Steve Weymouth, Lecturer at CoFA’s School of Media Arts builds on his professional industry experience at Sony PlayStation to focus his research on various aspects of 3D animation development, including techniques, software (mechanics), historical precedents (traditions and principles) and contemporary products.
Archive for the 'Members Bios' Category
Kit Devine has 14 years experience as a 3D animator using packages including Softimage, Alias Power Animator and Alias Maya. She has worked on film and TV projects in both the UK and Australia at companies incuding Photon, Rushes, GMD and Animal Logic. Her movie credits include Super Mario Brothers and Inspector Gadget 2. Her commercial work has won a large number of awards at festivals including The New York Festivals, BDA Promax Asia Hong Kong, Australian Television Awards, The Australian Effects and Animation Festival and the New York CLIO Awards. Kit has trained as a graphic designer and has completed post graduate study in Computer Science. Her short film Womb with a View was screened at the 1992 London Film Festival.
Valerie Allerton coordinates the New South Wales Film & Television Office’s Emerging Filmmakers Fund and Digital Visual Effects Scheme. She has been working in the Development and Investment Branch of the FTO since 2004. Prior to working in Australia, Valerie worked with the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS), a world-renowned classical music training and performing institution. A classically trained musician herself, Valerie has expertise in grant development and fundraising and has worked with Board Trustees and National Council level management in these areas. She also has worked in journalism and silkscreen and textile design.
Andrew Taylor is a student at Qantm College in Surry Hills, where he is currently completing a Bachelor of Interactive Entertainment. He is due to complete his studies in November 2008. Andrew has recently been accepted to start an internship at Fuel VFX’s starting in September.
Andrew is passionate about 3D animation and all things computers. In his spare time Andrew is a keen Archer and Clay Target Shooter. He has been working with Murray Odyssey, a charity supporting Medecins san frontieres, assisting them with their web presence for an upcoming charity expedition down the Murray River.
Andrew has been a member of Sydney ACM Siggraph since March 2007 and is keen to expand his participation in the visual effects industry
Bill is again working for the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as the AV Manager for the College Of Fine Arts (COFA), keeping the laboratories and studios running and assisting academic staff and students with the wide range of software and hardware that COFA uses. He brings with him 15 years of experience working for Apple as a Technical Support Engineer and later as a Systems Engineer, specialising in the Video, Broadcast and Publishing markets. Bill has been trained in Shake, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Motion, Combustion, Apple server products and Vectorworks, but is experienced in a wide range of other software packages.
Bill has worked on a review panel for the University of Wollongong Masters of Digital Media as well as spoken at the Australasian Music Business Conference. He has also acted as a consultant to Channel 7, Channel 9, and SBS. In the early days of Apple’s resurgent entry into the professional video market, Bill provided technical support for many of the Australia post-production houses such as Animal Logic, Rising Sun Pictures, and Fuel. The NSW RTA now uses Macintoshes as the point-of-sale terminals as well as multimedia driver testing stations: this Java/Director solution was developed with RTA over two years with Bill as the lead Apple engineer.
Before working for Apple, Bill was a Programmer/Engineer at the Defence Force Academy, working for the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering programming Macintoshes and learning about remote sensing, satellite images, and image processing. Before this in the early 1980s, he was a committee member of Opunka, the UNSW film group, for four years where he was able to indulge himself with showing six feature films a week, learnt how to drive 35mm projectors, and developed a critical eye for films.
Peter is the Director of the Digital Media Division at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) which runs Australia’s leading postgraduate and professional programs in Digital Animation and Emerging Media. Projects from these programs have won both national and international recognition for artistic and technical excellence.
Peter has produced projects for radio, television and interactive media and he has worked on a wide range of industry training initiatives. He is the past chair of the Sydney chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH.
James holds a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science & Pure Mathematics) from University of Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Internetworking from the University of Technology Sydney. He is currently acting as the IT Operations Manager and Network Security/Network Application Manager for the Australian Schhol of Business (The University of New South Wales) and in his spare time consults for the online media industry.
He has 15 years experience in film, TV and online production having worked with Beyond Online, StreamWorks, and Yoram Gross - EMTV. He managed the encoding for News Interactive/Fox/Apple Computer joint venture in online broadcast for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He was the author of a series of UNIX how-to columns for MacWorld Australia in 2003-2005. He also works as an video editor, compositor, and streaming media, website developer. He has been an active member of ACM SIGGRAPH (Sydney Professional Chapter) since 2001 and been a co-administrator of the Chapter website.
Born in Lausanne Switzerland, Maurice started his professional career in 1974 as a graphic designer and animator for a major Swiss television network.
In 1983 a Sydney-based film company invited him to come to Australia to train its animators on a series of one hour films for television.
After successfully working as a freelance animation director, Maurice established his own studio in Sydney, CATFLAP ANIMATION, in 1988.
At Catflap, Maurice has directed over 300 television commercials and several short animated films including “Gorgeous” which won the Australian Film Institute award for best animation in 1994. His most recent work has been 2 series of 30×5 minute episodes developed for the A.B.C Children’s Television Department entitled “Petals”.
Ryan was born and raised in the States, and through a regular exposure to comic books, animation and the traditional summer blockbuster movie season cultivated a love of art and visual storytelling. He went through grade school intending to become a graphic artist, however an industry downturn forced me to reconsider my options. He enjoyed the programming classes at his high school, and so decided to instead pursue a future in software programming and continue to self-teach traditional art skills in his spare time. Four years and a university degree in Computer Science later, Ryan began a career as a software engineer in the Telecommunications industry.
After two years of fixing software bugs and being on-call 24/7, Ryan transferred to a Research and Development facility in Wollongong, Australia.He was fortunate to work with a great bunch of talented individuals doing innovative work while remaining active in the underground music scene in his free time, contributing artwork and screenprinting skills (12 years and counting). However, as the R&D lab began being systematically disbanded through funding cuts and layoffs Ryan decided the time was right to combine his wealth of technical experience with my continued passion for visual art. Ryan left to pursue a career in visual effects, returning to school to acquire a Diploma of Screen in Computer Graphics & Animation.
Working in the software development pipeline of a challenging and exciting R&D environment was a great experience to hone my teamwork, problem solving, adaptability, communication and technical skills. Ryan is currently working diligently on showreel material that he can combine with those professional skills to find entry into the film industry as a visual effects artist.
Tracey is a Curriculum Project Coordinator at the TAFE NSW – Business, Arts and Information Technology Curriculum Centre. From 2002 to 2005 Tracey worked as a Business Development Consultant at TAFE NSW – Sydney Institute. From 1999 to 2002, she managed the TAFE NSW Silicon Graphics Centre, a centre of excellence in 3D Animation and Visual Effects training, based at the Design Centre - Enmore College. She holds a Masters in Art and Design Education and a Bachelor of Art Education from the College of Fine Arts (COFA), Sydney.
Tracey was the recipient of the Award for Excellent Service to Public Education and Training 2004; TAFEPLUS Training Consultant of the Year 2004/2005, and joint winner TAFEPLUS Best Strategic Business Approach 2004/2005. Tracey is one of two TAFE NSW nominated members of the Design Institute of Australia (DIA). She is a member of the Fashion Group of Sydney Inc, the TAFE NSW Manager’s Association, the International Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and is currently the Treasurer and Membership Chair of the Sydney ACM Siggraph Professional Chapter.
Tracey has more than 18 years industry experience as a design and production manager in the fashion industry, seven years experience working in the field of digital media, and a total of 14 years experience as an educator in TAFE NSW. She is passionate about creating and maintaining excellence in training for the design and digital media industries in Australia.
