MPC Vancouver

I had lined up my job at MPC Vancouver months in advance of leaving London. They had given me a 12-month contract and provided a lot of help with the move. They covered the cost of my flight, so we only had to pay for my girlfriend’s ticket, they arranged work permits for both of us, and they put us up in a hotel for our first two weeks in Vancouver.

I started work at MPC in September 2011 and went straight onto Jack The Giant Slayer (or Jack The Giant Killer as it was known back then). I have written a more detailed account about the work we did on Jack here.

MPC Vancouver felt very familiar. About a third of the staff there were British, some transferred from the London office, and others, like myself, from other VFX companies. Another third of the office were Canadians, although not many locals from Vancouver. And the final third seemed to have come from the rest of the world. There were already a couple of people that I knew from London, and I soon found many more connections through one or two degrees of separation.

It was a pretty friendly working environment, with lots of social events, group lunches and beer in the fridges every Friday.

Jack was originally scheduled to finish in April 2012, 6 months into my 12-month contract. Unfortunately, the summer looked to be quieter than MPC had hoped and in March they told me that they would be letting me go after Jack, halfway through my contract. I felt pretty cheated, having moved to another country on the promise of a 12-month contract, and we did panic for a week or two, but luckily I soon got an offer from Image Engine.