Creating today’s entertainment may seem like mystical otherworld technology, but this year we look behind the veil to talk with the shamen that create todays top games, movies, and commercials. Industry Giants 2012:End of The World, Visual Effects, Animation and Game Forum features over a dozen industry professionals.
The annual event takes place Saturday, September 22nd at the historic Kessler Theater.
This year’s masterclasses will take place on Sunday, September 23, 2012 at Motus Digital in Plano.
Tickets are on sale now! You do not need to be a member to attend, but membership are cheap and help ABOSG grow strong.
INDUSTRY GIANTS 2012 SPEAKERS
Krishnamurti M. Costa (Antropus)
Senior Digital Artist at ILM
“Kris was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and works at ILM since 2008 as a Senior Digital Artist specialized in modeling.
Kris worked as a banker for over 15 years, learning CG on the side, self-taught, before switching careers and countries in 2004, when he landed his first professional job in the film industry, as a character animator for the movie “Barnyard”, directed by Steve Odekerk. After that, Kris moved to CafeFX, Lucasfilm Animation and finally ILM. He worked as animator, modeler, texture artist, rigger and/or lighting artist for movies like The Avengers, Rango, Pan’s Labyrinth, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, among others.
His personal career includes wins in three editions of the CGSociety Challenges, some of the most prestigious competitions of their kind on the internet.
Website: http://www.antropus.com
Chris Fowler
Lighting Supervisor at Pixar Canada
Born in Beaumont, TX, Chris is a graduate of The Art Institute of Dallas where he studied Computer Animation/MultiMedia. Starting his career as a generalist in Computer Graphics, Chris ended up specializing in Lighting after his first film opportunity arose with DNA Productions, Inc. After a number of years lighting at DNA and Nickelodeon his career led him to California to Pixar Animation Studios where he worked in lighting on Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up and Toy Story 3. When Pixar opened a new studio in Vancouver, BC in 2010 Chris made the move to Canada to be the Lighting Supervisor at the newly formed studio where he’s been for the past two years working on short films for the studio.
Tony White
Author”The Animators Workbook”, “The Animators Notebook” + more
2D-Animating Outside the Box
Tony White is a British Academy Award-winning animation director, animator, author, educator and mentor. At the beginning of his career, he studied advanced animation techniques with some of the finest masters of the art-form. Specifically: Ken Harris (original lead animator of “Bugs Bunny,” “Roadrunner,” etc.), Art Babbit (original lead animator on “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia,” etc.) and Richard Williams (3 times Oscar winner and author of “The Animator’s Survival Kit”). Tony moved to Seattle in 1998 to live, work and teach and is currently animation program director/instructor at the non-profit school, AIE-Seattle. There he is heading a 2-year advanced diploma program that will enable students to enter the film/game animation industry without the extreme student loan burdens that are common with larger degree-based schools across the country.
Tony is also founder of “DRAWASSIC”, a ground-breaking virtual animation studio the mission of which is to preserve, teach and evolve the art-form of traditional animation in this digital age. Tony’s ultimate dream is to establish a unique atelier-style studio/academy of advanced animation – where his most talented students can gain industry experience through an MFA-level style apprenticeship with master professional animators, on real & unique, ground-breaking movies.
http://www.tonywhiteanimation.com
Jason Felix
Concept Artist
Redefining your Career in the Industry
Jason is an artist who’s work has appeared in video games, films, books, and fine art galleries around the world. Currently he is working as a contractor on the Dead Space series, Magic The Gathering franchise, and other unannounced game projects. In the past, Felix has also helped to visualize the intro title for Girl With the Dragon Tattoo film. For video game projects, he has visually establish other large franchises such as StarCraft, Hellgate: London, and the Prince of Persia.
To date, Jason is best known for his painting series titled Salvaged which combines the human body with industrial elements to produce a wide variety of compelling imagery. He is also busily crafting other various personal projects such as Salvaged v2.0, Closet Monsters, and other various titles.
Jason currently resides in San Francisco.
http://www.jasonfelix.com/
http://www.facebook.com/Jason.Felix.Art
Ed Mendez
Visual Effects Supervisor Dive Visual
Ed contributes both Hollywood experience along with technical mastery, a team-building attitude and an award-winning artistic eye to DIVE. Recently, he has served as the On-Set VFX Supervisor for the upcoming feature films, “Paranoia” starring Harrison Ford and “Dead Man Down” starring Colin Farrell as well as a Compositing Supervisor on “Chernobyl Diaries” and “Safe”. This unique skill set has served him well during his compositing work for “The Matrix Revolutions”, The Coen Brother’s “The Ladykillers”, “Catwoman”, “ Constantine”, “Sin City”, “Fantastic Four”, “ Memoirs of a Geisha “, “King Kong”, “Snakes on a Plane” , “Kite Runner”, “The Last Airbender” and ” I Am Number 4″.
