PFW KEY TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

Transcription

1 PFW KEY TEAM BIOGRAPHIES 1 2

2 SEAN FEENEY JIM LANDIS With a 20-year career in animation and post-production, Sean brings considerable knowledge and extensive experience to his role as Senior Vice President of the Prime Focus World Animation Division. Based in London, Sean s most recent success has been the delivery of 41 episodes of full CG animation for Legends of Chima. As Senior Vice President, Business Development & Technology, Jim s focus is to broaden the impact of both Prime Focus World s and Prime Focus Technologies lines of service offerings. Through a savvy technical sense, Jim has been putting emphasis on drawing parallels between 3D, VFX, CG animation and post into a number of areas, as well as the cloud-based technology CLEAR solutions for theatrical, home entertainment, broadcast and digital nonlinear arenas. Senior Vice President - Animation Sean is currently overseeing the delivery of two further shows, as well as developing PFW s global animation profile and leading pitches on new projects. With the advent of the Chima project in 2011, Sean s background and experience marked him as the natural choice to lead the successful creative pitch, and ultimately to head up the global Animation Division. Senior Vice President - LA Jim is a senior technology and business operations executive with extensive experience in leveraging new technologies with internal product engineering and marketing teams at media, entertainment and technology companies. He has accomplished business, IT and digital content initiatives within the media and entertainment, consumer goods, high tech, and telecommunications industries in multiple geographies licensing hundreds of hours of sports, news and entertainment programming to the world s broadcasters.

3 JOHN HARVEY PIERS CLIFTON With a background in both traditional animation and visual effects supervision, John has been instrumental in setting up and establishing the Animation Division of Prime Focus World globally. As Creative Director of the division, he has overseen the successful delivery of 20 x 22 minute episodes of full CG animation for Legends of Chima, and he is currently supervising two more series of Legends of Chima as well as a number of other projects and pitches. During Piers long and varied career he has worked in many areas of the television industry, and he brings this experience and knowledge to his role as Creative Producer for the Prime Focus World animation team. Joining the company in 2012, Piers has helped deliver 20 episodes of full CG animation for Legends of Chima, and he is currently producing a further two series of this show. VFX Supervisor - Creative Director - Animation After working for post houses Electric Image and Cell, John joined boutique post house Clear to set up its new CG department which went on to win numerous awards, and eventually John took ownership of the whole company. When Clear was acquired by Prime Focus in 2006, John s talents were called upon to VFX supervise a number of short and long-form projects including some high profile movies. Creative Producer - Animation Prior to joining Prime Focus World, Piers worked on the VFX production team for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) before joining MPC in London for Clash of the Titans (2010). He also spent time working at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios on movies such as Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and Dark Shadows (2012), and as a producer at MillFilm and TV.

4 PAUL BAASKE JULES PYE Paul Baaske is the CG Supervisor for the Prime Focus World Animation Division, based in London. With a background in CGI and compositing, Paul excels at finding solutions to the creative and technical challenges that arise for the Animation Division, and has spent much time working in the Mumbai facilities of the company to cement the strong bridge between the UK and Indian offices. Paul s most recent project has involved the delivery of 20 episodes of full CG animation for Legends of Chima, and he is currently working on another two series of Chima as well as other animation projects. With over 25 years in the film Animation business, Jules Pye brings a wealth of experience in managing the creative front end of any animated project. Jules started out in LA working on Die Hard 2, before joining Uli Meyer UK Studio. She then worked on a roster of animated features for Disney, Warner Brothers, DreamWorks and Universal Pictures - including Space Jam and The Lion King. CG Supervisor - Animation Paul joined the fledgling animation team as Assistant VFX Supervisor, tasked with overseeing the design, development and implementation of the new animation pipeline that was being set up between London and Mumbai. Storyboard Producer - Animation Jules has since worked on animated films and commercials for the UK and the USA, as well as broadcast idents, title sequences, digital media and web-based projects. She has taken projects from pitch stage through to final delivery, including budgeting, scheduling and all aspects of post-production. Jules has worked in a wide variety of animation: from traditional 2D, 3D CG, Flash animation and After Effects, through to live-action mixed-media and stop motion.

5 AMIT SHARMA SANDEEP KADAV Amit started his career as junior Animator from Crest Animation studio and was involved with India s first CGI project Piggly Winks. He has been involved at the grass roots level for almost all the shows he has gone on to lead, allowing him to take on board ever more challenging projects. Amit fully understands the different thinking required by Supervisors, Directors and Clients, ably bridging the gap between creative inputs of both sides. He previously held senior roles at Tata Elexi and Pixion. With an extensive background in animation, Sandeep fulfilled his ambitions by landing a job at Prime Focus World as an Animation Director. His basic role involves supervising the dayto-day activities of CG Animators to ensure high animation quality and productivity. Prior to joining Prime Focus, Sandeep worked with Xentrix Studios as an Animation Lead. He started his career as a Cell Animator at UTV Toons. He has also worked with Maya Entertainment LTD and Crest Animation Studio LTD. Amit has directed an animated short - Lubdhanam Cora - which won a TBS Digicon Award in Japan. When Amit joined Prime Focus World Animation in 2011, the team only had four artists. Today he leads a team of over sixty Animators. As Amit says: These two and a half years, I ve had to deal with all the creative changes without any overseas supervisor. I ve had to develop all of the budding animators, mentoring them and guiding them, and this is an achievement I m very proud of. Apart from his work, Sandeep loves to keep sketchbooks of this interesting thing called life, especially when traveling. I enjoy getting a feel for new places and have been fortunate enough to visit many parts of India. Animation Supervisor - Animation - Mumbai Animation Supervisor - Animation - Mumbai

