A VFX runner keeps a visual effects house working: you open the building, look after the review rooms and the clients, do the tea rounds and the runs, log the costs and lock up, and in the gaps you learn how a shot moves from plate to comp. Nobody is hired as a trainee compositor; you are hired as a runner, and the runners who progress do that job well and show, with work made in their own time, which ladder they want: production, 2D, technical or 3D. At Stage 1 you have never had a job in the industry, so the work is the free software, two honest shots, the pipeline and the rules, before you apply. Stage 2 is shadowing, short films, the apprenticeship route and contacts. Stage 3 is the paid running job and the test shot that gets you out of it. Mark each line done, next or later, and be honest: the sector shed jobs in 2023 to 2025, the job is paid but low, and hundreds apply for each one.
Read the career guide for what the job involves day to day.
Stage 1: Before your first job
34 things to do, know or be able to do
Experience 10
- Apply for work experience placements at VFX houses during the holidays; ask months ahead, say which team you want to shadow (2D, production or data I/O), and remember that many insight days and short placements are never advertised.
- Work on collaborations: short films that need clean-up, or your own shots and animation, so there is a VFX portfolio with your name on it.
- Make two real shots from a plate you filmed on your phone: paint something out, put something behind a person with roto, replace a sky or a phone screen, or add a simple 3D object lit with an HDRI you photographed; keep every version and write down what went wrong.
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Skills 12
- Are you comfortable transferring and filing data the house way: naming conventions, checksum copies, EXR sequences in the right folder, and never deleting anything on shared storage without being told?
- Are you familiar with operating systems, including Linux? Install Ubuntu, which is free, on an old laptop or a virtual machine and learn the terminal basics: moving around, copying, permissions, finding files.
- Install Nuke Non-commercial, Foundry's free learning edition (HD output, no third-party plug-ins), and work through Foundry's own free Nuke tutorials on learn.foundry.com: the roto and paint nodes first, then merge, transform, tracker, grade and keying.
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Knowledge 12
- Read Masters of FX by Ian Failes (2015).
- Read Inside VFX: An Insider's View into the Visual Effects and Film Business by Pierre Grage (2014); it predates the streamers, so pair it with the Core Skills handbook.
- Read the free Core Skills of VFX Handbook 2025 (112 pages, UK Screen Alliance with BFI Lottery funding, at coreskillsofvfx.com), which replaces the dead Creative Skillset PDF and adds remote working, real-time VFX in games engines, a chapter on virtual production, and AI throughout.
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Stage 2: Experience and contacts
30 things to do, know or be able to do
Experience 10
- Do you have a work reference from a work experience placement or other professional source? A reference here is a phone call: were you reliable, and would they have you back.
- If you have worked in customer service or part time waiting tables, highlight the key criteria in your CV; they are excellent transferable skills.
- How much relevant experience do you have on your CV? A graduate film will not be enough.
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Skills 10
- Practise your interview technique with friends and relatives; interviews are only nerve-racking when you have not had many. Expect: a rude customer, three people asking at once, which shifts you can do, why VFX and why us, and where you want to be in two years, answered with a department, not a job title.
- Continue to develop your skills and further your knowledge of industry software.
- Are you familiar with the software listed in the VFX guide and the Foundations course (Nuke, Maya, Houdini, Flame, Fusion and the Adobe tools) well enough to say what each is for, and honest about which you can actually use?
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Knowledge 10
- Do you have a website that showcases your best work, with a reel of 30 to 90 seconds and a breakdown for every shot? Recruiters watch reels with the sound off, and a printed portfolio is no longer asked for.
- Read the CV advice to find your transferable skills to VFX running, and use the careers guide and Industry Essentials to fully develop your understanding of the VFX industry.
- Use the free training in the Foundations course and the careers guide to further your knowledge: Foundry's Nuke courses, SideFX Learn, Blackmagic's Resolve training and the makers' own documentation, before you pay for anything.
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Stage 3: Paid work
24 things to do, know or be able to do
Experience 9
- Do you have a CV with relevant low-level experience in VFX?
- Have you used your time at the facility wisely and sat in with senior members of the team, in dailies and at desks, when invited and never mid-deadline?
- Do you know how to use the bookings and scheduling software?
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Skills 7
- Depending on your area of specialism, do you have the correct skills and knowledge of software to move you forward when the opportunity arrives?
- 2D: can you take a roto or prep shot through versions, v001 onwards, to a supervisor's note, and organise a comp script that someone else can open?
- Technical: can you write a Python script that does one boring job for a department, work in a Linux terminal all day, and troubleshoot a failed render or a missing file on the farm?
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Knowledge 8
- Extensive knowledge of the post production process.
- Extensive knowledge of the role of the facilities company and the clients' work.
- Can use industry software, and know the facility's hardware: workstations on Linux, shared storage, the render farm, and why a full farm means the deadline is close.
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Ways in for a VFX runner
Real schemes, checked on the organiser’s own page. A shut one is still here with when it comes back, because half the big schemes are closed at any one time and that is worth knowing.
- Trainee FinderScreenSkillsPeople over 18 who live in the UK and have less than 12 months of paid production experience in their chosen department. No on-set experience is needed, and there is no upper age limit.Final deadline 28 October 2026
- Sara Putt Associates Trainee SchemeSara Putt AssociatesTwo professional credits but under three years' cumulative experience, in Camera, Sound, Edit, Production Office, Art, Costume, AD, Script Supervisor, Locations, or Hair and Make-Up.Final deadline 24 January 2027
- Skills and Training programmesNorthern Ireland ScreenPeople starting out in Northern Ireland, across production, craft and technical roles, animation and Irish-language and Ulster-Scots broadcasting.Open now
Sources and References
This is MFJF’s own three-stage career plan for a VFX runner, written up from the career plan and the careers guide on our site. Open any of them yourself.
- MFJF career plan: VFX Runner (PDF) the original plan this page was written up from
- MFJF careers guide: VFX Runner what the job involves day to day
- The Three Career Stages the framework all three stages follow
Every link checked 19 September 2026. The plan itself was last revised September 2026.
