Aliens Among Us: The Visual Effects of District 9
September 29, 2009
How do you build a starship hundreds of metres across and load it full of aliens on a budget of only 30 million dollars? Very economically. Vancouver's own Image Engine is coming to the Empire Theatre on Tuesday, September 29 to give us an inside look at building and animating aliens in Neill Blomkamp's stellar feature film directorial debut, District 9.
Vancouver has been a major centre of the Sci-Fi universe for decades now, with high quality productions such as the X-Files, Battlestar Gallactica and the many incarnations of Stargate having all been filmed here — but until now only a few of these shows have posted their effects in Vancouver, and almost none of the feature films shot here make use of our local VFX facilities. Image Engine is helping to turn that ship around, having completed over 300 shots for this summer blockbuster, a film shot in South Africa, but with huge portions of the VFX work being done on the flats of South False Creek.
Please join us and a large audience of your peers as 6 key staff who helped make this project a huge success present their work and share their experiences. Doors open at 6 pm and the panel starts at 7 pm.
Sales are closed at this time.
PANEL
Tuesday - September 29, 7:00 PM
Aliens Among Us: The Visual Effects of District 9
moderator: Shawn Walsh with James Stewart, Jon Cowley, Shervin Shoghian, Tim Belsher & Bernhard Kimbacher
Empire Theatre
855 Granville St.
Vancouver, Canada
Image Engine contributed over 300 visual effects shots including digital aliens to Neill Blomkamp's directorial debut District 9. Join key staff from Image Engine for an in depth behind the scenes presentation and discussion concerning the process of creating 2009's most memorable creatures.
SPEAKERS BIOS
Bernhard Kimbacher
On-Set Visual Effects Data Coordinator / Compositor
Bernhard's work on District 9 started in June 2008 as the On-Set Visual Effects Data Coordinator in Johannesburg, South Africa. After the principal photography he re-joined the team at Image Engine as Compositor. Bernhard graduated from Vancouver Film School in 2006, then started working at Image Engine first as Previz-Artist and 3D-Generalist and later on moved to the Compositing Team. His credits include The Incredible Hulk, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Watchmen.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
James Stewart
Creature Supervisor
James Stewart's role on District 9 was Creature Supervisor. James began his career as a modeler at Mainframe Entertainment before heading to Dreamworks Animation and Rhythm & Hues. During this time James worked on such notable films as Shrek 2, Madagascar and The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. James' career next took him to London to head up the character department at The Moving Picture Company where he was the Creature Supervisor on such films as 10000 B.C., Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix and Prince Caspian.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
Jon Cowley
Visual Effects Sequence Supervisor
Jon Cowley's role on District 9 was Visual Effects Sequence Supervisor. Prior to joining Image Engine Jon has supervised at a number of local Vancouver facilities including Prime Focus, Entity North and Technicolor Creative Services. Jon began his career a decade ago in the Toronto boutique visual effects industry. Jon's credit list includes everything from campy classics like Friday the 13th Part 10 and Ice Cube's Are We Done Yet, to more mainstream projects like The X-Files:I Want To Believe, Smallville and Watchmen.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
Shawn Walsh
VFX Executive Producer
Shawn's role on District 9 was Visual Effects Executive Producer. Shawn worked with closely with director Neill Blomkamp and WingNut Films during pre-production to establish the scope of the visual effects for District 9. Shawn was responsible for overseeing the entire project at Image Engine with particular attention to the budget, the client relationship and the staffing the Image Engine crew. Shawn came to Image Engine in 2006 after spending several years abroad working at such venerable visual effects studios as Rhythm and Hues, The Moving Picture Company and ESC Entertainment. During this time away from Vancouver Shawn contributed to such notable films as The Matrix: Revolutions, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, as a Senior Lighting Technical Director and Compositor.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
Shervin Shoghian
Compositing Supervisor
Shervin's role on District 9 was as Compositing Supervisor. Prior to joining Image Engine, Shervin worked at various boutique shops in Toronto and Vancouver. He has worked on such critically acclaimed films as the highly anticipated Watchmen, the Oscar-winning The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the visual effects packed blockbuster X-Men: The Last Stand, The Fantastic Four, Outlander, and The Incredible Hulk. With a background in graphic design Shervin has also worked at various commercial studios as a designer and has been nominated and awarded the BDA award for his contribution to commercial works.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
Tim Belsher
Computer Graphics Supervisor
Tim's role on District 9 was Computer Graphics Supervisor. Prior to this he worked at Rainmaker Animation as a CG Supervisor on their CG feature Escape from Planet Earth and at Vanguard Animation as the Lead Lighting TD on Space Chimps. He worked at Industrial Light + Magic as a CG Software Engineer and Technical Director from 2002 to 2006. His credits at ILM include Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds and Poseidon. Tim started his career as a Technical Lead/Software Developer at Mainframe Entertainment Inc.
Image-Engine.com
IMDb.com
© 2009 · Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH · info@siggraph.ca
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