We sat down with Neil Tuli, a Multimedia Specialist on the Creative Team, to talk about his role at HBX, his love of music, and his burning desire to attend Hogwarts.

What do you do here at HBX?

I am on the Creative Team and report to the Creative Director. I work as a Cinematographer/Animator/Designer for course content, platform, and marketing needs and basically try to make my boss’ life as easy as possible by taking as much work off his plate as I can.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

The content! The people! I love it all. 

One of my favorite parts of the job is problem solving. For example, one time we had to create a steamy effect where we wanted to animate hand-drawn text onto a steamy window. Our first few animated steam attempts failed to get the results we wanted, so we had to get the effect practically.

We decided to shoot through a glass pane onto a black background, so we borrowed a hot plate to boil a pot of water just below the glass and filmed it. We then set the blending mode of that video to screen in post (to remove the blacks) and laid it onto our b-roll and boom! We had a great time building it all out. 

How would you describe yourself? 

I'm obchessed (a.k.a. chess obsessed), and I love analog synths.

Where did you go to school and what did you study? 

I went to The George Washington University, majored in Music and minored in Film Studies.

If a genie gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

For the Harry Potter universe to be real, and for me to be 11 and recently accepted into Hogwarts. That’s one wish, right?

Any hidden talents? 

I was the music director for my college a capella group (GW Troubadours) and have been singing since I was little. 

Speaking of music, we actually had a fun shoot recently where I got to play guitar and pretend to be a member of the band in Adriel's testimonial video. Talk about different worlds colliding!

What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?

When someone tells you that something is wrong with a piece you worked on, they are almost always right. But when they tell you specifically what is wrong with it, they are almost always wrong.

What’s your spirit animal? 

I want it to be a panther, but it’s probably a corgi.

Where do you get your news from?  

I read it on reddit.