There are a great amount of interviews with digital compositors and I learn a lot from them and get lots of experience about the requirements and some small tips to be a digital compositor.
This is a digital compositor, named David Tate, from VFX industry who worked on films and shows like Ocean’s Eight, The Greatest Showman and Westworld just to name a few.
He metioned that senior compositor generally won’t be willing to do some cleaning work like cleaning the wire and some unwanted stuff in the picture because it was kind of repeating and boring for them. Thus, they sometimes will drop those kind of cleaning work to the junior compositors. I personally think it is a kind of opportunity because if people can master cleaning work, then they may get the chance to join this industry, at least I consider it possible. From this point, I can get it is a good chance to be a digital compositor by learning cleaning skills. When you get into the industry, learn more from your senior, then be them.
He also mentioned that the way to get a job could be tried to know other digital compositor from twitter, facebook or instgram and ask them what are they doing, what they get and show them what you got. You might get some opportunity to get into a big company in that way. Also, you got be doing some personal projects by helping some people in the industry for free, which help you in the future a lot.
He also mention you got be prepare a showreel, it would be better you choose your work in the industry rather than the college projects, but I personally think puting the college projects are also work if you just have college projects. And let the friends you make put some good words in your showreel is also a good idea.
This is another interview with a VFX compositor specialize in color. Adjust color is one of the most important parts in composition. When compositors get different elements from different group, adjusting every images and make them fit together probably are the main work a compositor will do in their daily work.
His name is J. Bills. He mentioned that hardware is important in composition work. Dedicated GPU, Good video card and good monitors which significantly improved your color adjusting work.
He is Diego Galtieri and he mentioned that different company have different pipeline with different software. For example, some VFX company did the composition based on After effects, others use Nuke. It depends on what the company are familiar with and what they think work better with other parts like rendering group and light group.
As I have a look at the linkedin, most of the digital compositor requirements includes skills in using After effects, Nuke. Thus, this skill should be the basic skill in becoming a compositor. Some company may more focus on your 3D compositing ability, others may more care about your 2D. Most of the companies point out the ability to composite mutiple exr channel, which is a commonly used format in VFX. Some companies will point out the system like if you are familiar with Linux. Possessing a strong sense of composition, colour, lighting, perspective, and scale is also a requirement of some companies. Thus, the basic aesthetic skill should also be pay attention to improve in the study.