Advisory Board

FMX 2010 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 2010. We are happy to announce and welcome a particularly inspired team.

Members

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Viktor Antonov Viktor Antonov was born and grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, then immigrated to Paris France at age 17. He is renowned for creating compelling fictional worlds that combine beauty with striking realism. Viktor is a winner of the Visual Effects Society and a BAFTA award for best art direction. In his 11 years in the entertainment industry he has designed and art directed projects such as the blockbuster “Half Life 2”. He’s an author of the illustrated novel "The Colony", published in the US in 2009. He’s currently a production designer and co-author of the french animated feature “The Prodigies”.

Doug Chiang (ImageMovers Digital) Academy Award-winning artist, Production Designer, and Author Doug Chiang began his career as a commercial Director and Designer for Rhythm and Hues, Digital Productions, and Robert Abel and Associates. At Industrial Light and Magic, where he became the Creative Director in 1993, he served as Visual Effects Art Director on such films as “Terminator 2,” “Ghost,” “The Doors,” “The Mask,” and Robert Zemeckis’s “Forrest Gump” and “Death Becomes Her” (for which Doug earned his Oscar and second British Academy Award). In 1995 Doug moved to Lucasfilm, LTD to serve as Design Director on the first two of the three Star Wars prequel films before forming IceBlink Studios, LLC, his film-design studio. From 2002 to 2009, he served as Production Designer on the films “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf,” and “A Christmas Carol” as well as designer on “Monster House” and “War of the Worlds.” Currently, he is Production Designer for “Mars Needs Moms” due to be released in 2011. In 2006, Doug joined Robert Zemeckis to help form ImageMovers Digital, LLC, a new film studio created in partnership with the Walt Disney Studios and dedicated to performance capture filmmaking. Currently, Doug is ImageMovers Digital’s Executive Vice President.

Michael Coldewey (Trixter) Michael Coldewey is Founder and CEO of the Munich based company Trixter. 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 Michael Coldewey was 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 he received a nomination for the German film award LOLA. Michael Coldewey is also Producer of “Lilly the Witch - Journey to Mandolan”. Shooting of which took place in Babelsberg and India. Trixter Film is delivering CG animation and VFX. The movie will be released in 2011. Other projects in 2009 include CG animation and VFX for example for the new Wachowski (“The Matrix”) film “Ninja Assassin” for Warner Bros and VFX services for numerous German feature films. Michael Coldewey is Member of the Jury for Hessische Filmförderung as well as Member at EFA and German Producer Alliance.

Elizabeth Daley (University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts) Elizabeth Daley was appointed dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts 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 and digital arts and interactive media, built the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, installed 14 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.

Oliver Deussen (University of Konstanz) Prof. Oliver Deussen studied computer science University of Karlsruhe. He is a Professor of Computer Graphics and Media Informatics at University of Konstanz since 2003. He is interested in modelling of complexity, in artistic rendering methods, so-called Non-Photorealistic Rendering and Information Visualization. Prof. Deussen tries to establish a scientific program at FMX that aims at combining recent advances in computer graphics with cool applications in film, game industry and education.

Thomas Ertl (University of Stuttgart) Prof. Thomas Ertl is a full professor of computer science at the University of Stuttgart, Germany and the head of the Visualization and Interactive Systems Institute (VIS) and the Visualization Research Center (VISUS). He received a MS in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a PhD in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Tuebingen. His research interests include visualization, computer graphics, and human computer interaction.

Markus Gross (ETH Zurich) Prof. Dr. Gross is a professor of computer science at ETH Zurich, head of the Computer Graphics Laboratory and the director of Disney Research Zurich. For more than 20 years Prof. Dr. Gross has been pursuing research in computer graphics, image generation and display, geometric modeling, and computer animation. His research interests include point-based graphics, physically-based modeling, immersive displays, and 3D video. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and he holds various patents on core graphics and visualization technologies.

