advisory board

FMX benefits greatly from the help of our advisory board. A team of industry specialists and experienced professionals shapes the event by suggesting ideas, recommending topics and speakers, and spreading the word about fmx/09. We are happy to announce and welcome a particularly inspired team:

Matt Aitken (Weta Digital)
Matt has worked at Weta Digital since the early days of the company, supervising computer graphics on many film projects including “The Frighteners”, “Contact”, and “I, Robot”. Matt was Digital Models Supervisor on “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, pre-production / R&D Supervisor for “King Kong” and Visual Effects Supervisor on Bridge to “Terabithia”. Recently Matt has been working on Weta Digital projects including “Dambusters”, “Avatar”, “Tintin” and “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. Matt has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Victoria University of Wellington and a Master of Science in Computer Graphics from Middlesex University, London. He has had technical papers published by Eurographics and Graphite and has given presentations on Weta Digital’s work at many conferences and festivals including SIGGRAPH, FMX, the Australian Effects and Animation Festival, Imagina and the London Effects and Animation Festival.

Saraswathi Balgam (Rhythm & Hues India)
Saraswathi Balgam is the founding Director of Rhythm & Hues India. She has over 13 years of experience in the Indian animation and visual effects industry. She is also the President of ASIFA India and Women In Animation India, which are two non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting the art of Animation in India.

Michael Coldewey (Trixter)
Michael Coldewey is Founder and CEO of the Munich based company Trixter. He has also been President of the Association of Animation Producers in Germany (VdAP) for already 2 years.
Since its foundation in 1998, Trixter has produced a wide range of international animated feature films and TV series and cooperates as producer, co-producer and service provider with other leading European animation companies. In 2007 Trixter was Executive Producer of the theatrical life action movie “Lilly the Witch -The Dragon and the Magic Book” in co-production with Blue Eyes Fiction, for which Trixter also delivered CG animation and VFX. Other projects 2008 include CG animation and VFX for the new Wachowski ("The Matrix") film "Ninja Assassin" for Warner Bros and "Vorstadtkrokodile" as well as executive producing and CG animation of the CG feature film “Dragon Hunters” in coproduction with Futurikon, Paris. For the TV event movie "The Wonder of Lochness", Trixter won the German and Bavarian TV Award 2008. Prior to this Trixter provided CG animation services for the theatrical life action movie “HUI BUH - Das Schlossgespenst”, which was released by Constantin Film in Germany in summer 2006.

Elizabeth M. Daley (USC School of Cinematic Arts)
Elizabeth Daley was appointed dean of the USC School of Cinema-Television in May 1991. She is the inaugural holder of the Steven J. Ross/Time Warner Dean’s Chair. Daley was also the founding executive director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication (1994-2005) and serves as the executive director of the USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Since becoming dean, Daley has strengthened the school’s academic programs, infrastructure, and ties with the entertainment industry and media arts community. Under her leadership, the school has added two new divisions in animation & digital arts and interactive media, built the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, installed 13 endowed chairs, and formed successful partnerships with a variety of entertainment and technology companies. Before coming to USC, Daley served as director of the film and television subsidiary of the Mark Taper Forum, as producer for MGM/Television and as an independent producer and media consultant.

Paul Debevec (USC Institute for Creative Technologies)
Paul Debevec is the associate director of graphics research and a research associate professor at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (USC ICT). His Ph.D. thesis at UC Berkeley presented Façade, an image-based modeling and rendering system for creating virtual cinematography of architectural scenes from photographs. Using Façade he directed a photoreal animation of the Berkeley campus for his 1997 film "The Campanile Movie" whose techniques were later used to create virtual backgrounds in the "The Matrix". He went on to develop new image-based lighting techniques and led the design of HDR Shop, a pioneering high dynamic range image editing program. His most recent projects have involved photoreal face scanning and new forms of 3D displays. Paul received ACM SIGGRAPH's Significant New Researcher Award in 2001, co-authored "High Dynamic Range Imaging" in 2005, and chaired the SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival.

Laura Dohrman (NVIDIA)
Laura Dohrmann is NVIDIA’s worldwide manager of marketing to the film industry. In this role Ms. Dohrmann is responsible for all facets of branding, messaging, and presence for all NVIDIA professional products. Ms. Dohrmann spent a good portion of the last 18 months working on NVIDIA’s Digital Bollywood Initiative, spearheading development and training consultations with Indian studios to develop best practices for digital production and has since relocated to India to focus solely on the industry there. Ms. Dohrmann’s work with NVIDIA software and hardware products in film production, animation, and visual effects has also included stints in emerging markets that span China and Russia respectively. Ms. Dohrmann came to NVIDIA via Exluna, the NVIDIA-acquired software startup where, from founding to acquisition, she was responsible for all operations development.

Glenn Entis
Glenn Entis is a founding general partner in the Vancouver based venture fund VanEdge Capital. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice-President, Chief Visual and Technical Officer of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios, with the responsibility of leading EA’s worldwide community of over 3000 artists and engineers. Prior to EA, Glenn was CEO of DreamWorks Interactive, where he oversaw the development of the first titles in the “Medal of Honor” series. Before joining DreamWorks in 1995, Glenn co-founded the pioneering animation studio Pacific Data Images (now part of DreamWorks Animation). During his twelve years at PDI, Glenn wrote software, animated, produced, and helped lead the studio through its growth. In 1998 he received Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work at PDI.

