May Leung: shattering glass ceilings in the VFX world and breathing life into Inception

In the male-dominated sphere of visual effects supervision, May Leung emerges as an iconoclast. Boasting a remarkable portfolio that includes 38 films, like 'Captain America: The First Avenger', 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', and notably, Christopher Nolan's 'Inception', Leung forms part of a mere 5% of women holding the top role of a VFX supervisor.

From Animation Aspirant to VFX Virtuoso: "I wanted to be a cartoonist"

Raised on a diet of Disney films, Leung originally dreamt of a career in animation. "I went to school for fine arts and I wanted to be a cartoonist," she reveals. Her path, however, led her to the realm of 3D animation, and she found herself animating contrails. From working on storyboards in animation and commercials to chasing her supervisor to Vancouver, Leung swiftly scaled the ladder in the VFX industry.

With over a decade of VFX experience under her belt, including works on 'The Dark Knight Rises', Leung's typical day revolves around assessing dailies and her artists' output before presenting them to clients. This is often done without knowing the full context of the movie, especially when working on Nolan's effects.

Decoding the Dream Layers in 'Inception': "The only information provided to me was... an exploding cafe scenario"

While crafting the VFX for Nolan's 2009 masterpiece, 'Inception', Leung worked with scarce information. "The only information provided to me was — using Houdini software — to look into the latest destruction tools for an exploding cafe scenario," Leung shares. Despite the minimal cues, Leung fashioned a proxy cafe scenario, simulating numerous events to present to the VFX supervisor, Paul Franklin.

Her stint with 'Bohemian Rhapsody' presented another set of challenges. Leung, along with Ted Waine from DNEG’s research and development department, developed a six-camera array system to capture the individual crowd sprites required to fill Wembley Stadium with 72,000 concertgoers for the iconic Live Aid sequence. In all, the VFX team delivered a total of 600 shots covering Queen's world tour concerts.

Forging Forward: "They shouldn’t be afraid to move to the next level"

As a torchbearer in the VFX industry, Leung urges more women to follow suit and ascend to leadership roles. She believes in the importance of recognition for hard work, emphasizing, "There are women out here and more would be better."

(Several parts of the text in this article, including the title, were generated with the help of an AI tool.)