When 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Anna Tonrungroj finished her year at VFS and unleashed her visual effects reel on the world, she couldn’t have predicted just how much of a chord it would strike.

But The Moon has gotten a steady stream of praise on YouTube from a mix of 3D aficionados and average viewers. They know good stuff when they see it – it’s a simple concept exceptionally and beautifully executed.

Anna had already been working as a 2D compositor in Thailand before deciding to come to VFS to broaden her skills.

“I checked out the 3D Animation and Visual Effects Showcase of the former students,” she explains. “I was convinced that I might be able to do some cool stuff like that, so I decided to come to VFS right away. Vancouver is such a beautiful city – it made me want to come to study at VFS even more.”

We managed to catch up with Anna to find out about her experience and her thoughts on why the The Moon is so successful.

What was your experience at VFS like?

I found some talents I’d had but never shown, I got to improve my learning skill and my language skill at the same time, I learned not to be afraid of learning some new things each day – well, actually, we really had no time to be afraid, because all of the schedule is very intense and we just had to finish every assignment on time.

However, my favorite part from VFS is I found a lot of friends who have the same passions and interests as mine from all over the world. We exchanged our experience, knowledge, cultures, and friendships, which I will never forget.

Focusing on visual effects at VFS meant you got to actually get outside and shoot the footage on location. How was that experience? It looks like a lot of fun, judging by the footage at the end of your reel.

Definitely a lot of fun. I had a lot of talented friends in my class and we all helped each other out when it was time for us to shoot our films. I spent a lot of time just planning things out for my shooting day, because I had only one chance to shoot at the soccer field due to the expenses and had only one hour and a half to finish shooting all the shots I needed before the light at the soccer field shut off.

It was very difficult to get everything exactly as I wanted, but with all the help from all of those people who were on set with me that day, it was finally successfully done and we all had a great time there. I also would like to give them all the credit for that.

What appeals to you about visual effects as opposed to other areas of 3D, like animation or modeling? What are some of the challenges in VFX work?

Though all of them are very interesting to me, I personally love watching movies. I always had a dream of becoming a visual effects artist, because I found it very interesting to be able create something that looks so realistic which does not actually exist in this world.

Plus, for me to be able to integrate those visual effects with the original plate, which has real human involved, to me is even more interesting.

People on YouTube are really responding well to your reel. Why do you think that is?

I am very happy that people seem to like The Moon. I tried to do my best in that movie and with all the feedback I’ve got so far, it’s very worth it.

Not many people dare to do the whole visual effects reel with the story. They would rather go for the VFX shots just to be safe, since we didn’t have a lot of time to finish. I took a risk to spend time on visual effects and story as well. Fortunately, I was able to finish it on time.

I had studied advertising before back in Thailand so I learned to think of something different just to make it more interesting. No more old-fashioned visual effects reel for me. Maybe that’s why people seem to like The Moon, because it’s different than what they expected to see.

Thanks, Anna! Here it is:

Check out Anna’s portfolio and reel on her site, iamannartist.com.