FEATURE FILM

“UPSIDE / DOWN” art director digital sets	2011	Production Designer Alex McDowell, Director Juan Solanas Onyx Films
“KINGDOM COME" art director digital sets	2011	Previs Supervisor: Chris Edwards, Director Dean Wright  w/ The Third Floor. and Weta Digital
“MEGAMIND” 3D concept artist, digital set designer	2010	Production Designer David James, Director Tom McGrath DreamWorks Animation
“THE GUARDIANS” 3D concept artist, digital set designer	2011	Production Designer Alex McDowell DreamWorks Animation
“SHINE A LIGHT – ROLLING STONES" digital set designer, 3d environment td	2007	CG Supervisor: Danny Braet, Director Martin Scorsese Paramount Pictures w/ The Syndicate
“SPIDERMAN 3" digital set designer, 3d environment td	2007	CG Supervisor: Akira Orikasa, Director Sam Raimi, Sony Pictures w/ CaféFX
“THE DA VINCI CODE"  digital set designer, 3d environment supervisor	2006	VFX Supervisor: James Madigan,  Director Ron Howard Columbia Pictures w/ The Senate
“SIN CITY"  digital set designer, lead 3d artist	2005	CG Supervisor  Everett Burrell, Director Robert Rodriguez  Dimension Films w/ CaféFX,
“CATWOMAN"  digital set designer, 3d environment td	2004	VFX Supervisor Kim Libreri, Director: Pitof ,  Warner Bros.ESC Entertainment
“MATRIX REVOLUTIONS"  digital set designer, 3d environment td	2004	VFX Supervisor Kim Libreri, Director: Wachowski Brothers Warner Bros ESC Entertainment
“MATRIX RELOADED"  digital set designer, 3d environment td	2003	VFX Supervisor Kim Libreri, Director: Wachowski Brothers Warner Bros ESC Entertainment
“13 GHOSTS"  digital set designer, 3d environment td	2001	VFX Supervisor Dan Glass, Director: Steve Beck Manex VFX, Warner Bros

COMMERCIALS

“Espn Monday Night”	2006	VFX Supervisor Danny Braet
art director digital sets, 3d environment td		w/ The Syndicate
“Ford Fusion”	2005	VFX Supervisor Danny Braet
art director digital sets, 3d environment td		w/ The Syndicate, TV ad campaign
“The Davinci Code” Teaser	2005	VFX Supervisor Andrew Honnacker, Columbia Pictures
3d environment td		w/ Engine Room,
“Mtv Movie Awards”	2007	w/ NAU Creative
visual effects supervisor		Director Raffi Simonian
“Team One”	2007	w/ FullTank,
3d concept artist, lead 3d environment td		corporate design package

EXPERIENCE

• Combined architectural and 3D computer graphics training to supervise the design, construction and asset management of digital environments both within the art department and post production studios

• Worked in 3D alongside Production Designer and art department team to obtain final approval for concept before taking the 3D /2D assets further into previsualization and post production.

• 14 years of visual effects and computer graphics projects

• Supervised 3D modelers, animators, compositors and programmers from shot inception to final delivery.

• Extended experience in 3D modeling, image retouching, rendering and animation applications

• Maya, mental ray®  10y , Shake 3y, Adobe Photoshop 17y CS, Adobe Premiere, AutoCAD

 

CLIENTS | COMPANIES | SCOPE OF WORK

xyBlue Design
Los Angeles, CA

Art Direction Design And Techinal Supervision For Digital Sets, 2004 - present
owner xyBlue Design Inc; design, construction, shot development, camera animation , digital set pipeline setup, C&L, rendering;  “Upside Down” (Onyx Films 2011), “Kingdom Come” (w/ The Third Floor.and Weta Digital 2010) ; “Shine a Light – Rolling Stones” (Paramount Pictures, 2007) ; “Spiderman 3” (Sony Pictures, 2007) ; “The Da Vinci Code” (Columbia Pictures 2006) ; Sin City” (Dimension Films, 2005). “The DaVinci Code” teaser (Columbia Pictures, 2006).; “Ford Fusion” TV ad campaign, 2005; “ESPN Monday Night Football”, opening titles, 2006 ; “MTV Movie Awards” opening titles, 2007; “Team ONE” corporate design package, 2007

