Her Story
About Vina
I'm currently a senior lighting artist at Treyarch, where we work on Call of Duty, one of the best-selling franchises in the gaming industry for over 20 years. This franchise leads a lot of new technology and is highly rated by players. For me, doing the lighting for this kind of multiplayer game is technically very challenging because we not just want it to look good, but also have to deal with a lot of technical constraints. I'm very happy and proud of being a senior female artist who can handle this type of highly technical, artistic job in a male-dominated world. Before this, I was a lighting supervisor at DreamWorks Animation for 20 years in animation lighting. I'm a self-taught CG artist - I do have a master's degree, but what I studied is different than what I wanted to do. Back in Asia, there was no such industry, so I pretty much just self-taught, learning things online, and slowly built my portfolio. I started with an assistant job and worked my way up. When I had a better portfolio and more known projects, I could slowly move to bigger companies, doing better projects and more known projects. As an Asian immigrant, I slowly proved my skill, and even with the language constraint, I can still show my ability and get recognized, taking on more and more important tasks. My career has always focused on CG lighting in a very male-dominant work environment, and I'm happy I can prove I do well, taking on more important tasks each step.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Vina
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I learned from my mentor how to focus on our work and not worry about the other stuff, and to really be true to our own personality. Don't be ashamed as an Asian - just show who we are, and that actually works the best for the long run. She taught me that even in a male-dominated world surrounded by all male colleagues, you can shine through by focusing on your work and staying true to yourself.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
For young women already in this field dealing with all the pressure of being female, where people often don't focus on what we do and more focus on how we look, and on top of that if we don't speak English as confidently as native speakers, my advice is to be true to ourselves and don't worry about the other noise. Just focus on what we do. That is the main thing. This is a common issue for Asian female or South American female younger professionals in the CG industry in Hollywood - we need to focus on our performance and show the professional side to get wider recognition from the company or even from the online community for the specific work we do, to shine through and stand out.
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