6 DIPAN GAJJAR ASHUTOSH JAYAKAR With a rich experience of over 10 years in CG Animation, Dipan Gajjar joined Prime Focus World in 2013 as a Creative Supervisor. Prior to coming on board at Prime Focus, Dipan worked with renowned studios such as Mile Nine studios, Krayon Pictures, Prana Animation Studios and Maya Entertainment Ltd on plum projects including Delhi Safari, Tinker Bell in North of Neverland and Koochie Koochie Hota Hai. Ashutosh Jayakar joined Prime Focus World in 2012 as Project and Creative Head for the Animation Division Mumbai. He is involved right from the beginning, responsible for every creative, management and staffing call taken on each project in Mumbai. Creative Supervisor - Animation - Mumbai Dipan s eclectic body of work includes innumerable movies, television series, gaming series and commercials. Dipan won an FPS Animation Award for his first directorial outing - Nasty Girl - which he made as a student at VFS. Recently Delhi Safari, a film for which he animated some of the lead characters, was one of the final eighteen in the race for the Oscars. The latest animated short film Dipan has directed, Le Danadan De Danadan, has already won him several awards in India including Best Animated Short Film at the Infocom EME Awards. And we believe more nominations and awards are on their way! Creative Director- Animation - Mumbai Ashutosh has 17 years experience working on Indian - as well as international - 3D animated shows, including feature films, TV series, hi-end DVDs, commercials, music videos. Prior to joining Prime Focus, Ashutosh was a senior member at Crest Animation Studios, Digital Asia Concept Limited - Bangkok, Famous Studios and Designmate. He worked at Crest for over 11 years, holding various roles including Sr. Animator, Technical in-charge, Stereoscopy Supervisor and Creative Director.

7 RAHUL RAMOLA MERZIN TAVARIA With experience of over 11 years in CG Animation, Rahul Ramola joined Prime Focus World in 2012 as the Head of Production for the Animation Division. In this capacity, Rahul handles the day-to-day operations of the team, which includes working collaboratively with creatives, supervisors and leads. Currently Rahul is working on the popular Legends of Chima series. Merzin s influential career has spanned 19 years, hundreds of films, thousands of people and three continents... so far. Head of Production - Animation - Mumbai Prior to joining Prime Focus, Rahul worked with studios like Crest Animation Studio, Snipple Animation Studio, Jadoo Works and Creative FX to name a few. He has been a part of some prestigious animated projects including Titery Le (2011), The Frog Story (2011), Doc McStuffins (2011), My Phone Genie (2011) and Alpha and Omega (2009). Some of Rahul s key strengths are his excellent communication and interpersonal skills and a love of juggling multiple projects and seeing them through to fruition. Chief Creative Director - Co-Founder As Chief Creative Director and Co-Founder of Prime Focus, Merzin has been an integral leader in the company since its inception. A driving component in not only the company s technology and services evolution, Merzin and the Mumbai-based teams that work for him, have been vital to the company s global expansion and foothold in cinema around the world. Merzin partnered with Namit Malhotra, founder and CEO of Prime Focus World, and Prime Focus additional Co-Founders, Prakash Kurup and Huzefa Lokhandwala, in 1995 when the concept of Prime Focus was born. Hell-bent on providing creative digital service solutions to the Bollywood entertainment industry as a whole, the four united to put their skills and passions to work building a company to surpass all expectations.

8 ANSHUL DOSHI NAMIT MALHOTRA Based in London, Anshul Doshi is the Head of Global Production for Prime Focus World, responsible for all aspects of our PFW global pipeline. Anshul joined the Prime Focus group in 2004, as a Finance Analyst for the Indian operations, and was quickly promoted to VP Strategy & Business Development for India. As the founder of Prime Focus, Namit Malhotra has been responsible for the development, growth and overarching strategy of the global Prime Focus brand of companies since its very modest beginnings in Head of Global Production In 2006, Anshul moved to London to oversee Prime Focus expansion into the UK market. There he managed the integration of the newly acquired London companies and connected them to the existing Mumbai production base. When PFW moved to Hollywood, Anshul helped oversee the acquisition of Frantic Films and Post Logic by Prime Focus in North America. Anshul now operates as the company s key production development executive, directing and ensuring the success of the globally-connected PFW production pipeline in the Western world. Founder and CEO Namit s philosophy is for the company focus to remain solidly on people. In a world of hypercreative and cutting-edge technology, he insists that at the heart is the power of individuals - individuals imagining, collaborating, and creating solutions that enhance partner experience throughout an entire project. Flying through space or delivering content across all digital platforms, Namit s vision has been to align and converge the very best in creativity and technology to create a global powerhouse that transcends borders and services a global eco-system of individuals and corporations.