CGSociety - Advisory Board

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The CGSociety Advisory Board helps to identify and focus the direction of the CGSociety. With the Board’s combined guidance we will form various sub-committees that will direct the vision of the CGSociety worldwide, to incorporate: education, conferences, publications, industry relations and awards. The Board’s subcommittees will also advise us on matters related to the technical, artistic, community and regional perspective of the CGSociety as well assist in the genres of games, visual effects, animation, film, and architectural visualization.

The Advisory Board also assists the CGSociety with liaison and promotion of affiliate organizations. This enables the CGSociety to compliment the many existing organizations that contribute to the global digital arts community.

Alex Alvarez
Founder
Gnomon School
of Visual Effects
Los Angeles, USA

Don Alvarez
Co-Founder
Accelerated Pictures
Seattle, USA

Linda Bergkvist
Artist
Sweden

Brad Blackbourn
Director,
BAM! Studios,
Santa Monica, USA

Pascal Blanche
Art Director
Ubisoft
Montreal, Canada

Jim Burton
Head of Feature Production
Attitude Studio
Paris, FRANCE

Ed Caracappa
Director of Business Development
BOXX Technologies
Texas, USA

Rob Coleman
Animation Director
Lucasfilm Animation Ltd.
San Francisco, USA

Dan Curry
Visual Effects Producer
Los Angeles, USA

Shawn Dunn
Animation Technical Superviser
Weta Digital
New Zealand

Neil Eskuri
Art Director
Electronic Arts
Vancouver, CANADA

Gustavo Fontana
Industrial Design Consultant
Gustavo Fontana Inc, Massachusetts, USA

Jinko Gotoh
Producer
Dimension Films
Los Angeles, USA

Ralph Guggenheim
CEO
Alligator Planet
San Francisco, USA

Indraneel Guha
Art Director
Paradox Studios
Mumbai, India

Eric Hanson
VFX Designer
Visura Imaging
Los Angeles, USA

Pam Hogarth
Dir. of Industrial Relations
The Gnomon School of Visual Effects
Los Angeles, USA

Diane Holland
CEO
Massive Software
New Zealand &
Los Angeles, USA

Jeff Kleiser
President/Creative Director
Kleiser-Walczak
Massachusetts, USA

Ashish Kulkarni
Founder / CEO
Anirights Infomedia Pvt. Ltd
Bangalore, INDIA

Lorne Lanning
Co-Founder / President / Creative Director
Oddworld Inhabitants
San Francisco, USA

Kim Baumann Larsen
CEO
Placebo Effects
Oslo, Norway

Markus Manninen
Visual Effects Supervisor
DreamWorks
Los Angeles, USA

Stephan Martinere
Science Fiction and Fantasy Artist
Midway Games
Chicago, USA

Colm Massey
Chief Technical Officer / Co-Founder
NaturalMotion Ltd.
Oxford, UK

Tim McGovern
Visual Effects Supervisor
Los Angeles, USA

Syd Mead
Founder
Syd Mead, Inc
Los Angeles, USA

Meats Meier
Resident Artist
The Gnomon Workshop
Los Angeles, USA

Vahid Mehrinfar Executive Principal and Chief Brand Architect
Vahid Associates
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Alex Morris
Director of 3D
Hayes Davidson
London, UK

Jeff Mottle
President and FounderCGarchitect.com
Canada

Peter Moxom
Industry Manager - Animation
Discreet
Asia Pacific

Luciano Neves
3D Special Effects Team Coordinator
Brazil

Shelley Page
European Representative
DreamWorks SKG
London, UK

Beau Perschall
Vice President, Publishing
Turbo Squid
New Orleans, USA

Robi Roncarelli
President, Editor & Publisher
PIXEL
Toronto, CANADA

Chris Sloan
Art Director
National Geographic Magazine
Washington DC, USA

Jill Smolin
Director of Marketing and Business Development
The Gnomon Workshop
Los Angeles, USA

Steven Stahlberg
Artist
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Philip Straub
Concept Artist
Electronic Arts
Florida, USA

