It’s always sunny in Santa Monica with junior Lucas Lofaro

Olivia LeganStaff Writer In most jobs, one wishes to be the center of attention. The goal is different for junior Lucas Lofaro: his job is to make it look like he was never there. Lofaro works part-time as a production assistant and visual effects designer on the popular television show “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.”Lofaro’s father is the executive producer on the show, but it was his own impressive editing skills that landed him the job.“My dad is very much in charge of the budget of the show. He sent the request to a post-production house to see how much it would cost for them to do the effects. They gave him an estimate and he showed it to me. I said, ‘That’s outrageous.’ He said, ‘Yeah?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I can do it.’ He said, ‘Okay, you can give it a try if you want,’” Lofaro said. “We checked with the producers and the editors and they let me give it a shot. They ended up loving it and used it. The rest is history.”While the show has full-time employees to design its main visual effects, Lofaro helps out often and gets paid by the job. His job is to create effects that cannot be produced through the camera. He has added windows in a scene on an airplane and sparks from a gun.Lucky for Lofaro, “Always Sunny in Philadephia” episodes undergo editing over the summer, so he can work on effects when he is on break.In addition to his work on the show, Lofaro is currently working on creating “winged dogs” in Samo alum Sam Speiser’s student film, “Things Change.”“I love to draw and I am pretty good with computers, so it kind of became a combination of the two: creating visuals on computer programs. That gave me the power to start working on effects and it just built from there,” Lofaro said. “I took a film and video production class last year when I was a sophomore and that got me more interested in pursuing it and learning the programs. I am still taking that class this year.”Lofaro is a student in the film production class, but in much of his work, he is his own teacher.“He is self-taught at all kinds of effects that include light sabers, cloning and really detailed color changing, which he is really talented at,” senior Johnathan Spencer said. “I definitely admire his work. I would say without hesitation that he is a very talented young filmmaker.”Though his knack for visual design is hard to deny, Lofaro claims to feel a bit spoiled because of the accelerated process in which he landed his job.  He has long been involved in the entertainment industry; in addition to his father’s position on “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Lofaro was a child actor when he was younger. He acknowledges that he owes much of his success to these industry ties.“I got a foot in the door, and maybe it isn’t fair to everyone else, but it is really nice for me to have a possible future in the entertainment business,” Lofaro said. “I can’t honestly say I’d be doing this right now if my dad didn’t produce the show. I have been interested in editing for a while but that definitely had something to do with my father’s background in television.”Though his ‘connections’ in the business gave him an advantage in his work, Lofaro has had his fair share of set backs. He is legally blind, with a genetic disorder called aniridia. His condition makes it difficult to see but not impossible.“Its funny when I tell people that I work as a visual effects designer because I can’t see that well. I feel that I kind of have an eye for things that are beautiful. I appreciate beauty a lot because of my condition,” Lofaro said. “Other people just view beautiful things everyday and take them for granted.”Lofaro claims his biggest challenge is balancing work and academics. He struggles to find time to focus on the show while shouldering Calculus BC and AP Physics. He hopes to major in physics, not film, in college.“He has a great intellectual curiosity. He is motivated by finding a solution, not for the sake of grades, as many other students are,” AP Physics teacher Marybeth Reardon said. “Physics and visual effects are very much related. If you’re trying to simulate motion — for example, a car crash — you need a physics background to know how things move and what is going to look realistic.”Lofaro has thought of many possible career paths, from computer software designer to special effects editing. However, he isn’t looking to solidify a future in film through a degree.“I don’t feel that a degree in film would be advantageous for my future. I am planning on majoring in astrophysics,” Lofaro said. “I learned a lot about how to manipulate the effects due to my knowledge of mathematics and physics. Effects and physics are linked; if I didn’t know that kind of information, I wouldn’t have been able to work with the programs.”Lofaro’s interest in math and physics have contributed heavily to his success in creating visual effects, he makes it clear that his work goes beyond strings of numbers.“I think very mathematically but at the end of the day, I want my work to look like something real,” Lofaro said. “When I am doing the work, its all crunching numbers. You don’t see any of that in the outcome. The point is not to see the math behind it, the point is for it to look real. The point is to make it look like I was never there.”olegan@thesamohi.com