Michaela Danby



Michaela Danby is a compositor at Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) and has been working in the VFX industry for more than fifteen years. She has contributed to over 35 films including the Harry Potter franchise, multiple Marvel films, and Ready Player One. Michaela’s professional journey began at RSP, she then worked at various studios around the world including DNeg, Animal Logic, Luma, and ILM before returning to RSP in 2018.

As an industrial design student at RMIT, Michaela was exposed to 3D animation and visual effects, which led to her working on games on the side, followed by short films. Through this experience, she fell in love with compositing and how it contributed to the final product. Realising at her core she is a filmmaker, Michaela pursued this further at AFTRS, eventually writing and directing her own short which garnered her multiple awards around the globe.

As a compositor, Michaela enjoys finishing and polishing shots, and using her ability to bring a fine-art approach to push shots just a little bit further. Her career highlight is contributing to a sequence in Ready Player One. The sequence pays homage to The Shining (one of Michaela’s favourite movies), and since it was a significant scene for Steven Spielberg, he paid special attention to it and was impressed with the team’s work. He even stopped dailies just to take personal photos of one of Michaela’s shots.

As she continues to grow as an artist, Michaela embraces the opportunity to share her experience and tips with members of her team and budding artists wanting to join the global industry.


Life as a Compositor at Rising Sun Pictures
Reflecting on her experience, Michaela will take you on the journey as life as a compositor and detail the art of taking a shot from green screen to the big screen. She will provide an insight into the compositing process and how it fits in the pipeline. Drawing on her skills and knowledge, Michaela will provide tips and tricks used to create seamless integrated images for films such as Harry Potter and Captain Marvel.