 - Moon debris impact dust setup, ship impact dust
01:15 - Sandstorm

__FINCH __ Head Of Simulation Supervision ___
01:19 - Sandstorm setup
01:21 - Tornado, debris shot running

__ STRANGER THINGS 4 E7- E9 __ FX Supervisor ___
01:27 - Disintegration setup
01:34 - Impact debris, RBD, dust, grain, CG fire
01:40 - Pyro setup
01:52 - VES NOMINATED - Procedural vines and mould growth setups, custom space colonization based solver, building collapse dust

__ LOGAN __ FX Lead ___
02:05 - Dust, grains
02:06 - Fence dynamics rig (all)

__ EUROVISION STORY OF FIRE SAGA __ Head Of Simulation Supervision ___
02:13 - Building crowd department and training, crowd tool development, procedural ‘build’ workflow approach, shot work, mocap recording, mocap clip refinement, mocap acting

__ THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 __ FX Technical Director ___
02:28 - FBM based electrical FX
02:31 - Teargas

__ THE SHALLOWS __ FX Lead ___
02:35 - Whale oil, fluid advected bubbles and meshing
02:37 - Water simulation, custom water patch skinning setup

__ POINT BREAK __ FX Technical Director ___
02:39 - Cloud dual advection solve
02:43 - Procedural dust from rocks setup

__ TRANSFORMERS AGE OF EXTINCTION __ FX Technical Director ___
02:47 - Volumetrics, sparks, transformer blood splashes
02:51 - Volumetrics (except fire), impact debris

__ Playmobil Movie __ FX Supervisor ___
02:52 - Full feature animation FX supervision, bidding, internal FX pipeline development, farm submission scripts, file management, team development and training

__ THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 __ FX Technical Director ___
02:55 - Electrical explosion elements, point cloud based targeting/growth

__ JURASSIC WORLD __ FX Technical Director ___
02:57 - Automated procedural dynamics forest mega-setup. Procedural fully automated tree dynamics rigging and simulation to work in tandem with automated, database lookup, layout replacement based on velociraptor proximity.

__ WHITE HOUSE DOWN __ FX Technical Director ___
03:04 - Slow motion (120fps) explosion that grows from small cart to engulfing camera in 2012. Required custom solver approach.

__ MARVEL ETERNALS __ FX Technical Director ___
03:06 - Eyebeam FX, impact fire, dust
03:08 - Procedural growth custom space colonization solver, full automated population of ‘wall of memories’

__ CHAPPIE __ FX Technical Director ___
03:09 - CG Dust, missile trails

__ ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTERS __ FX Technical Director ___
03:12 - Fire, smoke, embers, CVEX development, render-time procedural render slicing and recombining setup