Klaus Haasis (MFG) Klaus Haasis is known as creative coach, innovation manager and communication architect. He can look back on more than 30 years experience in designing communication processes and relationship systems. He held jobs in the Creative Industries, the ICT-Sector as well as in the chemical and pharmaceutical Industry. The media pioneer is CEO of MFG Baden-Württemberg, one of the leading innovation agencies in Europe fostering creative industries, ICT and media. Klaus Haasis is member of the Board of Directors of TCI – the global practitioners’ network for competitiveness, clusters and innovation based in Barcelona. Within the TCI Board of Directors he is responsible for the regional chapter Europe as well as for European institutional relationships. Originally a reproduction photographer and advertising manager by training, Mr. Haasis graduated from Stuttgart Media University with a degree in Media Technology as well as from the University of Hohenheim with a second degree in Journalism. He is author of several books, like “Digital Paths to New Markets” (2009). Klaus Haasis is in demand as a speaker, lecturer, author and consultant on cluster policy, Web 2.0 strategies, relationship systems and communication processes.

Andy Hendrickson (Walt Disney Animation Studios) As Chief Technology Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Andy Hendrickson is responsible for the technology strategy and direction used to create the fairy tale worlds of Disney's films. Prior to joining Disney, Hendrickson was Head of Technology at PDI/Dreamworks creators of “Shrek” and “Madagascar”. He held the post of Senior Technology Officer for Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Whether bringing a T-Rex to life, creating planets inhabited by Droids, or turning back time to Pearl Harbor, he was responsible for all strategic planning and operations of the studio's software and systems. Hendrickson began his career in the motion picture industry in 1990 as a Digital Design Engineer at Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm, assisting in the transformation of the sound post-production industry from analog tape to digital bits. Hendrickson is a member of SMPTE and active in the area of technology for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Subject areas of interest include image perception, high dynamic range, robotics, non-photorealistic rendering, 3D stereographic display, and motion simulation/synthesis.

Pierre Hénon (Paris ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter) Pierre Hénon has a Master in Mathematics/Statistics and holds a PhD in Urbanism. He is a professor at ENSAD (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) where he created a post-graduate course on Computer Graphics in 1982 (AII - Atelier d'Image et d'Informatique). He has been a member of ACM SIGGRAPH for more than 20 years and is an active officer of the Paris ACM SIGGRAPH chapter. His research axes are New media, Virtual worlds and the story of French computer graphics. He is the manager of the dedicated website http://histoire3d.siggraph.org.

Nico Hofmann (teamWorx) Nico Hofmann is the Chairman of the Executive Board of teamWorx Television & Film GmbH and as a producer and director, he stands for films that relay unusual stories while exhibiting a high standard of craftsmanship. Hofmann, who founded teamWorx together with Wolf Bauer in 1998, has turned the company - a UFA/FremantleMedia Group enterprise - into one of the most important German television producers. With event productions like “Der Tunnel”, “Die Luftbrücke - Nur der Himmel war frei”, “Die Sturmflut”, “Dresden”, “Die Flucht” and "Mogadischu", Hofmann has set some major trends in the German television industry, making teamWorx into a pan-European market leader in the area of event TV. Since 1995, he has been holding lectures as an appointed professor of the Department for Scenic Film at the Film Academy of Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. Together with Bernd Eichinger, he also created an award for the industry’s newcomers, FIRST STEPS, an annual award bestowed on graduate thesis films by students from film academies.

Isaac Kerlow (Siggraph 2010 CAF) Isaac Kerlow is a creator that pioneered the use of digital technology for creative applications. Isaac started his career as an artist in New York City, and freelanced as animator and designer for the early videogame industry. He was in charge of the art production group at Disney Interactive in the late 1990s and later led the integration of new digital technologies throughout the art production pipeline of The Walt Disney Company. Isaac is the author of several books, including the successful "The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects," now in its 4th edition and translated to Mandarin, Russian, Japanese and Korean. Isaac has been involved with education on-and-off, starting in the 1980s the first BFA/MFA Computer Animation program in the USA at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and in 2006 the first professional art/animation/film school in Singapore, at the Nanyang Technological University. Isaac is chairing the SIGGRAPH 2010 Computer Animation Festival/Electronic Theater.

