Paul McWilliams has worked in Visual Effects for 6 years. He originally did a Computer Science degree at University of Kent, England. After working as an I.T support officer and Trainer for 18 months he decided he wanted a career in computer graphics, so he did a 6 Month Visual Effects Comprehensive course at Escape Studios and learnt the fundamentals of both 3D and Compositing.

He was then offered a job at the Moving Picture Company (MPC) in London. He worked there for 2 and half years in a wide variety of roles, including Roto/Prep artist on Xmen 3, Posiedon and Littleman, then as a Camera Tracker/Matchmove artist on Sunshine, Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix and 10,000 BC.

After his first 10 months at MPC Paul became a junior TD working for over a year on Sweeney Todd which he says was "probably the most exciting learning experience I’ve had in the business". Paul then worked as a lighting TD on the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, "Creature lighting on Narnia was a really great project to cut my production lighting teeth on" says Paul.

Paul moved briefly to a CGI retouching company called This Little Fish for 6 months as a 3D generalist creating high resolution renders for printed advertising.

He then spent two and a half interesting years working at Double Negative, London. Here he worked on The Green Zone as a Lighting TD. He was then "excited' to work on the critically acclaimed box office hit "Inception" as a, Environment and Lighting TD, which went on to win the 2010 Academy Award for best Visual Effects. "It was great to be involved in such a creative project," he says.

More recently, he worked on the last Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in a dual role as Environment and Lighting TD.

Paul is now working as the lead 3D tutor at the National Film and Television School teaching a Digital Environment Set Extension module.