Farrah Welch

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Farrah Welch
Role:	Visual Effects Artist
BSG Universe:	Re-imagined Series and Caprica
Date of Birth:
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month! ,
Official Site
IMDb profile

Farrah L. Welch is a visual effects artist and graphic designer who worked extensively on the Re-imagined Series, Caprica, and Virtuality as a CG artist, visual effects artist, and render assistant from 2008 to 2010.

Career Overview

Welch specialized in 3D modeling, texturing, lighting, and compositing, with particular expertise in virtual sets, crowd simulation, and render development. Her work spanned multiple high-profile science fiction productions within the Battlestar Galactica universe and related projects.

Prior to her television visual effects career, Welch had 14 years of experience in digital arts, including graphic design, web design, and other visual effects work. Her artistic background began in her teenage years when her father introduced her to SLR photography at age 14, where she learned darkroom techniques and spent hours experimenting with film photography.

Education and Training

Welch holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin (2001) and completed postgraduate work in Paleontology from 2003-2006, where she used 3D visualization for anatomical studies. She later earned an Occupational Associates degree from The Digital Animation and Visual Effects School in 2008.

Production History

Battlestar Galactica

Welch began her career in television visual effects working on Battlestar Galactica Season 4 from September 2008 to March 2009 as a render assistant, contributing to interactive lighting, compositing, HD Instance work, and element break out and rendering.

She also worked on the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes from November to December 2008, contributing to shot design, lighting, animation, and element break out and rendering.

Her final contribution to the Battlestar Galactica franchise was Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, where she served as a render assistant from May to June 2009, working on interactive lighting and element break out and rendering.

Caprica

Welch's most extensive work was on Caprica, beginning with the pilot episode from December 2008 to January 2009 as a render assistant. She continued working on the series throughout Season 1 from July 2009 to August 2010 as a VFX artist, contributing to virtual sets, modeling, texturing, lighting, and track placement.

One of her favorite contributions was the Caprica Skybar set extension, which she described as "one of my favorite set extensions I've gotten to work on. I got to model, texture, and light this kitschy, retro bar for an awesome shoot-em-up scene."

She also worked on the New Cap City Mysteries Theater and Pawn Shop set extensions, creating "an early 1900s extension to a theater set, and completely replaced the building next door with a pawn shop from the same era."

Virtuality

Along with other BSG/Caprica VFX crew, Welch worked on the Virtuality pilot from September 2009 to June 2009 as a VFX artist, contributing to crowd simulations, modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, track placement, element break out and rendering.

Her work on Virtuality included creating a virtual airlock set, where she "modeled, textured, and lit this virtual set to match the real set used in the show. This was used for a dream sequence in the Virtuality pilot that aired on Fox."

She also contributed to crowd simulation work for VR concert sequences, handling "track placement, set detail and lighting, character variations, animation, frame by frame lighting to match the strobing plates, and worked with HD instance to create believable variation in the crowd."

Technical Skills and Software

Visual Effects Period

Welch was proficient with LightWave, HD Instance, Fusion, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, with additional experience in Maya, Zbrush, and Timothy Albee's Facial Animation tools. She also had experience with 3D medical/CT imaging packages, reflecting her background in scientific visualization and anatomical illustration.

Photography Period

In her photography career, Welch remained committed to comprehensive post-processing control, shooting exclusively in RAW format and stating "I want full control over my images when I am editing." She uses both Lightroom and Photoshop in her workflow, though she notes "I could live without Lightroom, but it does make 'developing' quicker. Photoshop is the tool I can't live without."

Her equipment preferences include Canon cameras (since her first AE-1), a 50mm 1.4 lens for studio work, and a 50x50 softbox with AB400 strobe combination for controlled lighting. She continues to prefer PC workstations for their customization capabilities, despite adopting Apple mobile devices.

Career Transition

After completing her work on Caprica in 2010, Welch transitioned away from visual effects work. "I recently finished working on Season 1 of Caprica, and will soon be available for work," she noted in her 2010 demo reel.

Photography Career

Welch's transition to photography was motivated by the birth of her son, as she explained: "Photography had always been a hobby of mine, but once my son was born, I became more passionate behind the camera. Each stage of a child's life is so fleeting, and I wanted to capture each one." Her background in visual effects provided a natural advantage: "With my background, it was easy to transfer my artistic skills to a different medium. Advanced photo editing and compositing came naturally, and allowed me to continue my creative career while staying home with my son."

She established Farrah Welch Photography in Santa Clarita, California, starting her photography business about two-and-a-half years after her son's birth. Her style is self-described as "soft, sweet, simple, contemporary," with a specialization in newborn photography in both her home studio and outdoor sessions with toddlers.

Welch achieved recognition as a Master of Photography in the Professional Photographers of America, earning recognition as an international award-winning and published photographer. She has continued her education through The Milky Way photography platform, taking "Illuminate" and "Beyond the Beanbag" courses that significantly improved her studio photography and session workflow.

Her most memorable photography session was her first newborn shoot for her best friend, which required flying "half way across the country with a suitcase full of equipment." Despite the challenges of working with an out-of-focus, tilted reference photo taken by her 9-year-old nephew, the experience confirmed her passion for newborn photography and shaped her future specialization.

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