Karsten Kiilerich (A.Film) Karsten Kiilerich was born in Slagelse, Denmark. After attending the "The animationschool of Copenhagen" from 1981 to 1982, he began working fulltime as animator on Danish featurefilm "Valhalla" in 1983. In 1988 he founded A.Film with partners. Karsten Kiilerich worked in all branches of animation, ranging from feature-films, shorts and TV-series. He worked as an animator, scriptwriter, director, concept-developer and creative producer. In addition, Karsten Kiilerich is a winner of a large number of international film prizes and was Oscar nominated in 1999 (Director - When life departs). Karsten is a board member of the Danish Film Director’s Association and of Animation Workshop in Viborg.

Andy Lomas (The Foundry) Andy Lomas is working as Lead Engineer, leading the development of look-development and lighting tools at The Foundry with responsibility for integrating core elements of the Katana technology acquired by The Foundry from Sony ImageWorks into their products. He was Head of Computer Graphics at Framestore before. Over the last 17 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” and "The Tale of Despereaux". Most recently he has been working on Framestore's contribution to “Avatar”. 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 (Northeastern University, Creative Industries) 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 Director of Creative Industries at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.

Xavier Nicolas (Lucasfilm Animation) Xavier Nicolas' career in animation and computer graphics has spanned over 25 years - from commercial films and corporate presentations, to visual effects - in Europe and Asia. His domain experience includes both computer graphics production and studio management. Recently, Xavier has been instrumental in business development for visual technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Believe Inc. and PiXlogic Inc. Prior to joining Lucasfilm, he was one of the original founders of the SOGITEC CG Group, then President of Ex Machina, a pioneering computer animation studio in Europe, with offices in Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Xavier’s production credits also include various large format film attractions for Iwerks Entertainment and stereoscopic films for international expositions in Japan and Korea as well as high-end games for Atari and Square-Enix.

Shelley Page (DreamWorks Animation) Shelley has been working in the field of feature animation since 1986. Her career in animation began when she worked in London with legendary animation director Richard Williams from 1982. In 1988 she served as head of backgrounds on the Walt Disney film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”. In 1989 she was hired by Steven Spielberg as artist at the Amblimation Studio. In early 1995 she moved to Los Angeles as one of the first team of artists to join Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen's new studio, DreamWorks Animation to become co-head of Artist Development. Her current projects include building relationships with animation schools and festivals worldwide and sourcing new talent for future projects. She is a member of the graduation juries and advisory boards of leading animation schools and in the UK, Europe and worldwide. Since 2006 Shelley has also become closely involved with the animation community in India and with several of the leading academic institutions and festivals. Her film credits include “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Shrek 1+2+3”, “Shark Tale”, “Shrek 2”, “Madagascar”, “Over the Hedge”, “Bee Movie”, “Kung Fu Panda”, “Madagascar 2” and “Monsters vs Aliens”. Current DreamWorks projects in production for 2010 release are “How to Train Your Dragon”, “Shrek Forever After” and “Oobermind”.

Maurice Patel (Autodesk) Maurice Patel is the industry and product marketing manager for Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment business. He is responsible for the company’s presence across the film, television and games segments. A noted authority on media and entertainment trends, Maurice is a frequent public speaker. He is regularly called upon to share his expertise on topics ranging from digital cinema, digital intermediates and digital lifelike environments, to the future of visual effects and Bollywood’s growing footprint. Maurice has keynoted at FICCI FRAMES in Mumbai, and has presented at countless industry events, including The Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) Technology Retreat, Digital Hollywood, The Entertainment Technology Alliance Conference, The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) Conference and The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention. Maurice joined Autodesk in March 2001. A graduate of Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK, Maurice has worked in digital post production since 1995 when he joined Avid Technology as product specialist. He later became industry specialist for the company.

Gabriele Röthemeyer (MFG Baden-Württemberg) After her studies of German, theatre and journalism in Munich, Gabriele Röthemeyer worked as commissioning editor and producer/director of television documentaries for educational programs at the North German Broadcasting Corp. and ZDF. Between 1982 and 1989 she served as dramatic adviser and producer for several film and television production companies in Hamburg (Provobis, FFP). This followed a five-year period of free-lance writing/directing features and documentaries for public television (culture and film departments mainly). In 1995, she was appointed CEO of MFG Film Fund, Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg. Between 2003 and 2005 she was in charge of Film- und Medienfestival GmbH Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg.