Over the course of his career, Mendez has made Mystique seamlessly “shape shift” in “X2” as Compositing Lead and as Compositing Supervisor helped Spider-Man rescue Gwen Stacy in “Spider-Man 3” and provided the 17th century backdrop of Boston Harbor for the HBO award winning mini-series “John Adams”. His work on John Adams earned him a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Mini-Series.
http://www.divevisual.com
INDUSTRY GIANTS 2012 MASTER CLASSES
Jason Manley
Founder- Massive Black inc., ConceptArt.org, The Art Department
Surviving the Industry through Community and Education
Jason, an alumni of The Illustration Academy, is the original founder and President of Massive Black Inc, the top Entertainment Art production studio group worldwide, where he led from the idea’s inception until 2010 when he took the reins at TAD full-time. During his eight year tenure as MB’s President, he created and directed all company vision, strategy, marketing, promotion, business development and oversaw all studios as the company’s top executive. Jason secured and oversaw the delivering of more than 280 entertainment industry projects and numerous blockbuster hits from clients in games, film, toys, social media, comics, television, and animation . Jason has spent the past 12 years working in the industry trenches as a Concept Artist, Illustrator, Marketing Artist, Lead Artist, Art Director, Game Developer, Consultant, Entrepreneur and field leading Executive.
Jason is a leading expert in the field of social media and online education. He is the Founding Director of ConceptArt.org which now has over 257,000 registered students and industry professionals sharing, creating and learning entertainment development, art, 3d, animation, design, and illustration. He created, designed and produced all ConceptArt.Org International Art and Design Symposiums as a way to bring professionals and students from around the world together for personal and career betterment.These important industry events have since been attended by more than 8000 students and pros alike, from more than 400 entertainment companies.
Steve Quentin (aka Q)
Art Director/ Animator at 900lbs of creative
Life Drawing
Born in Readlyn, Iowa, Steve knew he wanted to be an artist from his earliest days. Saturday morning cartoons became a ritual in the Quentin household, and Steve’s love of animation led him to The Ringling School of Art and Design in 1995. There he embarked on a rigorous program of drawing and painting, often spending all day and evening in figure drawing and painting studios. After graduating in 1999, Steve fulfilled his childhood wish and was hired by Walt Disney Feature Animation in Orlando. While working in the Animation department, he worked on the cleanup crew for Kenai Bear (Brother Bear, Lilo (Lilo and Stitch),), The Little Match Girl, Pocahontas (2000 rerelease) and The Lion King (rerelease). When the Orlando studio closed, Steve moved to Dallas, TX, where he is currently employed in the commercial animation field. He has served as principal 2D and 3D animator, art director, concept artist, visdev artist, storyboarder on hundreds of national commercials, video game trailers and movies. In addition to these projects, Steve has received many industry accolades for his freelance work, especially on the recently released “Cold War Clambake”. He has been a featured panel speaker on animation and character development, holds an honorary membership in The Dallas Screenwriter’s Association, and currently moderates a figure drawing studio for fellow professional artists. He also is an accomplished Flash animator, as well as being proficient in Adobe Photoshop, SoftImage XSI, Aftereffects and Painter.
Steve can usually be found in his studio, working on his latest digital creation. Whether creating backgrounds, character design, animation or concept work, he brings a high level of professionalism and creativity to each of his pieces. When he wants to cut loose and relax, he can usually be found fishing or golfing.Should have also put something in there like you will need news print and charcoal pencils
This is a beginner class.
Shawn Spetch
Senior Environmental Artist- Nerve Software
Environment Art Pipeline for Games
Shawn Spetch began his career in 3d art at the Dallas Visual Effects Studio, Element X Creative as their first employee. As a 3d Generalist, his work consisted from modeling and character animation to motion graphics. He transitioned into game development and some of his credits now include the games Kinect: Star Wars, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Brothers and Arms: Hell’s Highway, and Aliens: Colonial Marines. He has worked for Terminal Reality and Gearbox and is currently one of the Senior Artists at Nerve Software in Dallas. Shawn is also a winning recipient artist for the Team Fortress 2 Polycount competition, and continues to be an avid contributor to Valve’s Steam Workshop. Throughout his career, Shawn has gained experience and honed his skills for hard surface and organic modeling, texturing, and lighting for game environments.
www.spetch.me
Raul Aparicio
Environmental Artist – Gearbox
Environment Art Pipeline for Games
Raul is an Enviroment Artist, just finished up working on Borderlands 2, and currently hard at work on Aliens : Colonial Marines at Gearbox Software. He is a self taught artist. After a brief time at CCCC, he began working with A Bunch of Shortguys. From there he moved on to work at Element X Creative, where he spent most of his time as a technical director. Later, he moved on to Id Software, as a megatexture artist and prop artist, working on RAGE and DOOM 4. On his time off, he is pretty active in online communities. Always pushing himself to take his art to new levels. Going by the username of “raul”, he frequents polycount, 3dtotal and cgHub.
raparicio.com
Paul Gaboury
3D Application Engineer – Pixologic
ZBrush new features including Dynamesh, Fibermesh, Noisemaker and BPR render syste,
Paul Gaboury is Pixologic¹s Lead 3D Application Engineer who has worked with several studios such as Legacy Effects, Disney Animation, Bad Robot,Pixar Studios, and etc on enhancing their digital sculpting pipeline using the
leading industry application ZBrush. He is also involved in the daily development of ZBrush and works with artists around the world offering support. As part of the Pixologic team Paul will travel to various studios and schools giving demos on ZBrush to highlight the various new tools in ZBrush. He most recently released ZBrush Professional Tips and Techniques book which included tips from 18 artists around the world, along with 9 chapters chalked full of tips from Paul. Paul graduated with a BFA from the Bowling Green State University and was an extension student at Gnomon School of Visual Effects.
