Released late last year by Joseph Bell, who was unhappy and frustrated by the lack of clear, objective information about the VFX industry, the Visual Effects World Atlas provides a unique, comprehensive research report and overview of artists who work in the global visual effects industry, an industry that supports the creative works of film studios, streamers, and branded content creators.Bell provides a unique voice in visual effects, combining 20 years of hands-on experience at some of the most respected studios in the field including Industrial Light & Magic, The Mill, and FuseFX with a global view of industry trends and business dynamics.Available free of charge in the hope that it will help foster a sense of global community among VFX artists, the atlas can be downloaded hereor atvfxatlas.com.We recently had a chance to chat with Bell about his sorely needed, unique research efforts, how the atlas was produced, and what his plans are for updates and related industries.AWN: What led you to create this atlas? Why, and what were your goals?Joseph Bell: Visual Effects have grown into a multi-billion-dollar global industry in a relatively short span of years. And yet we rarely talk about VFX as an industry. Its much easier to find information on how state-of-the-art VFX are created than it is to find information about global trends impacting hundreds of VFX studios and tens of thousands of VFX professionals worldwide.There are conversations that were simply not having as a professional community. My goal with the Atlas is to start building a shared understanding of the VFX industry, one that is grounded in data rather than hearsay and marketing. I hope the Atlas will foster a sense of community that spans borders and time zones. I also want to make it normal to talk openly and publicly about important industry trends, and how VFX businesses are responding to them. The Atlas is a first step in that direction.AWN: How did you produce it can you breakdown the type of research you did, where you found numbers, and how you extrapolated data? JB: The Atlas was created almost entirely using publicly available data from the internet. This allowed me to identify over 55,000 individuals around the world who work in visual effects, including their job title, location, and company affiliation. Obviously, the data doesnt include every person in the VFX industry globally. But it is a rather large and detailed sample!Theres an idea that VFX companies are the only source of accurate information for something like this. To be honest, I think thats a naive view. Many companies would have concerns about revealing details of their internal staffing, and, from a marketing perspective, they all want to look as large and as capable as possible. The approach used for the Atlas sidesteps these issues entirely.I wanted to leave plenty of room for readers to draw their own conclusions from the data. Thats why theres a limited amount of commentary and interpretation in the pages of the Atlas but there are plenty of data tables to browse. I avoided extrapolating the data as much as possible, trying to be totally upfront with readersabout what it does and does not show.AWN: How long did it take to produce, who was involved can you provide any details about the actual process.JB: The Atlas itselftook about three months to produce. I started gathering data in May 2024, but it wasnt until a few months into the project that I realized there was enough to share in an ebook rather than a few charts and graphs.This first edition of the Atlas was created by a very small team. I cleaned the raw data personally, combing through a 55,000-row spreadsheet line by line several times. Did you know that many photographers around the world call their shingle Blur Studio? And a lot of heavy machinery operators work for companies named MPC? I screened out over 12,000 extraneous entries from the data to get to the 55,000 that were used for the Atlas. I then used Tableau software to generate the maps and charts.My wife did all the design and layout work for the Atlas and the website. I also hired two researchers, one in India and the other in Vietnam, to contribute to the coverage of those countries (you can hear from them directly in the Atlas). And, of course, several people kindly wrote pieces, including the foreword by Jeff Okun and various spotlight articles on specific countries. AWN: What do you hope people use this for? And how do you suggest people use this information?JB: The Atlas should be useful for anyone who wants an overview of the VFX industry. Students planning their careers in VFX, investors and journalists trying to grasp the shape of the industry, recruiters looking at demand for and availability of talent, perhaps even managers at VFX studios navigating the business landscape.I think of the Atlas as being like the first ever photograph of the Earth from space. Well certainly be able to capture higher resolution images in the future, but they probablywon't have quite the same impact. If people take away just one thing from the Atlas, I hope its that Visual Effects is a truly global endeavor. Whether you are in Sydney, Mumbai, Toronto, London, or somewhere else entirely, you have industry colleagues around the world who share your passion for the work, and face many of the same challenges.My other suggestion is to use the information to get comfortable talking with colleagues about data. People are rightly skeptical of questionable data and data-driven decision-making that flies in the face of common sense. Data is never perfect, but it can still provide crucial insights. Were at a disadvantage as an industry if we turn our back on tools that thrive in other sectors.AWN: Whats next?JB: Ill produce an expanded second edition of the Atlas this year, assuming theres enough interest. Between now and then, I plan to refresh the data every few months, tracking movement across the industry over time. I think this will be fascinating. People are also asking for a similar treatment of Animation and Video Game studios rest assured, thats on the way.My bigger project is shifting the conversation in the VFX industry. I hope to do some traveling in the coming year, present the work at conferences, and find industry colleagues around the world who see value in opening up discussion of VFX as an industry. The Atlas is just the beginning. Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.