Q+A with Rodolphe Pierre-Louis
FOUNDER + CEO
What’s your story? How did you get your start?
ActionVFX is the result of a lot of passion, hard work, and faith. We are a Visual Effects Stock Footage company, which means we help people blow things up and create different kinds of visual effects for movies, like Avengers: Endgame, and TV shows, like Stranger Things! Let’s say a studio wants to burn down a house for their movie. They can simply go to our website, browse our vast library of effects, license the Fire effect that they need, and use it in their movie.
I was a 10 year old growing up in Haiti when my dad brought home a video camera. I immediately fell in love with it and my filmmaking “career” started right then. I believe I was 14, now living in the States, when I found out you could learn and create visual effects (VFX) on your home computer. So, of course, I started adding VFX to the short films I made with friends. In short, the journey that would eventually lead me to founding ActionVFX started when I was very young.
It was during the Summer of 2015 that the work toward building ActionVFX started. By then I had experience producing VFX Stock Footage, and ActionVFX was going to be my way of taking things to the next level. While the plan was originally to self-fund the venture, we hit some roadblocks that forced us to turn to the crowdfunding website, Kickstarter, for help. The great thing about Kickstarter is it helps you raise money directly from the people who benefit the most by having your product made. 446 VFX artists, complete strangers, came together and donated to our campaign to help us raise enough to continue the vision.
In June 2016 ActionVFX launched to the world, and we have been at it ever since!
What are your goals for the future?
Our overarching goal as a company is to become the one common driving force behind every Visual Effects Artist’s career. A lot of different things will go into achieving that, though. For example, we recently bought a warehouse that we plan on renovating into our own studio. This will allow us to create our effects faster, easier, and at scale. We also plan on producing different types of products other than VFX Stock Footage in order to better serve our worldwide user base.
One big personal goal of mine is to direct a feature-length film. While my focus is on running ActionVFX right now, I’m definitely thinking heavily about how I can make this movie happen. I’ve given myself a 5-year deadline, so I better get to work soon!
How has BCS helped you?
BCS does most of the things I don’t want to do myself, and that gives me more time to focus on building my business. From payroll to taxes, BCS covers it all! The more ActionVFX grows, the more I value peace of mind, and that’s what BCS helps give me.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Tommy Greer is the coolest old guy I know! I want to be him when I grow up!