Orlando Sanchez
Figure instructor at The Art Department in the Austin studio
Conveying a mood with drawing, composition, and color.
Orlando is an alumni of Ringling college of art+design in Sarasota, Fl and also attended the Illustration Academy. His studio is located in downtown Austin where he instructs 3 figure sessions a week and works on exploring drawing, composition, color, and the beauty of the figure. His most recent series can be seen at www.orlandosanchezart.bigcartel.com
During the workshop Orlando will be demonstrating how to create a mood with drawing, composition, and color. He will be showing how to use Nupastels to explore color and discussing the use of other mediums to create a different mood. Having a live model posing your recommended to bring some materials to draw with.
Bryan Engram
Animation Mentor / Reel FX
Bryan Engram most recently served as Director of Studio Animation for Reel FX in Dallas, TX. Bryan has overseen projects for top studio clients such as Dreamworks, Blue Sky/Fox Animation, Disney, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures Animation, and Illumination/Universal Pictures. In his role
At Reel FX from 2003-2012, Bryan served in the roles of render wrangler, layout artist, layout supervisor, animator, animation supervisor, animation director, and director of studio animation. His credits include the feature films The Wild, Everyone’s Hero, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Open Season 2, and Open Season 3. He has worked recently on the award winning Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes short films Coyote Falls, Rabid Rider, Fur of Flying, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, and Daffy’s Rhapsody. His other short film credits include Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five, Blue Sky’s animated shorts Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, and Robots: Aunt Fanny’s Tour of Booty, game cinematics for Halo 2 and Transformers :The Game, as well as commercial work for Dreamworks’ Shrek the Third, Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda, and Madagascar 2. In 2010 Bryan was nominated for a Visual Effects Society (VES) Award for “Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Short” for the work done on the Warner Bros’ short Coyote Falls . The short also garnered an Annie Nomination and short listed for the 2010 Oscars.
Bryan currently serves as a Mentor for the Animation Mentor.com online animation school based out of Emeryville, CA.
Tony Bonilla
Instructor Supervisor/Curriculum Manager AnimSchool
What Makes You Special?
Tony Bonilla has over 7 years of professional experience working on projects such as: Jimmy Neutron, The Ant Bully, Open Season 2 and 3, Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor, Area 51: Blacksite, The Very First Noel, Secrets of the Furious Five, and Ice Age 3. Tony is a full-time staff member at AnimSchool. In addition to being an Instructor, he is the Curriculum Manager, and Instructor Supervisor.
Stephen Steinbach
Toon Boom
Stephen Steinbach graduated from Cal Art in 1994 after working several years as a 2d game animator at Alexandria and Wave Quest. After graduation, Stephen worked at Warner Bros Feature Animation as a breakdown animator, rough in-betweener, and animator. Titles include Space Jam, Quest for Camelot, and Iron Giant. In 2004 Stephen received an MFA in Computer Arts at Florida Atlantic University. Currently Stephen is Director of Media Arts and Animation at the Art Institute of Dallas and continues to do freelance in Animation and Conceptual Illustration.
Ed Whetstone
Digital Tutors / Reel Fx
A World without UV’s.
Ed Whetstone is a CG lighting artist at ReelFX Creative Studios, a Creative Development contributor for Digital Tutors, an occasional graduate student, and an aspiring filmmaker in the considerable free
time remaining. Ed has always had a passion for storytelling, and in his opinion, there is no better way to tell a story than through the movies. Since starting down the CG animation path at the University
of Texas at Dallas, Ed has focused on the problem of off-the-shelf production — making software built for large studios work for small teams with fewer resources.
Bert Van Brande
Reel FX
A pipeline evolution and Kata
na introduction
Bert’s passion for creating images merged with an interest in computers in the early 80’s. Experiments with loaner apple II computers, basic and assembler programming resulted in a thesis on Computer Graphics and Animation Technology for his film school graduation in Brussels, Belgium. Since then Bert has been actively building pipelines to create CG Imagery and animation. An early pipeline with custom animation software in a small studio in Belgium was used to create dozens of TV-titles, commercials and a 26 episode CG cartoon series. Bert then brought his character animation know-how to Alias|Wavefront to help introduce Maya in the European market and as a pipeline consultant he helped many European studios setup a Maya-centric pipeline. 9 year ago Bert moved to California joining Sony Pictures Imageworks to supervise development of their first CG feature production pipeline during The Polar Express. After work on Monster House Bert moved into a CG Supervisor role on Surf’s Up, once again creatively involved in making the images he build the pipeline for. After work on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Alice in Wonderland and finally The Smurfs Bert moved to Reelfx where he’s heading up Production Technology again focussing on building a solid pipeline and technology for CG feature production.