"The field of Visual Effects has a lot of demand, but there is a lack of talent"

On September La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL restarted its cycle La Salle Breakfast 2015-2016, talking about Visual Effects career, fully booming now. Fèlix Balbàs, director of the new degree in Animation & VFX at La Salle-URL, noted that the sector "shows a big demand, but a lack of talent," not only in Spain but worldwide, where countries such as Canada, Colombia or Chile give significant momentum to the industry, what favors the creation of many productions. Balbàs, also founder of Minimo VFX Productions and creator of b'Ars Festival in Barcelona, talked about the different specialists involved in the current productions, not only on films but also in video games, animation, augmented reality apps (APPs), and other fields where these professionals develop their careers. Sergio Jiménez, CEO and founder of deBoutique23, accompanied Fèlix Balbàs at the Breakfast and explained that "Visual Effects specialist profile is relatively new, since the last 25 or 30 years, and previously they were “recycled profiles” from completely different sectors such as architecture or design". Sergio Jiménez highlighted some specific figures of the industry, "which has withstood the crisis very well and has begun now to grow." The animation and VFX industry already accounts for 8% of the global turnover of the audiovisual industry, 14% of jobs and has a forecast to triple its turnover to reach 879 million in 2016. In addition "most of these products are fully exportable, and 87% are marketed internationally," said Sergio. In conclusion, both participants agreed that "today Spanish companies compete for projects in the international industry" and in the future, "we will end up seeing Spanish productions adopt visual effects like something from their own and natural," said Sergio Jiménez.