CV

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curriculum vitae

Alfred Mürrle

Compositor – Lead – Supervisor

alfredmurrle@protonmail.com

+64.021.269.0076

Wellington, New Zealand

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For the past 29 years, I have been a feature film and television visual effects compositor. I have been a comp look dev artist, a lead compositor, and a compositing supervisor. Having worked at the forefront of the industry from the very start at Tippett Studio, to Rhythm and Hues, Digital Domain, and the past 25 years at Weta Digital, I have contributed and participated in the overall technical and aesthetic development of our field and have been involved in the production of the highest caliber of visual effects in the world

I have worked on 5 films which have won the Academy Award for best visual effects, 10 films which have been nominated for a vfx Oscar, and I have been the recipient of a Visual Effects Society award for best compositing in a motion picture, for my work on the Balrog sequence in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Experience

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Over the years, I have worn many hats and performed many different tasks. Compositing throughout, I have led sequences, supervised teams, assessing work, bid days for turned over sequences, working with production to set assignments and assemble a schedule and timeline, experimenting and facilitating others in coming up with practical plans for creating whatever feats of magic are required for a given show, and in this process creating tools, templates, and pipelines for the compositing team, mentoring as well as learning from my team mates, and assisting in facilitating the completion of everyone’s shots to a very high standard.

As part of the original deep compositing team at Weta, my input and contribution has helped to establish deep compositing tools and techniques now standard across the industry. I have experience conceiving, planning, and directing onset effects element photography. I have been a librarian, producing and maintaining 2D element libraries for the entire studio. Always pitching in where needed, I had a brief foray as a texture artist, creating shaders for 3D digital assets for Tintin. I was briefly a lighting TD for Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And I have also had the honor of being a member of the core 2D creative R&D team for several of Peter Jackson’s pet projects, from AI-driven photo animation for The Beatles – Now and Then to colorisation projects for the Wellington WWI centennial exhibition and Australian War Memorial.

Skills

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Proficient in all areas of compositing:

blue/green screen extractions

complex multilayer composites

plate/cg/dmp integration

stereo compositing

look development

nuke python coding

pipeline/tool/technique development

onset effects element photography

archival image restoration

I have worked through several generations of digital compositing packages, proprietary and third-party tools, from the early days of SGI workstations, unix shell scripting, Wavefront Composer and Cineon to the present with Linux, Nuke, and python, it has become ever more clear that artistry in visual effects is not defined by mastery of a particular tool, or even the complexity of ones work, but rather the wisdom of experience, the eye that drives the mouse, and the creative relationships that we develop as a team. Every year we are faced with new challenges, and so when solutions aren’t readily at hand, we adapt, repurpose, or build the tools needed to meet them.

Approach

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Having been professionally involved with compositing and look development for quite some time, I find myself ever looking to nature as my guide, drawing reference from the real world to recreate believable light and atmosphere. Personal experience with photography remains a vital part of that process, from medium format and digital to HDR and 360° imagery, each has helped me refine an understanding of the world as seen through a lens and captured on a sensor.

When called upon to take on supervisory or lead roles, my focus has always been one of service, supporting and enabling the artists on my teams, simplifying complex challenges whenever possible, and fostering clear communication and expectation between production, the vfx supervisor, and the client’s vision.

However not always leading, it is often that I cannot be spared, due to my reputation as a reliable workhorse and problem solver with a creative eye. As with most talent, this reputation and trust has been hard won, from countless trials and errors, resulting in a long history of challenges solved, always coming through in the end. Often, when a shot has been problematic, passed around, and has come to an impasse, it comes to me to finally solve it and achieve the director’s vision. I’m often the cleaner, the fixer, the ambulance at the bottom of the hill, the one who finds the solution and always brings it home. The aim is always the same: to make striking, honest images while balancing creative ambition with production realities.

Professional Experience

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Education

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Post-baccalauriate course work – Computer Graphics – Academy of Art College, San Francisco

B.A. Comparative Literature University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Other Experience

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From 1994 to 1996, I worked at George Coates Performance Works in San Francisco, responsible for the design, production, and integration of digital art and animation with film and slide projection for stereoscopic display in live multimedia theatrical performances.

From 1987 to 1993, I worked as a concert theatre stagehand, rigger, and lighting technician, running follow spots at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, The Riverside, and the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.