Parag Havaldar (Sony Pictures Imageworks)
Parag Havaldar, software architect at Sony Pictures Imageworks, leads the performance capture technology group which develops proprietary software solutions for their performance capture pipeline including body and facial capture, retargeting, rigging, and animation solutions. Currently, Havaldar is implementing a new markerless video based motion capture system to assist full body animation for characters in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”. Most recently, Havaldar adapted his previous work on the facial action coding system (FACS) to work with markerless video captured on a live action set used to animate digital characters for Warner Bros. film “Watchmen”. Havaldar has revolutionized the performance capture process with the technology that incorporates data derived from the FACS, which is used to animate digital character faces from representative frames of key facial poses. The system was used on "Beowulf" and for all the facial shots on the performance capture film “Monster House”.

Rolf Herken (mental images)
Mr. Herken is the founder of mental images and the driving force behind its innovative technologies and products as well as its successful establishment as the global leader in core component technology for 3D modeling, collaboration and visualization. Trained as a Theoretical Physicist with a strong interest in Computer Science he established the company in 1986. Since then he has been serving as the company's CEO and CTO with primary responsibility for Research, Development, Technology Strategy, and the company's OEM business.

Ed Hooks
Ed Hooks, author of the bestselling book "Acting for Animators", pioneered the teaching of acting theory to animators. He has taught for many major studios, including Disney Feature Animation, DreamWorks/PDI, Lucas Arts, Sony, Valve, Animal Logic, and Electronic Arts. Ed is a regular speaker at conferences worldwide, including GDC and Animex Animation Festival in Teesside England. Ed's newest book is "Acting in Animation: A Look at 12 Films".

Henry LaBounta (Electronic Arts)
As Chief Visual Officer at EA Black Box in Vancouver, Academy Award nominee Henry LaBounta oversees the visual look of many of EA’s games. Working with selected teams to set the look and style of the games he partners with the designers, art directors, technicians and producers from visual development through production. LaBounta is currently working with the 'Need for Speed', 'Godfather' and 'Skate' teams. He recently completed work on EA's new highly rated game "Skate" while he consulted on "Burnout Paradise". LaBounta joined EA as Senior Art Director for 'SSX3' and since then has also held the role of Chief Visual Officer for EA Sports. LaBounta came to EA via PDI/DreamWorks, where he supervised visual effects for “Minority Report”. Other recent film credits include “A.I.”, “Mission Impossible 2” and “Forces of Nature” and “The Prince of Egypt”.

Don Levy (Sony Pictures)
Don Levy is senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Digital Production Division of Sony Pictures. Levy directs the corporate communications, marketing and public relations for Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks. From 2000-2007, Levy led the marketing and communication efforts of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment where he was involved in a range of new media business and start-ups, including Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures Mobile, Sony Media Software, Soap City, Screenblast, Sony Pictures Digital networks and Movielink. Levy joined Sony Pictures Imageworks in 1996 during the group’s founding stages. Since then, with Levy directing its communication efforts, Imageworks has gone on to become and award-winning visual effects and digital character animation company. His credits include “Spider-Man™, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”, “Superman Returns”, “Spider-Man™3” , “I am Legend” and “Surf’s Up”.

Andy Lomas (Framestore)
Andy Lomas is Head of Computer Graphics at Framestore, Europe's largest visual effects and animation company. Over the last 16 years he has been involved in a wide range of projects ranging from commercials and long form television to live action visual effects and CG feature animation. His credits include “The Matrix: Reloaded”, “The Matrix: Revolutions”, “Over the Hedge”, “Lost in Space”, “Fairy Tale: A True Story”, “The Odyssey”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Arabian Nights” and “Jason and the Argonauts”. Most recently he has been working on Framestore's first fully CG animated feature film: “The Tale of Despereaux”. He has won numerous awards, including Emmys for supervising the computer generated effects on “The Odyssey” and “Alice in Wonderland”. Andy is also an active digital artist, exploring the complex nature of forms that emerge from the digital simulation of growth systems.

Terrence Masson
Terrence Masson has served the computer graphics community with inspiring leadership, innovative creative techniques and technical problem solving over the past 19 years. Major studio collaborations have included The Trumbull Company, Digital Domain, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Dreamworks and two tours at ILM. Terrence also single-handedly created the original CG animation and rendering techniques to launch "South Park" in 1996 and has recently published a completely updated and revised 2nd Edition of his popular book “CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference”. Terrence is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the Visual Effects Society as well as ACM/SIGGRAPH for which he is serving as 2010 Conference Chair. He is currently developing a Game Design curriculum at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.

Shelley Page (Dreamworks Animation)
Shelley Page started her career in feature animation as backgrounds supervisor on Disney's 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' which she followed by joining Steven Spielberg's Amblimation Studio in 1989.
She moved to Los Angeles in 1995 to join the startup of DreamWorks Animation. Currently she is DreamWorks' Head of International Outreach and is based in London.

David Sproxton (Aardman Animations)
David Sproxton is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Aardman Animations Ltd, which has produced such land-mark films as the Oscar®-winning short Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Wererabbit and Flushed Away. He is also on the Board of the UK Film Council and the National Film Television School.

Sebastian Sylwan (Weta Digital)
Sebastian is currently Head of Research & Development at Weta Digital; previously he was the Senior Industry Manager for Film at Autodesk, where he helped shape the strategic direction of all Autodesk products for the Film industry. Before joining Autodesk, Sebastian was Director of Technology at Digital Domain, where he led the technology department into some never ventured before areas, including setting up the pipeline for DD's first Stereoscopic rendition of a CG animated movie. Previously he did research work as Principal Technology Advisor at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies Graphics Lab. He led the project for the design and construction of Light Stage 6, the world's largest and most advanced BRDF capture device. Sebastian started his career and lived most of his life in Italy where he built Lumiq Studios, Italy's largest and most advanced TV, VFX and Animation studio.