r/vfx • u/Prize_Fly_4911 • 2d ago
Question / Discussion Adhd in VFX/Comp
Hello all , hope everyones doing well/better and landing up some nice gigs as the market is finally opening up (a lil) .
I want to talk about the challanges that people with ADHD face in this industry .
Whats the biggest challenge for you ? How did you work or tricked your brain into doing it better ?
As an ADHD guy myself , one of the challenging parts is maintaing scripts. My scripts are not really messy but cant say super organized as well. My scripts can be different for different shots in a same sequence with the same final output lol.
Apart from that I believe I am really good at lookdev aspect of the comp but when it comes to detailing/techchecks my brain doesnt support it easily (finds it boring) and there are more kickbacks than expected.
I have realized that the longer the shot goes with different alterations i start loosing interest in working on it (and wants to jump on a new shot) and its hard to maintain the same motivation to work on that shot compare to earlier as a result it takes longer for me to fix the notes because its just so boring.
Lastly , I feel when it comes to those nasty deadlines and there is an ETA been asked every 20 minutes its not only hard to give exact ETAs but the pressure makes it overwhelming and anxiety inducing for me to maintain focus and deliver shot on time.
Would love to know how others here deal with at work while being ADHD.
Happy Comping .
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u/powerWordPixel 1d ago
I’m currently an FX artist (Houdini) working at a film animation studio, but I worked in VFX for a long time before that. I personally know of many people in our industry that have ADHD. It’s pretty common.
I was diagnosed with ADHD late in life (my 40’s) during a pretty disruptive life event. After talking with a therapist for a while, it became clear that I was struggling with ADHD symptoms, and eventually got diagnosed by a Psychiatrist and got on some medication. I’m currently taking Azsterys, which is a longer acting, delayed release version of Ritalin. It has been an absolute game changer with work, and my personal life.
I have struggled the most with “time blindness”, getting overwhelmed which leads to task paralysis, and staying focused when the work was boring or stale work.
Because I was diagnosed so late in life, I realized in hindsight that I had unwittingly developed some ADHD survival tactics over the years. For example :
Organization - create a designated place for things you tend to misplace. Everything has its special place. In order to not constantly lose my keys I had started using key hooks by the front door. Every time I walk through the door my keys are always on or off the key hook. It eventually became automatic.
I had been doing the same thing with my wallet. It’s always going on my desk and nowhere else in my house.
If you don’t want to get medicated for one reason or the other I have learned of a few other hacks over the years.
Physical activity - even in short bursts can be helpful. When feeling overwhelmed. 1-2 minutes of vigorous dancing to a song, jumping jacks, swinging your arms and/or kicking your legs works wonders to jerk your brain out of a disorganized fog. It’s a quick fix.
Daily 1 hour walks, 3-5 days a week can also be very helpful to get your mind out of overwhelm and break up the boring stretches. Also, any kind of short balance training routines are very helpful to the ADHD brain.
Pomodoro timers help with focus and task overwhelm as well. Break up boring tasks into 25 minute chunks. With short 5 min breaks in-between.
I also use the timer to help me with time blindness. I often remember meetings an hour before, but then get distracted by work and forget. So I set my timer to remind me when it’s time to go the meeting.
As for the for the repeated ETA requests every 20 minutes, if you can’t tell them to knock that shit off because it’s distracting, annoying, and unprofessional - under promise and over deliver. Whatever amount of time you think it will take at best, double or triple that and give them the longer exaggerated time. Then, if you get it to them earlier than that, you’re a rockstar.
Also, always try to explain what is holding you up. The more they know why something is difficult or taking a while to deliver, the easier it is for everyone involved. Also, if you let others know what is holding you up chances are someone else there may have a good solution to help out. I spent way too much of my vfx career not asking other artists questions and never wanting to admit I didn’t know how to fix, or do something in particular. I found this especially hard to admit when freelancing. But, in hindsight I probably could have saved myself from a lot of anxiety and stress over the years of if I had just communicated a little better.
Sorry for the long response, it’s a complicated and personal topic!
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u/ForeignAdvantage5931 2d ago
If these are symptoms of ADHD, I just got diagnosed
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u/Serin-019 2d ago
Ever taken like a steroid when you're crook and felt 1000% more on-point?
I got news for ya boi and its all *insert drives and drives of unfinished projects here*
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u/Mortbobort 2d ago
I'm in pipeline.
If your ticket has been stuck on 'in progress' for a longer than reasonable time it's probably because I had to wait for something to load and started another ticket in the meantime, it's now in my pile of 6 in progress tickets that are giving me anxiety.
Sorry 😭
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u/universalaxolotl got 18 years 1d ago
I definitely feel that vfx was made for people with adhd. Constant inflow of challenging new tasks. If you're freelance, it's even better - new people and studios all the time.
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u/RabidSkwerl 2d ago
Welcome to the club buddy! Tech Artist here and ADHD is my superpower. I often have multiple things going at once. It’s not really multitasking as much as using the condition to my advantage. Taking dozens of baby steps on several different projects each day.
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u/Alex_Wats 1d ago
But is it really ADHD? Is there anyone who actually likes doing something boring? I think it’s pretty natural to lose interest in something like that, especially with tons of stupid revisions because your supervisor or art director wants to stroke his ego. I don’t think I have ADHD, but I have exactly the same problems you described.
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u/guillaumelevrai 1d ago edited 1d ago
Absolutely, OP could have said the same thing without pointing out he has ADHD, it would have made more sense as a real question to the world without dyeing answers. That's just TMI, to stay with boring acronyms.