Dreamworks Animation
Glendake, CA

3D Concept Artists, Visual Development 3D environments, 2008 - present
2 upcoming features, (with Alex McDowell, David James and DreamWorks Animation, 2010, 2011); worked with Production designer to design and build 3D environments optimized both for virtual scouting and design style panels based on rendered 3D models and short camera animations, helped develop Intersense presentation protocols for full immersion in a 3D environment and real time camera manipulation.

ESC fx
Alameda, CA

Technical Director - Digital Sets, 2001-2004
Virtual background tools for photogrammetric reconstruction and extended dynamic range texturing methods used for set reconstruction from Lidar scanned data for "Catwoman" (Warner Bros. 2004).

Shot development, digital sets, rendering, camera animation for “Matrix Reloaded” and “Matrix Revolutions” (Warner Bros., 2003).

Used Maya for modeling and design. Rendered the scenes with mental ray using proprietary shader library and light extraction algorithm.

For the night scenes, the sets were built around the ESC virtual background tools for photogrammetric reconstruction and extended dynamic range texturing methods. Responsible for the sets around the freeway chase, the jet shot and the night flight in “Matrix Reloaded”. Responsible for the city design for the sky fight sequences in “Matrix Revolution”.

MANEX VISUAL EFFECTS / CINESITE
Alameda, CA / Hollywood, CA

Technical Director - Digital Sets, 2000-present

Worked with production design team to transfer a built environment into its digital equivalent.

The set was designed by Sean Haregreaves for “13 Ghosts” (Warner Bros., 2001).

Used Maya for modeling, texturing and lighting. Cameras were extracted from live footage and tracked in Maya on a shot by shot basis.

Worked with visual effects supervisor and editorial to customize Maya and Shake for rendering in the specific color space required for film production. Responsible for several shots from inception to final delivery.

ENTERTAINMENT DESIGN WORKSHOP
Sheffield, MA

Virtual Set Designer, 1999-2000
Designed and modeled virtual sets for real time Disney television series based on “The Book of Pooh”.
Entertainment Design Workshop, under the direction of Douglas Trumbull, tries to create a breakthrough paradigm for integrating TV and feature movies production with digital sets. I modeled the sets in Maya, transferred them to a real-time virtual set software running on an Onyx machine and connected to a motion control camera. Elset was coordinating the real space input from the camera with the virtual set space allowing a real time compositing during the production. Texturing of the sets was done in the EDW Art department using both 2D and 3D painting software (Photoshop, Painter and Deep Paint).

CALIBRE DIGITAL PICTURES
Toronto, ON

Digital Set Designer / Layout Designer, 1999
Worked on set design, modeling, rendering, lighting, camera animation and layout design for combined 2D/3D 16x9 feature for Hanover World Expo. Modeled in Alias Power Animator, animated cameras, textured and lit the sets in Maya1.5.

DAN KRECH PRODUCTIONS
Toronto, ON

Digital Set Designer / Layout designer, 1997 - 1999
Worked on set design, modeling, rendering, lighting, camera animation and layout design for 48 minutes 3D animated feature to be released on video for Christmas 1999. Used both Alias Power Animator and Softimage for building and lighting the sets, including a model of an 18^th century town prepared for a 2-minute walk through. Supervised modelers and presented them with previsualization schemes and layouts which they further detailed.