Alex Alvarez, Founder, Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Los Angeles , California, USA
Alex Alvarez is an alumni of the Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania. He has a background in illustration using traditional media and computer graphics, having worked for companies such as Malibu Comics and Activision. Prior to establishing Gnomon school of Visual Effects in 1997 Alex worked as an Applications Engineer for Alias|Wavefront, where he consulted to studios in the Los Angeles area. Alex has been published in 3dDesign Magazine and has taught courses at several major trade conferences. His character animation projects have appeared in major publications including the cover of Maya 2 Character Animation. Alex also sits on the Advisory Board of Highend3D.com and on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Alias|Wavefront Users Group.
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Don Alvarez, Co-Founder, Accelerated Pictures Seattle, USA
Don has written muscle systems, grown digital grass, analysed the glow left over from the big bang, and advised the Department of Defence on network security. He holds a PhD in Physics from Princeton and worked in environments ranging from the MIT Media Lab to the South Pole before collaborating with artists on the design of new 3D tools.
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Linda Bergkvist, Artist, Sweden
Linda commenced her career studying literature and language before moving to illustration and, digital art. She has worked as a comic book colorist for Dreamware, has taught Photoshop and Painter and works with HUMlab, an interdisciplinary IT lab based within Umeå University. Linda has been awarded numerous master awards in EXPOSÉ One, Two and Three and contributed to d'artiste, Digital Painting – Digital Artist's Master Class. Linda accepts regular commissions and regularly shares her techniques via online tutorials. She is also well known throughout the CG community for her regular contributions to online forums and for the posting of brilliant and evocative art.
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Brad Blackbourn, Director, Bam! Studios, Santa Monica, USA
After graduating with honors from a mis-spent youth - devoted mostly to scouring every page of Cinefex, Starlog & Starburst Magazines, Brad has spent the last 10 years directing, supervising & animating on feature films, special venue films, CG series & TV commercials in the USA, Germany, Italy, UK, Australia and Asia. Currently Brad is Head of Previz on Kung Fu Panda at DreamWorks Animation SKG, where he was previously the Head of Layout on Flushed Away and the TV Series Father of the Pride. Brad is an active member of the Visual Effects Society, Australians in Film, ASIFA-Hollywood.
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Pascal Blanche, Art Director, Montreal, CANADA
Pascal emerged from a background in Mathematics & Philosophy and earned a diploma in Applied Arts before moving rapidly into gamed development. Pascal's list of credentials spanning the last 11 years include work in Animation, 3D Art and character modeling. His credits include work on games like; Atripolis 2097, Elric, Stupid Invaders and, most recently, art direction on Myst IV Revelation for Ubisoft. Pascal also worked on the CG feature for TVA International. An accomplished artist in his own right, Pascal has won awards for work contributed to the EXPOSE annuals, has been credited in the roles Graphics and Design on numerous projects as well as working for Xilam.
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Jim Burton, Head of Feature Production, Attitude Studio, Paris, FRANCE
Jim Burton has worked in the motion picture, television, and visual effects industries for 25 years. He has worked as both Freelance Production Accountant and Studio Executive for small studios as well as the majors, including ABC Circle Films, Columbia Pictures Television, and Walt Disney Pictures. In 1996, he moved to digital filmmaking to become production controller and plate unit line producer for "Dinosaur". He continued at Walt Disney Feature Animation working as Director of Production Finance for feature films, The Secret Lab, Theme Park projects as well overseeing Disney's position on the production of Monsters, Inc. with Pixar. Currently Jim is head of feature production at Attitude Studio in Paris. They are in production on their 2nd Mo-Cap feature film, The Prodigies.
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Ed Caracappa, Director of Business Development, BOXX Technologies, Texas, USA
Born and raised in Hoboken, this city boy was kicked out of New Jersey and wound up in Tucson, Arizona of all places. After graduating, by the skin of his teeth, with a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona, Ed staggered from odd-job to-odd job before landing at BOXX Technologies by a complete stroke of luck. Having fooled everyone at BOXX, he has run both sales and marketing. Now focusing on his new role as Director of Business Development, Ed works closely with the likes of Alias, Autodesk, Avid, Newtek, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ATI and many other companies that help BOXX bring the absolute best in leading edge technology to the Digital Media Community.
