Hooked on animation and visual effects success

In June 2026, Kang Andrew Tian travelled to the Annecy Festival in south-eastern France to present a short animated movie to an international audience of filmmakers. Annecy, which has been running since 1960, is a competition for animators. Cut-outs, claymation, and CGI are among the visual effects used across categories including feature-length, short, and advertising. Kang’s film, The Catch, is the result of a three-month project in 2025 for his Master of Design Technology (Visual FX) from Victoria University of Wellington. 

Kang sets The Catch in a dystopian industrial future. A lonely and nostalgic fisherman struggles with the emptiness left behind by environmental collapse. The story was pitched to classmates as part of his master’s course and was selected to move on to production. He led a small team on a three-month project to produce a five-minute film — digitally created from scratch. Conjuring a world from nothing takes a great deal of time, so Kang incorporated clever shortcuts into his storytelling. “We realised early on that if we covered the fisherman’s mouth with a beard, we wouldn’t have to spend forever digitally makes his lips move.” With no dialogue, the story’s theme of adaptability is told through atmospheric imagery, colour, and music. 

The trip to Annecy was made possible by winning the Wellington UNESCO City of Film Supreme Award at a student showcase at the Wellington Animation Film Festival in 2026. He received the Screen Wellington Annecy Scholarship, which included a grant to cover travel plus subscriptions to digital tools for visual FX production. “It came as a complete surprise — I went from thinking like a student to planning a trip to France.” Annecy opened up a new world to Kang, exposing him to specialist film screenings, networking events, and FX companies showcasing their latest tech developments. “The vibe in a hub like that is so different to watching something online — you absorb tech information more easily when you are there. It was a boost for my confidence and future career.” 

With a background in fine arts, Kang has found many similarities between wielding a paintbrush on a canvas and a mouse on a screen. “The principles of perspective and anatomy are easy to translate onto a screen — it’s the brush that reacts differently. A mouse pad is smooth whereas canvas and paper is rough, so the strokes react differently.” Though creating physical art will always be a love of his, the move into the FX world has proved wise. The Wellington Animation Film Festival award and subsequent Annecy trip caught the attention of industry insiders. Kang began a job as an Assistant Technical Director at Wētā earlier in the year. “I’ve already found a dream job.”