GRAYMATTER INC.
Toronto, ON

Digital Set Designer / Computer Animator, 1995 - 1997
Worked on 3D multimedia project related to motion picture release -- “The Crow - City of Angels” (Edward Pressman Productions). Designed, modeled, textured and lit 3D digital sets using Alias Power Animator. Rendered high-resolution images and z-depth channels of the sets corresponding to several possible viewing angles. Animated camera lights and textures for full motion video inserts containing motion capture animated characters.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,

Computer Resources Laboratory
Cambridge, MA

Fulbright Scholar, 1993-1994

Worked on research project using Autolisp to create perspective restitution routine inside Autocad (project adviser - Prof. William J. Mitchell) / Built computer model of Le Corbusier building and studied different lighting conditions in 3DStudio and Radiance (project adviser Takehiko

Nakagura). Made study on shape grammars and computer modeling for a series of Byzantine churches / Design team member for urban park and 20,000 places stadium in Okayama (Japan).

CHISHOLM - WASHINGTON ARCHITECTS, Inc.
Cambridge, MA

3D Modeler / Design Architect, 1994-1995
Produced 3D computer models, detail design, material and texture studies for the Boston Central Artery Tunnel Project. / Design team member with Paul Lukez Architects for Boston City Hall Plaza Competition. Built computer model of urban design proposal.

INSTITUT EUROPEEN D'ARCHITECTURE ET AMENAGEMENT
Rouen-France; Valencia- Spain

Design Architect, 1990-1992
Designed public spaces and new architectural infill for rehabilitation of 13th century Spanish village in Villajoyosa/Spain. Made preliminary proposal and concept sketches for technological park in Annecy/France situated 50 km from Geneva.

SOFTWARE / HARDWARE

• 10 years production experience in Maya and mental ray® – modeling, rendering, camera animation

• 3 years working with proprietary photogrammetric reconstruction software and extended dynamic range texturing tools

• Experimented with Intersense  virtual location scouting allowing the director and DP full camera control and immersion

• mental ray®  rendering, some shader scripting and assembly. Light extraction algorithms for image base rendering

• Integrated 3D Maya production with virtual set software (Elset) allowing real time composting during production

• 2 years production experience in Alias Power Animator

• 7 months production experience in Softimage 3D – .:modeling, mental ray rendering, layout design.s

• Proficient in UNIX, Windows and Macintosh environments

• Fluent in French, Romanian. Studied German, Russian, Italian.

PUBLICATIONS / AWARDS

• 2009 Perspective Magazine, Art Directors Guild "The Medium And the Message" (August)

• 2008 Elemental 3 Awards Committee »

• 2007 CGW – “Entertainment architects” (Nov ember) »

• 2007 - Maya Masters nominee »

• 2007 - Judge for CG Architect International Visualization Competition

• 2007 - VizMasters Convention presentation: Hybrid Production Design Pipelines

• 2006 - CGW – “Staging Action on Virtual Sets” (Aug 2006) »

• 2006 - Cinefex “The DaVinci Code”, CGW, 3D World #106

• 2006 - CG Architect: “Production Design: from analog to digital to built environments and back" (July)

• 2004, Cinefex “Matrix Revolutions, heavy metal” – short interview (#97)

• 2004, CGNetworks article on “Matrix Revolutions" (April)

• 1998, Computer Graphics World “A Case For Digital Set Design” – 2 page presentation, including pictures (April)

• 1998, Top 3D artists Site

• Internet site (www.xybd.com ) selected and published by exclusive “TOP 3D Artists Ring”.

EDUCATION

PRATT INSTITUTE / MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
New York, NY / Cambridge, MA
Awarded Fulbright Scholarship to pursue Master of Architecture 2 with a minor in CAD. 1992 - May 1994. Credits were taken both at Pratt and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thesis: "A study on the relations among visual perception psychology, the logic of typology processes and the theoretical basis of computer aided design". Thesis adviser: Dr. Richard Scherr - Chair of the Graduate Department of Architecture, Pratt Institute.

"ION MINCU" INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE

Bucharest, Romania

Master of Architecture, 1984 -1990 Thesis: "A Multifunctional Art Center".