Rob Bredow
Chief Technology Officer and Visual Effects Supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks.

PRESENTATION: “Cooking Up Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs with a helping of Open Source”

Visual Effects Supervisor and Sony Imageworks CTO Rob Bredow will present a behind the scenes look at the making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. From the Jello Castle to the Spaghetti Tornado, from the art directed clouds to the massively destructive food, Cloudy provided all sorts of challenges for the team behind the picture. Bredow will also discuss Sony Imageworks' latest entries into the open source community including Field3d (most recently used on Alice in Wonderland) and the newly released Open Shading Language.

Rob Bredow is Chief Technology Officer and Visual Effects Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks. As CTO, Bredow has brought a production-perspective to the role and also created Imagework’s open source initiative—most recently releasing Open Shading Language to the community. Prior to accepting the CTO position, Bredow supervised the film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. His other most recent film, Surf’s Up, was nominated for an Academy Award® and was also recognized with two Annie Awards wins for its groundbreaking visual effects.

While at Imageworks, Bredow has been involved in creating many of the complex visual effects featured in The Polar Express, Stuart Little 2, Cast Away, and Academy Award® nominated Stuart Little. Bredow’s other credits include Godzilla and Independence Day, among others. An expert in visual effects and computer graphics technology, Bredow loves to share his experiences at conferences around the world.

Dan Abrams
CG Supervisor

PRESENTATION” “Digital Cinematography - Benjamin Button and Beyond”

Dan will discuss the new model of CG rendering he designed at Digital Domain for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which evolved from his background of blockbuster effects films, animated movies, and TV commercials, and what it means for the future of VFX production.

Dan Abrams graduated as an industrial designer in 2000 from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and began working as a senior artist at Sony Pictures Imageworks the same year. There, he closely contributed to several Academy Awards® before winning the Visual Effects Society Award for his groundbreaking work in virtual environments for feature films.

At Digital Domain, Dan acted as CG Supervisor and his work on Benjamin Button helped garner one Academy Award®, one BAFTA, and four Visual Effects Society Awards. He co-authored a SIGGRAPH paper for his designs on physically-based rendering of CG humans.

He has also created commercials for directors David Fincher, Joseph Kosinski and Marc Romanek, while on the side assembling his creative reel with collaborators from Tronic. His personal work as a graphic designer and photographer has been featured in numerous publications and galleries in Germany, Japan, Canada, and America.

Dan’s selected credits include Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Aviator, Superman Returns, Monster House, Flags of Our Fathers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the Spider-Man franchise.

Rodney Brunet
VFX Supervisor

One of the original members of Robert Rodriguez’s creative team, Rodney Brunet has worked with Troublemaker Studios since Spy Kids. He has a comprehensive background in film, television and gaming. He continues to work with the Troublemaker team in the realm of digital arts, conceptual design, animation, CG and VFX Supervision.

Chris Olivia
VFX Supervisor

Chris Olivia is an animator, designer and visual effects artisan specializing in 3-D pre-visualization and animatics with experience in gaming, film, television and motion-based rides. With more than 15 years experience with some of the top visual effects houses, his background includes work with Troublemaker Studios, Digital Anvil/Microsoft, Rhythm & Hues, Origin Systems and Digital Sight & Sound on films including Sin City, Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Spy Kids, Grindhouse, and the upcoming Predators.

 

Kurt Volk
Digital Lead Graphic Designer

Kurt Volk graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a focus on design and 2D animation. Since 2003 he has acted as Troublemaker Studios' lead graphic designer, creating theatrical campaigns, DVD packaging, title sequences and movie tie-in books. His 2007 poster for Grindhouse was awarded a Key Art Award for best Action/Horror poster. His credits include Sin City, Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D, Grindhouse, Shorts as well as the upcoming Machete and Predators.

Barton Gawboy
NVIDIA, Director of Training and Special Projects

For over twenty years, Barton has blended management skills with experience in production and engineering, including work at Mattel Electronics, Symbolics, Information International Inc, Nichimen Graphics, Dreamworks Feature Animation, as a partner of Anohana Production Management & Technologies, and as owner of Marina Motion, LLC. Education and information sharing has been a strong component of the hands-on managing style he brought to film projects, such as The Prince of Egypt, The King and I (animated), Vertical Limit, Shrek and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

Dave Aronson
NVIDIA, Technical Evangelist

Dave Aronson is a Technical Evangelist for NVIDIA, focusing on digital content creation tools. Prior to NVIDIA, Dave worked in the Direct3D and Xbox 360 team at Microsoft. Before that, Dave worked at Nichimen Graphics working on tools for game artists.

Jarrod Davis
Supervisor of Content Development, NewTek

Jarrod Davis, supervisor of content development at NewTek, is an Emmy-award winning visual effects artist with over eight years of production experience. In 2003, Davis won an Emmy for best visual effects for “Firefly.” He was also nominated for Emmys for ”Battlestar Galactica,” “Eureka,” and “Drive.”

During his career, Davis worked with Foundation Imaging, credits include: “Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.” He also worked on various commercials for Digital Domain. In addition, he contributed to dozens of high-profile episodic and film projects, such as “Serenity,” “Van Helsing,” “Angel,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “24” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” while at Zoic Studios.
Davis originally joined NewTek from 1997 to 1999 and most recently, rejoined the company in 2007.