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Rob Coleman, Animation Director - Lucasfilm Animation Ltd., USA
Rob Coleman has recently finished leading Industrial Light & Magic's animation team on Star Wars: Episode III, a role he has fulfilled on the two previous Star Wars films. He was chosen as one of the most creative people in entertainment when he was added to Entertainment Weekly's It List in 2002 as their It CG-Creature Crafter for his work on the digital Yoda. Rob received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the classical film animation program at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1987 before working at the National Film Board of Canada and at a number of small animation studios in Toronto . He has been nominated for two Oscars for his work on Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace and two British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) for his work on Men In Black and The Phantom Menace. He has received two MTV Movie Awards and two Saturn Awards for best visual effects on the Star Wars films.
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Dan Curry, Visual Effects Producer, Los Angeles, USA
Dan Curry's name is synonymous with Visual Effects and Star Trek. After gaining a Master's degree of Fine Arts in Film and Theatre, Dan taught painting, drawing, graphic design, set design and fabrication, perspective drawing, and rendering before joining the motion picture industry. Dan worked on the Star Trek TV series as Visual Effects Supervisor and as Visual Effects Producer on Star Trek, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, he also directed second unit for all three shows. Dan's work has, included conceptual design, motion control photography, animation, electronic and optical compositing, matte painting, space ship design, storyboarding, and martial arts choreography. Dan is a 15 time nominee and a seven time winner of various Emmy Awards for his visual effects work, he has also earned three International Monitor Awards. Dan has worked on 118 feature films, speaks fluent Thai and Lao, and is a martial arts expert.
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Shawn Dunn, Animation Technical Supervisor, Weta Digital, New Zealand
Shawn has worked in the CG industry for over ten years in a number of different roles from production to training to the software side of the industry. He is currently Animation Technical Supervisor at Weta Digital on King Kong. He has been with Weta since Return of the King, the last movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and worked on I, Robot inbetween ROTK and Kong. Shawn has taught and developed curriculum for the Character Animation Department at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada. He has also taught 3D animation for Sheridan College. Shawn worked for five years at Alias|Wavefront consulting, building, and delivering educational content for Maya such as MEL Fundamentals; Rendering; Character Rigging and Animation; and The Art of Maya. Shawn's company, Get 3D, builds educational material and consults for the 3D industry.
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Neil Eskuri, Art Director, Electronic Arts, Vancouver, CANADA
Neil commenced his career at Robert Abel and Associates in 1982 as a modeler and animator before moving into Film EFX to work on productions like Total Recall at MetroLight and Sony, Neil also spent some time at ImageWorks working as a CG Supervisor. Neil has spent much of the last ten years helping to bring Disney Feature Animation into the digital world working on Fantasia 2000 and working as Digital Effects Supervisor for Dinosaur and Treasure Planet. Neil is currently pursuing new directions in gaming and interactive entertainment having recently finished working on Need for Speed - Underground 2 at Electronic Arts.
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Gustavo Fontana, Industrial Design Consultant, Gustavo Fontana Inc, Massachusetts, USA
Gustavo's consultancy mostly involves designing computers, consumer electronics and automotive interior projects. Before starting his own studio with offices in Boston and Buenos Aires, Gustavo worked for product development firms HLB in Boston and ZIBA Design in San Jose. Some of his past projects include work for Agilent Technologies, Bose, Boston Scientific, CocaCola, Gillette, Evenflo, Glaxo Smith Kline, Handspring, Kitchen Aid, Oster, Polaroid, Procter & Gamble and Sun Microsystems.
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Jinko Gotoh , Producer, Dimension Films, Los Angeles, USA
Jinko Gotoh has more than 20 years experience working in as a key producer in the CGI Industry. Her recent screen credits include Associate Producer at Pixar for Finding Nemo and Director of Digital Production at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Some other credits include key roles on Space Jam, Dinosaur and Fantasia 2000. Currently, Jinko is producing Opus for Dimension Films, the first CGI animated feature for the Weinstein Company.