Alexander W. Roos (Stuttgart Media University) Prof. Dr. Alexander W. Roos is principal of the Stuttgart Media University. His research interests are focused on electronic business, business process management and information systems in media industry lines. Prof. Dr. Roos teaches business information management, controlling, media management and electronic business. He was team member and leader of the research group "Information Management" at Fraunhofer IAO with project partners in Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium. Since 1997 he is Professor at the Stuttgart Media University (former HBI) and broaded his international experience as a team member of the project team of BOBCATSSS-symposiums in Slovakia, Slovenia, and Czech Republic. In addition to research activities and establishing business contacts, Prof. Dr. Roos organised conference presentations in Europe, and e.g. USA, China, Japan, Australia. In 2008 he became Honorary Professor at the Mingyu Jiaoshou/Xi'an University of Science and Technology.

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 National Film Television School and has recently taken over as Chairman of Encounters, Bristol’s International Short Film Festival.

Sebastian Sylwan (Weta Digital) Sebastian Sylwan is Head of Research and Development at Weta Digital. In this role, he is helping bring structure and continued impetus to Weta Digital's long tradition of Innovation in VFX. Before joining Weta, Sebastian served as Autodesk's Senior Film Industry Manager. He helped set the strategy for Autodesk's products in the global film market, including the first steps into stereoscopic 3D. Previously, Sylwan was Director of Technology at Digital Domain, an Academy Award-winning VFX facility. He successfully renewed Digital Domain's technology infrastructure while maintaining the legacy value of over 13 years and helped it venture into new areas like the development of the facility's first stereoscopic rendition of a CG animated film. Sylwan has also served as Principal Technology Advisor at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies where he led the Light Stage 6 project. While living in Italy where he grew up, Sylwan designed, built and acted as the CTO of Lumiq Studios, the country's largest production, post-production and 3D character animation studio.

Courtney Vanderslice-Law (Cinesite) As Production Director, Courtney is responsible for one of the largest and busiest visual effects production companies in Europe. She was instrumental in starting up both Cinesite Hollywood and Cinesite in London, and assembling an international team of some of the most talented effects artists in the world. A BAFTA member since 2000, Courtney was a jury member for the Visual Effects award in 2001 and 2003 and has a reputation for being a major player in the international visual effects industry. She was also one of the founders of the UK section of the internationally acclaimed Visual Effects Society, for which she has twice been voted Secretary and Treasurer by her peers (currently serving in this position). With over twenty years’ experience in television and feature films, both in Hollywood and the UK, Courtney’s previous responsibilities have included strategic planning, business development and finance. With Courtney at the helm of Cinesite’s production team, visual effects have been completed on over seventy film and television productions including “Generation Kill” for which Courtney won an Emmy Award in 2009 and “The Golden Compass”, which won both an Oscar and BAFTA for Visual Effects in 2007 (Cinesite contributed over 475 key shots). Other current and recent productions include “Clash of the Titans” (Warner Bros), “John Carter of Mars” (Walt Disney Pictures), “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” (Walt Disney Pictures), “The Prisoner” (AMC/ITV), “Bedtime Stories” (Walt Disney Pictures), “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” (Walt Disney Pictures) and all the “Harry Potter” films to date (Warner Bros.).

Faruk Yerli Ever since Faruk bought his first computer, a Commodore C64, he has been a passionate gamer. Before establishing Crytek with his two brothers, he earned an MBA in Marketing and Economics. Both during and after his studies he ran a successful agency for Communication and Design focusing on creative marketing strategies for his clients. At Crytek, Faruk's primary responsibilities include marketing and business development. Crytek is one of the world’s leading independent development studios for interactive entertainment with its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and additional studios in Kiev (Ukraine), Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea) and Nottingham (UK). The company is dedicated to creating exceptionally high quality video games for the PC and next-generation consoles, powered by their proprietary cutting edge 3D-Game-Technology CryENGINE®. Since its foundation, Crytek created the multi-award winning PC titles Far Cry®, Crysis, awarded best PC Game of E3 2007 and Best Technology at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards and Crysis Warhead®, awarded Best Graphics Technology at IGN Best of 2008 Awards.