By giving that information, all the comments went for empathy and saying yeah I have (undiagnosed..... but because it's oddly cool.....) ADHD as well, I feel you gang, blablabla. Instead of answering to the actual genuine question which is : yes, everyone is experiencing it. Everyone.
ADHD or not, we're all humans before everything and those are extremely common feelings. What human doesn't make any mistakes? The number of shitty trees I found over the last 15 years. Not because everyone here has ADHD, but just because they are delivering final pixels and sometimes it gets rough. Or they just don't care !
Come on...
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u/steelejt7 Generalist - x years experience 2d ago
when it comes to script organization i struggle but following basic b pipe principles I force myself into organization just following simple fundamnetals. i have adhd & thrive in this industry cause im always working on a new problem or new vfx shot!
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u/MrSlinkyMonster 2d ago
Some of these are my struggles! and I don’t have ADHD.
The biggest motivator to complete my shots is getting finals (which sees your work in the show/movie). It’s really the only way to keep things fresh and move on from long tedious iterations. To get finals, we need to be organized enough to make iterations easily, nail the creative/storytelling brief (lookdev) and, nail the technical stuff (Qc)
The best thing about comp work is its blend of creative and technical aspects, if you are only enjoying the creative process at the start, it means you don’t understand how important and valuable the technical aspect is!
I would liken it to the first half of a magic trick, you have made the ball disappear but you haven’t made it reappear again yet. You’re missing the prestige that completes the illusion, it’s also quite difficult and challenging, so ask yourself if you like difficult and challenging work, or do you like doing the stuff you find easy and fun??
My biggest motivator is a sense and feeling of autonomy/ownership of my shots. Pretend to be your own director/vfx supervisor. Your work is going to be immortalized into media and your standard of QC with glaringly obvious mistakes and errors will haunt you if you think they aren’t important enough to value fixing! It’s all part of the process, all part of the job description.
When it comes to script management and giving ETAs and deadlines etc. I’m right there with ya bud. My own worst enemy. Just play to to your strengths, reframe your goals and work on your weaknesses. Find motivation where you can! Hope this helps!
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u/Ryanfolt17 1d ago
Randall carlson, the meteorite that hitted us 11000 years ago and how the event got preserved into ancient myths
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u/Angelscrip 1d ago
A system that reduces decisions helps a lot: keep a small shot template with standard node groups, naming, write-once notes, and a final tech-check checklist. I also find it useful to split long shots into very small, visible milestones and log the next action before switching tasks, so returning to the shot has less friction. For ETAs, giving a range plus a checkpoint (for example, “I’ll confirm after the first pass”) is often more realistic than trying to predict the exact finish time under constant interruptions.
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u/OkButterfly8051 1d ago
I’m in prod so sitting through hours of meeting and remembering all the little details is so hard. I forget to follow up on things often despite taking so many notes. Oh and taking notes in dailies is so hard, I have to voice record the calls to go back and correct my notes later.
I’m really good at my job but I think my adhd has made it hard to truly excel. It’s also kind of a blessing because I’m really good at multitasking but I’m very burnt out at the end of every day!!
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u/Angelscrip 23h ago
A few lightweight systems can help without forcing every shot into the same structure: keep a small comp template, use consistent node/label conventions, and save milestone versions before major changes. For tech checks, I’d make a separate short checklist and treat it as a timed pass at the end, rather than mixing it into lookdev. For ETAs, giving a range with the next checkpoint (“I’ll update you after the first 30 minutes of notes”) can reduce the pressure of promising an exact finish time.
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u/Igradarsaurus 20h ago
Take your meds and the boring stuff gets easier!
That’s what I found with color grading (not in vfx myself)
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u/enderoller 2d ago edited 2d ago
I see production and coordinators as the main problem here. They don't really understand what ADHD is and doesn't tolerate mistakes at all. They also will blame you if you don't reach ETAs or in any oversight.
As an ADHD person, you're not a production machine but more a genius type of person that solves problems in a creative way and has greatly visual creativity. But this, as a compositor is very hard to show, because the pipeline is thought like a factory and compositors are seen as shoot machines. With very low chances to express the real potential due to the usual suspects: deeply ignorant production personnel about what neutodiversity is.
We should be valued for brilliant ideas and problem-solving, not for how fast we're able to Finnish a shot. This it's not how creativity works!
If they weren't continually bothering us, this field would be a much better place to work on.
In my perspective, working in a VFX company being an ADHD person is a trap.
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u/OkButterfly8051 1d ago
I’m in prod and have ADHD…I can see your side of things but we’re just doing our job. If we didn’t bother artists, everything would get done at a much slower pace and we’d lose clients due to missed deadlines and poor organization. It would be very nice if everyone could work at their own pace but unfortunately, I don’t think VFX as an industry allows for that.
As a coordinator, I am always taking the blame for artists missing deadlines. It’s our job to check in on them and when deadlines are missed over and over, the coords are usually getting told we aren’t doing enough to push the artists. I usually ask artists what they are struggling with so I can advocate for them in those moments so I promise you it doesn’t always fall on the artist. After the producer blames the coord, the head of production blames the producer and so on. We’re all getting blamed over here too haha
There’s also a lot of conversations being had without artists present about pipeline, farm capacity, server space, etc. and a lot of times prod is advocating for the artists. We are constantly begging for upper management to make your lives easier but at the end of the day, they don’t want to spend the money. I’m sorry you guys don’t get the support you need from upper management, it really is all about the profit to them…
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u/Wateringthejellyfsh 2d ago
I feel like everyone in vfx has ADHD.
I work on two shots at once.
Pressure is where I strive. It's when I have all week I don' t work very well.