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Ralph Guggenheim, CEO, Alligator Planet, San Francisco, USA
Ralph was a founding member of Pixar Animation where, as Vice President of Feature Animation, he managed the company's development from a staff of seven to a company of more than 350. Ralph also produced Toy Story, one of the most successful animated films ever produced. As Executive Producer at Electronic Arts Ralph produced Majestic, an innovative online experience which pioneered the establishment of the Internet as a storytelling medium. Earlier in his career Ralph was Director of Editing Research at Lucasfilm Ltd. where he worked on groundbreaking non-linear editing systems. At Alligator Planet, Ralph supervises the production of all projects.
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Indraneel Guha, Art Director, Paradox Studios, Mumbai, India
Indraneel has been working as the Art Director of PC Games and Game Cinematic at India 's largest game development company, Paradox Studios, for the last 4 years. In that time he has been instrumental in the launch of the combat game Battledust, The Championship and the recently launched, award winning Bomberbabe among others.
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Eric Hanson, VFX Designer, Visura Imaging, Los Angeles, USA
Eric Hanson is currently overseeing production of visual effects educational DVD titles and teaching at The Gnomon Workshop, as well as teaching at the USC film school. He began his film career with Digital Domain working on Fifth Element returning to work on The Day After Tomorrow and, most recently, Stealth. Eric has worked on several films for Disney in the capacities of Digital Supervisor and Senior Technical Director. He has also worked for Sony Pictures Imageworks as Senior Technical Director for Sequences in Cast Away and on the pre-visualization for Spiderman. Eric is a visual effects designer who specializes in digital sets and backgrounds for feature film projects leading him to films with large digital set components. The urban sets Eric builds as an accomplished (but not traditional) matte painter are brilliantly photo-realistic, complemented by his formal training in architecture and a long standing passion for panoramic photography.
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Pam Hogarth, Director of Industrial Relations, Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Los Angeles, USA
Pam fell into the world of computer graphics 21 years ago and since then, she has undertaken marketing, public/industry relations, and training roles for distributors and educational institutions as well as hardware and software manufactures. Pam has taught at The American Film Institute, Otis College of Art and Design, and DMI and has lectured on computer graphics, digital careers and visual effects at various international conferences around the world. Pam fulfilled the role of Director of the Digital Media Institute before becoming Director of Industry Relations at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. She is Co-Chair of the Education Committee of the Visual Effects Society and is also a Co-Founder and Steering Committee member of the Alliance of Digital Effects Production Trainers. Pam's name can be found in the credits of Demonslayer and Faye Dunaway's The Yellow Bird. She holds a M.Ed. from Kent State University and she is well known for crafting exquisite handmade glass beads.
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Diane Holland, CEO Massive Software, New Zealand & Los Angeles, USA
Beginning her career in visual effects and computer graphics at Industrial Light and Magic, Diane Holland worked on blockbuster movies such as Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park and helped launch the ILM Commercial division. She worked as Director of Operations, and later, Director of Marketing for Digital Domain during the production of True Lies and Apollo 13 before joining Santa Barbara Studios. It was here, as Visual Effects Producer, she pursued her passion for production with a small team of progressive CG artists who created, amongst other things, software which was later incorporated into the Maya platform. Diane went on to join Magnet Interactive acting as Senior Vice President where she helped prepare the business for a merger with Accenture, and later joined Walt Disney Feature Animation. As CEO of Massive Software since 2003, Diane has been leading the effort to bring the Academy Award winning tool created by Stephen Regelous to the animation market worldwide.
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Jeff Kleiser, President/Creative Director, Kleiser-Walczak, Massachusetts, USA
Jeff is President and Co-Founder of Kleiser-Walczak, a high-end design and animation studio with offices in Hollywood, New York, and Massachusetts. He was a Founder of Digital Effects in 1978 and worked as the Computer Production Supervisor on TRON later moving onto to Omnibus, Digital Productions and Robert Abel Associates where he supervised computer animation for Flight of the Navigator. His slate at Kleiser-Walczak, includes animation direction for Stargate, Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, X-MEN, X-MEN United and Monsters of Grace. He also co-wrote and directed Corkscrew Hill for Busch Entertainment. Jeff is on the Board of Directors of the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Visual Effects Society.
