>>12617427The first factor is location. Most major cities have some kind of legitimate VFX/CG companies in them, Los Angeles and NYC having by far the most options if we're talking about America. I believe Atlanta Georgia, Chicago, Dallas/Austin/Houston, Toronto, and Vancouver have some good companies as well. If you're in Europe or Asia, there are definitely a lot of great places to work as well, again, mostly centered around major cities. Unfortunately, getting started on a legitimate VFX career, along with the other creative fields, can be really difficult if not down right impossible if you aren't living in a city that has a lot of companies that are active in the industry. Ironically, once you actually have your feet off the ground, you can do it from anywhere, especially with how Covid has driven everything towards remote work. My eventual goal is to just be a VFX artist living in a remote cabin in the mountains and working on big projects from the comfort of my comfy cabin lol.
In terms of getting a job at one of these companies once you are in one of these cities, it can be really difficult or really easy depending on your experience, your connections, and straight up just knowing where to look. I live in Los Angeles, and I got my first job when I was just starting out from a friend from college who had gotten a job at a studio. I started as a low level computer engineer and quickly worked my way up. The best thing I ever did, was I asked one of the producers at that first company if he could straight up give me a list of every single VFX studio in Los Angeles, and he did. I sent out a resume/reel to every single company, and got a response from about 30% of them. Ended up working for one of them as an Autodesk Flame assistant, and have been advancing ever since. Most places will want to hire you as an assistant before hiring you as an artist, unless you have an insanely good reel, and really know what you're doing.
