Meet Joshua Holly of VFXJOSH

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, California I’ve been making short films since a young age of 9. I started with Animation using Paint on a 98′ Microsoft Desktop. I soon advanced to Animation Filmmaking by using a technique called Stop motion by positioning my toys from my toy box in a complex scene, which I then edited on Windows Movie Maker. I did many of these until I acquired the skill to shoot Live action stories. I attended West Adams Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles, were I was given my first DSLR Camera Canon EOS 550D by my Mother Erika Lovett Holly. I used the Camera to create many Short Films with my friends around campus, and with the praise from my local peers I began to take filmmaking serious.

I started his career after an internship at Inner-City Filmmakers in Santa Monica, California. Soon after that I went to college at California State University, Northridge which after 3 years decided to dropout. With the connections I gained from the internship and University I’ve been blessed with opportunities to work intensely with companies such as Warner Brothers, Legendary Pictures, Disney, Marvel, Technicolor’s The Mill and Artists like Swae Lee, Lil Snupe, Lil Boosie, Nicki Minaj and Bleu Davinci.

Definitely not a smooth road as I suffered with not having a place to stay, living in my car for 2 years, couch surfing and stealing from Whole Foods just to get a good vegetarian meal. Having to deal with neglect from my family, being black in a prominently white industry, and not having the proper tools to achieve the effects which I know I am cable of. It has always been an up hill battle trying to prevail in a way which hasn’t been done. I can’t say it’s impossible, but its most definitely is hard, the path is rough to succeed in coming up from South Central Los Angeles.

I chose my name “VFXJOSH” due to my skills in Post-production and Visual Effects then began posting all of my work on Youtube and Instagram. Shortly after I was contacted to work on Lil Snupe ft Boosie Bad Azz “Mean 2 Be” Music Video. Which did received over 14 Million Views on all platforms. I then went on to be hired as a Visual Effects Artist for a Warner Bros Film Entitled “Resurrect”. After my success with the studio, I was contacted by two content creators from Youtube Space LA that goes by the name of Strength Project. This where I got finally got to use the top of the line production equipment used in most major productions across the world.

I went on to be asked to do Visual Effects in a show produced by the Studio entitled “Disney Duck Tales” where I gained a huge reputation from the industry professionals, giving myself a buzz on social media, but I didn’t stop there. I used this social media presence along with the help from my mentors to land a job at Technicolor, The Mill. This was by far the best fit for me as the company specialized in Visual Effects in the Commercial and Movie Indrustry. I worked very closely with the creators of Transformers Sequel, & Spider-Man Movies 1-3, also many more. After gaining good rapport in the company, I was then asked to be a Mo-Cap (Motion Capture) Actor for performances for multiple MCU characters like Captain America, Drax the Destroyer, Ultimate Elektra, and Main Character The Pilot.

Becoming the first of African-American actors to play the role of Captain America. The Commercial aired on Nation Television across the world and uploaded on Youtube for total of 81 Million Views, breaking the internet. I was contacted by friends and family after the viral sensation as they was astonished to as of how a college dropout that was once homeless got a chance to be apart of Disney’s Marvel. Once I was instantly praised by VFX Leads in the department of Technicolor and went on to work on the iPhone X Commercial by Apple Inc., also Produced by The Mill.

Which lead me to my distribution deal with Amazon Film Studios which has published a TV-Series entitled “The Beach Show” which is an episodic series Directed by myself. Since then I have worked on Legendary’s and Warner Brothers Godzilla vs King Kong and two new Music Videos for A-List artist Swae Lee.

I define success as achieving your most desired visions goals so to me that would be, me being notable and well known to not only the people around me but to the people around the world who can identify my work from either having seen it or read about it. Once millions of people can recognize a project I was involved in then I define that as being successful. Of course with that comes attaining wealth, prosperity and fame.