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Ashish Kulkarni, Founder / CEO, Anirights Infomedia Pvt. Ltd Karnataka, INDIA
Ashish Kulkarni is known to be the most colorful personality in the animation industry, this side of Hollywood. Over the last 12 years his role has encompassed blending technology and talent, keeping morale high and competing in the highly intensive global market place for production assignments. Ashish is founder & CEO of Anirights Infomedia Pty. Ltd. Most recently Ashish has successfully completed several national and international projects in Animation. He was an Executive Producer on Multicolour Jackal a film produced as a part of Animated World Tales for the S4C channel, UK., Line Producer on the MUCHA LUCHA (a Warner Brothers production) and Animation Production Executive on HIGGLYTOWN HEROS a Disney pre school series produced by Happy Nest Production, USA. Ashish is also a credited as Executive Producer on several advertising films for: All Out, Flying Machine, Max Candy & Max Ice-cream for HLL, Nestle Munch, and Kellogg’s prior to founding Anirights, Ashish worked in jadooWorks, Colour Chips India Limited, Primesite – Mudra Communications, Nava Bharat Media Services, Dinshaw’s Frozen Foods, Hitkari Fibres Limited, Eureka Forbes Limited and The Hitavada. Ashish, firmly believes in his mantra, of "Let’s Go, Get It!!!" He passionately believes that the Indian animation industry has the potential to challenge and succeed in the global animation segment. He actively works with FICCI, ASIFA, APAI, AKSHAYA PATRA, WHISTLING WOODS INTERNATIONAL and many other industry and social associations. Ashish was elected on as an Associate Member on the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, New York.
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Lorne Lanning, Co Founder/President/Creative Director, Oddworld Inhabitants, San Francisco, USA
Lorne has been involved with computer graphics and digital media for over 15 years. He is the Co-Founder and President of the video game development company Oddworld Inhabitants and a member of the Advisory Board for the San Francisco Academy of Art University. A graduate of School of Visual Arts in NYC, Lorne studied photo-realism and commercial illustration before attending the California Institute of the Arts where he studied film, visual effects and storytelling as well as traditional and computer animation. Enticed by emergent, computer animation work Lorne joined Rhythm & Hues where he contributed to numerous award winning commercials, attractions such as Euro-Disney, MCA/Universal, the Worlds Fair, and worked for clients of the caliber of Universal-Japan, Mazda, and Reebok. In 1992 Lorne formed the video game development company, Oddworld Inhabitants. Developing a worldwide following, Oddworld has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise that continues to grow to this day.
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Kim Baumann Larsen, CEO, PLACEBO EFFECTS, Norway
Kim is the CEO and partner of Placebo Effects. His CG work has been included in some of the largest architecture projects in Norway including the Oslo Gardermoen Airport and the new Telenor Fornebu headquarters. He was also a partner in the experimental, collaborative networked, architecture and design studio Ocean North. Kim's work is well published and has been featured in various public exhibits and on broadcast television. He has done computer visualization for over a decade, has lectured at several architecture schools in Scandinavia and the US and headed the Information Technology department at the Oslo School of Architecture.
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Markus Manninen, Visual Effects Supervisor, DreamWorks, Los Angeles, USA
In 2003 Markus Manninen joined DreamWorks Feature Animation as VFX Supervisor on future feature animated projects. Before coming to DreamWorks Markus was Head of 3D Commercials at Europe 's largest visual effects facility Framestore CFC where he worked on many award winning projects as CG Supervisor and Animation Director. A graduate of Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden , Markus discovered Computer Graphics at University of Massachusetts, USA before joining award winning, animation studio Filmtecknarna in Sweden.
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Stephan Martinere, Science Fiction and Fantasy Artist, Midway Games, Chicago, USA
Stephan Martiniere is an internationally renowned Science Fiction and Fantasy Artist. He is also an accomplished concept artist who has worked on movies such as I Robot, Star Wars Episodes 2 & 3, Virus, Red Planet, Sphere, and the Time Machine. As a visual design director for Cyan, Stephan was also responsible for creating and overseeing the look of the games URU, Ages Beyond: Myst as well as its two expansion packs and upcoming title. Stephan is currently the Visual Design Director for Midway Games in Chicago .
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Colm Massey, Chief Technical Officer / Co- Founder, NaturalMotion Ltd., Oxford, UK
Colm trained as a mathematician at Trinity College Dublin, and wrote his first computer game on a Tandy TRS-80. In his last position as head of the award winning Virtual Human Project at MathEngine Plc, Colm honed his extensive skills in the simulation of human biomechanics. Colm co-founded NaturalMotion with Torsten Reil in 2001. NaturalMotion's flagship character animation tool, endorphin, has taken the animation industry by storm, winning a Computer Graphics World Innovation award in 2003 and a GameDeveloper Frontline Award in 2004. Colm leads NaturalMotion's technology development.
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Tim McGovern, Visual Effects Supervisor, Los Angeles, USA
Tim began in CG in 1981 with Robert Abel & Associates where he worked on both projects like TRON and the Sexy Robot commercial leading him to win 5 prestigious Clio Awards. He moved on to become a founding member of MetroLight Studios were his visual effects X-ray Skeleton sequence for Total Recall earned him an Academy Award in 1992. Later hired by Sony, Tim led, and developed the Imageworks VFX team and took it from a group of eight to a department of 250 artists and technicians. For the past seven years Tim has worked as an independent VFX supervisor, he has recently finished supervising 800 shots for A Sound of Thunder.
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Syd Mead, Founder, Syd Mead Inc., Los Angeles, USA
Syd Mead is one of the most celebrated concept designers of our time. He is regarded by many as a pioneer in digital art having created groundbreaking and memorable designs for feature films, interiors, cars and even toys. Syd's most well-known work includes futuristic production designs for Blade Runner, TRON, Aliens and 2010, all pivotal science fiction films that inspired many budding visual effects artists to enter professional careers in the field. Over a career spanning 48 years Syd has been hired by some of the largest corporate manufacturing groups in the world working on signature projects that include the supersonic Concorde interiors, car prototypes for Ford and products for Phillips N.V. He also maintains a strenuous speaking engagement schedule sharing his craft and experience with academia, media, professional associations and corporate groups worldwide. Syd Mead has served on the Advisory Committees for EXPOSÉ 2 & 3 and is a staunch supporter of the CG Community.
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Meats Meier, Resident Artist, The Gnomon Workshop, Los Angeles, USA
An award-winning digital artist, Meats has over a decade of experience in a wide range of artistic fields. His past credits include: airbrush artist, lead artist at Beyond Games, and technical director/compositor at the Orphanage working on such feature films as Hellboy, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Meats is an instructor at The Gnomon School of Visual Effects and also maintains a successful career as an independent artist. His artwork has been featured on the covers of numerous books, magazines, and web sites. Meats was honored with the prestigious Maya Master title by Alias at SIGGRAPH 2003. In 2001, Meats was awarded Best Animation at the SlamDunk film festival in Park City, Utah for his nine-minute short film The Future: of Art, which was also featured in ifilm's book, The Internet's Top 50 Short Films.
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Vahid Mehrinfar, Executive Principal and Chief Brand Architect , Vahid Associates, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Vahid Mehrinfar is Executive Principal and Chief Brand Architect of Vahid Associates, Brand Futurists, Bahrain/Dubai. He is also Executive Principal, Idea, of Lowe Contexture, Bahrain. Lowe Contexture is closely associated to Lowe & Partners Worldwide, advisors on indigenous corporate cultures. Alumnus of Art Center College of Design Pasadena, trained in Industrial Design-Automotive & Transportation, Vahid has vast and diverse experience spanning many disciplines of design, communications and marketing, gained from both the United States and the Gulf Region. This knowledge has helped him accumulate a strong and enviable track record with an extensive portfolio of clients spread across the globe. Vahid has been a frequent contributor to various marketing and trade publications and has been repeatedly featured in a number of marketing monthlies and exclusive lifestyle magazines. His seminars on the concept of futurity have inspired and captured the attention of many corporations and academic institutions.
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Alex Morris, Director of 3D, Hayes Davidson, London, UK
Alex Morris is the Director of 3D at Hayes Davidson, UK 's largest and most experienced digital communications company. Specializing in 3D and new media for the architecture and commercial property industries, Alex has worked on such prestigious projects as The Millennium Dome, The London Eye, The Millennium Bridge and The Tate Gallery of Modern Art. He also worked on the headquarters for the new London Mayor and Condon City, which is the first integrated and flexible interactive 3D computer system of London.
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Jeff Mottle, President and Founder, CGarchitect.com, Canada
Jeff is the President and Founder of www.CGarchitect.com, the leading online architectural visualization magazine. He is the North American Creative Director for Smoothe, a UK based design communication firm, with offices in London, Manchester and Calgary. Working in the design visualization industry for over 10 years, Jeff is actively involved in the advancement and development of the architectural visualization industry and committed to seeing this industry grow to become a respected, professional field within the CG community. Jeff has also worked for one of the world's largest modular construction industry leaders, SMED International, as a key member of their rendering department and previously for an estate home builder doing architectural renderings. In 2001, Jeff began development of one of the first sites focused exclusively on the needs of CG artists and lighting designers specializing in architecture. With the help of numerous industry professionals from around the world the site has grown to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date, online resource for the industry.
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Peter Moxom, Industry Manager – Animation, Discreet, Asia Pacific
Peter worked as an Animation Instructor fro seven years prior to joining Discreet where he now fulfills a role as a conduit between customers and the technical, sales and marketing divisions within the company. Peter is an avid advocate for the 'teapot' button in 3ds Max and has a mission to keep it there for many years to come.
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Luciano Neves, 3D Special Effects Team Coordinator, Brazil
Luciano Neves is a specialist focused on the production of highly-detailed photo-realistic 3D architectural and environment modeling. Known for recreating the World's Greatest Architectures, he is recognized as an award-winning digital artist. He achieved Master Award Winner status in the digital art book ELEMENTAL 1, and was an Excellence Award Winner in the digital art book EXPOSÉ 3 before receiving both Master and Excellence Award Winner status in the digital art book ELEMENTAL 2. Luciano’s work has been widely published throughout various magazines (CGW / Digital Designer / cgfrombrazil) and books (3ds Max 7 - The Bible). He is currently working as 3D Special Effects Team Coordinator at a Brazilian computer graphics company. He also consults to companies worldwide, developing projects from the creation of 3D technical catalogues to 3D Olympic Stadiums. Despite this busy schedule he still finds time to mentor students at a local 3D animation school.
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Shelley Page, European Representative, DreamWorks SKG, London, UK
Originally trained in the UK as an illustrator, Shelley has been working in the field of Feature Animation since 1986. Since joining DreamWorks Animation as co-head of Artist Development on its creation in 1995, Shelley has worked in many areas of feature animation production. Her current projects include building relationships with animation schools worldwide and sourcing new talent for future projects. Shelley's film credits include: 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?','The Prince Of Egypt','Antz', 'Shrek','Shark Tale', 'Shrek 2', 'Madagascar', 'Over the Hedge'and 'Shrek the Third. Current DreamWorks projects include 'Bee Movie', 'Kung Fu Panda' and 'Monsters vs Aliens'. Shelley has a particular interest in student animation and hosts student events at all the major European animation festivals. She sits on the graduation juries of leading animation schools Les Gobelins and Supinfocom in France and on the advisory boards and selection juries of many international animation festivals including: Annecy (France), Imagina (Monte Carlo), FMX (Stuttgart), Encounters (UK), Siggraph 2007, Animex (UK), SAND (UK) and 24FPS (India).
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Beau Perschall, Vice President of Publishing, Turbo Squid, New Orleans, Louisiana , USA
Beau has been actively involved in the 3D graphics and animation field for almost twelve years as an animator and software development manager. He is a graduate of the University of New Orleans where he designed the 3D animation curriculum and assisted with the creation of a computer art and animation facility on campus. Beau is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in the field of plug-in publishing and management, having helped various developers prepare over 75 plug-in tools for markets around the globe. His knowledge of the plug-in space has earned him the respect of his peers. In his current position as Vice President of Publishing for Turbo Squid, in New Orleans, Beau liaises with the artistic and software development communities and oversees the Autodesk Certified Animation Plug-in program.
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Robi Roncarelli , President, Editor & Publisher , PIXEL, Toronto, CANADA
Robi Roncarelli is President, Editor and Publisher, of PIXEL - The computer animation news people, inc, publishers of THE RONCARELLI REPORT on the Computer Animation Industry. Robi has been involved directly with computer animation since 1978 as a designer and producer, producing work for a wide range of clients, including major TV networks, international advertising agencies and film producers and since 1984 as an industry analyst, writer and consultant. His marketing consulting clients include computer animation production companies, and software, hardware and systems companies, schools, and financial institutions in several countries. Besides writing extensively about computer animation, he frequently lectures at schools and makes presentations on computer animation, the industry and its markets, and he has presented papers on the subject at computer graphics conferences in several countries.
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Chris Sloan, Art Director, National Geographic Magazine, Washington DC, USA
Working as an Art Director and Senior Editor Chris is responsible for the commissioning of non-photographic art, illustrations and diagrams for National Geographic Magazine. This has led him to work with numerous artists on projects ranging from the animation of dinosaurs to depicting the frontiers of space and has seen him become an authority in a number of different media genres. In his capacity as a specialist in paleontology and paleoanthropology Chris regularly writes for National Geographic. He has also written several award-winning children's books including How Dinosaurs Took Flight, Supercroc and Feathered Dinosaurs.
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Jill Smolin, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Gnomon Workshop, Los Angeles, USA
Jill Smolin has been an avid contributor to the visual effects industry since before it could be considered an industry. Beginning by writing for On Location Magazine, and editing Film and Video magazine in the 80s led her to a fascination with art, images and computing. In the 90s, concurrent with developing her skills as a fiber artist and diving into designing, Jill wrote about anything artistic and technical she could find. She went on to work at Digital Domain, then Cinesite as Manager of Education at both facilities. Being a habitual volunteer, Jill has spent many of the last 10 years contributing to SIGGRAPH as chair of various venues, course organizer, animation theatre director, panel's juror, moderator and general cheerleader. Jill's art is getting people to talk about, and report on, the art and technology they love.
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Steven Stahlberg, Artist, Malaysia
Steven Stahlberg is a Co-Founder of Optidigit which partnered with VisualXtreme and went on to become Androidblues, The Virtual Talent Studio. Steven headed up the 3D animation division and worked as Art Director of Androidblues. Steven also runs a successful freelance business as an artist, illustrator and animator. After completing his art studies in Sweden and Australia, Steven worked for ten years as a freelance illustrator for leading advertising agencies and publications in Europe and Asia going on to work for clients such as Digital Anvil, Electronic Arts and Disney. He has also held seminars for Alias and Disney. Steven has won many awards, including CG Choice, Animago, Arts Electronica, 3D Festival and Comgraph. His art has been featured in, and on, the covers of dozens of books. He was also the first artist in the world to have a virtual character sponsored by a major modeling agency. Steven held the second CGWorkshops course, Modeling the Female Form and recently received recognition as a Maya Master.
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Philip Straub, Concept Artist, Electronic Arts, Florida, USA
Currently employed by Electronic Arts as Concept Art Director, Philip Straub has been working as an illustrator/concept artist in the entertainment industry for over 10 years at the same time as merging his art into many other markets. Philip is currently represented by 3 galleries in United States and has a business licensing designs for fabrics, wallpapers and home decor products. He also has a hand in product development working on anything from children's puzzles to greeting cards. Philip has been a featured artist in numerous publications including; The Society of Illustrators NY and Los Angeles Annuals, Spectrum Fantasy Annuals, Expose digital fine art books, and on dozens of digital art websites and forums. Philip was also one of four acclaimed artists who contributed to the d'artiste Digital Painting Master Class publication. Some of Philip's clients include: John Wiley and Sons, Fantasy Magazine, Universal Studios, Fisher Price, Mattel, McGraw-Hill, Simon and Schuster, Harper Collins, TSR, Random House, Golden Books and Nickelodeon.
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Image Credit:		Top: shape.57#0205.1 [05] - Tim Borgmann

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