motion advisory board

Rod Basham is the VFX supervisor at the Los Angeles offices of Imaginary Forces. Wearing several hats, Rod is often called upon for his skills as a Flame artist.

Rod began his career in visual effects as a production assistant at PDI's Los Angeles office. His foray into VFX editorial began at RGA/LA, where he was hired as an editorial assistant. At Cinesite Los Angeles (now Laser Pacific), he worked in editorial for 3 years, adding many credits to his name including Jerry Maguire and Air Force One.

Rod's next stop? Imaginary Forces (IF), where he quickly progressed from Asset Manager/Flame assistant to operator to VFX supervisor. During this time, Rod has worked on numerous feature film main title sequences including Spiderman, My Sister's Keeper, The Pink Panther 2, In the Bedroom, The Mummy 2 and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. His commercial work includes spots for Microsoft, Pontiac, Nike, Lexus, Spike, and Infiniti.

As a lead Flame artist and designer, he's contributed feature film content for an impressive list of titles, including Terminator Salvation, Blade 3, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Titus, and Steve Spielberg's Minority Report. He was also the lead flame artist on live theatrical content for the Wynn Hotel and Casino's Lake of Dreams in Las Vegas and Julie Taymor's Grendel Opera.

Rod has also been involved in a number of architectural and experience design projects including Design and the Elastic Mind featured at MOMA . Independently, Rod directed his first music video, which was featured in Resfest in 2004.

Mark Coleran is a visual designer whose work crosses over into a wide range of industries from film & television through to software development. Having originally come from a print background as a Graphic Designer, Mark has been designing and producing motion graphics for the film and television industries for the past 13 years. His clients and jobs have been as diverse as the BBC to Cartoon Network, creating titles and network identities, to the creation of computer screen graphics for feature films such as The Bourne Ultimatum, Deja Vu, The Island, Children of Men and Mission Impossible 3 amongst others. He has also worked in software, most recently with Canadian developer, Gridiron Software developing a new generation of workflow tools for creatives in the application, Flow. He is now based in San Francisco working with the design group, Bonfire Labs.

Dan Haskett, a Harlem native, is a master animator with four decades in the business.
 
With many credits to his name, he is well-known for creating the characters of "Belle" for Beauty and the Beast and "Ariel" for The Little Mermaid.

Haskett began his career setting up an animation department for a New York company that did commercials and corporate films. A co-worker told him about a man named Richard Williams, who would later go on to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Because of Williams, Haskett got an audience with Frank Thomas, one of Walt Disney's famed "Nine Old Men" group of directing animators. Haskett was offered a job as a junior animator under Thomas on The Fox and the Hound.

Freelancing for Disney, Warner Bros. and many others since then, Haskett's credits include Toy Story, The Prince of Egypt, Sesame Street, Scooby Doo, and has done commercial work for Kellogg's and Nestle. He won an Emmy for his work on The Simpsons. Haskett helped pioneer a resurgence of classic Disney qualities and "organic" animation.

William Lebeda is a graphic designer, animator and director who has worked in the field of entertainment design for the last fifteen years. Currently he is Creative Director of Picture Mill, a Hollywood-based motion design studio.

William spent most of his youth in and around northern New Mexico, growing up in Los Alamos. He received a BFA in Graphic Design from West Texas State University. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990 to attend graduate school in film and animation at CalArts, where he received his MFA.

His first job in Hollywood was designing motion graphics for ABC Network Television On-Air Promotion. He was fortunate enough to be a part of the last Golden Age of Television, working on campaigns for Roseanne, Home Improvement, The Wonder Years and many others.

Since joining Picture Mill in 1995, William has designed and directed projects for motion pictures, advertising agencies and television, ranging from Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds to Citibank to HBO. In 2007, William directed the 2nd Unit for M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Recent projects include Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, Night at the Museum 2, The Hangover and Judd Apatow's Funny People.

William is particularly delighted to have been named the best and worst film title designer (The ID Forty, February 2003) for two wildly different projects: Panic Room (David Fincher) and Signs (M. Night Shyamalan)."

Andrew Orloff is the Executive Creative Director and Visual Effects Supervisor for Zoic Studios - an award winning visual effects firm with a reel that includes some of television's most impressive series including Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Battlestar Galactica, Jericho, and Firefly to name a few. Andrew's television credits include HBO's True Blood, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and the highly anticipated new series "V".

Sci-Fi and VFX fans instantly recognize Orloff's name as the genius who does his creative magic each week on J.J. Abrams' new sci-fi series, Fringe. From the translucent John Scott, to the jaw-dropping pilot, the butterfly attack, or Porciman - it's Orloff's creative mind at work. Orloff earned a 2009 VES award for his work on Fringe, and was recently nominated for an Emmy.

Andrew established Zoic's stage and has directed hundreds of motion control shots and other specialty sequences. He also launched the company's successful animation division and contributed to such high-end projects as the design and creation of a 360-degree experience for EA, the innovative Fox Bot campaign for Fox Sports and the Sprint Heroes: Destiny web series.

A graduate of UCLA's school of Theatre, Film and Television, Orloff is also on the Advisory Board at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and has been a featured speaker at various conferences and industry events.

Bryan Thombs is the VFX/S3d Supervisor at Picture Mill in Hollywood. His fascination with visual effects started when he was in the 5th grade. He attended his first Siggraph conference in 1993 and realized computers where going to be the driving force behind VFX work so he taught himself 3D using Lightwave 2 on an Amiga 3000. His first self produced demo reel of his animations landed him a seat at the highly regarded Helium in Los Angeles when he was just 19.

Bryan went on to build the 3D department for yU+co and help design the production pipeline for 3D and 2D that integrated designers, after effects artists, inferno and the render farm. Besides his knack for technical know how, Bryan also contributed his creative and 3D design skills to films like Mission Impossible 2, Impostor and Reign of Fire and the CNN, Burger King and Sony Wega logo animations.

After almost 4 years at yU+co. and a few years freelancing, Bryan was hired on to the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow production team as Senior Lighting T.D. where he helped develop lighting rigs and looks with the Lighting Director and write pipeline tools to complete almost 600 shots with his team. He moved on to supervise lighting for out sourced shots being completed by Engine Room/Ring of Fire for Sky Captain.

Bryan's current work includes Drag Me to Hell, Death Race, Max Payne, War of the Worlds and J.J. Abrams' Mission Impossible 3. Between higher profile projects are a variety of commercial, DVD, television and experimental specialty pieces that allow Bryan to research techniques and methods for CG and production. He also has spearheaded the implementation of stereoscopic 3D (S3d) work flow and hardware for which he supervises production of at Picture Mill.

An All-American soccer player and former professional actor, Erik van der Wilden gradually migrated to broadcast editing, animation and design, and founded Vandyink in 1996.

He later worked for The Diecks Group as Director of Editorial and Animation, where he met Michael Waldron, with whom he co-founded nailgun* in late 2003.

Specializing in broadcast design, nailgun*'s clients include some of the most recognized networks in the business including: A&E, ABC News, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, CBS, Comedy Central, E!, ESPN, Food Network, Fox, HBO, HGTV, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Spike, TV Land, VH1, and Versus.

A gifted and experienced teacher and public speaker, he is a sought-after instructor and promoter of Adobe products, as well as a perennial featured presenter at major industry trade shows.

With a strong belief that great art derives from making creative choices and sticking to them, veteran designer/director Michael Waldron co-founded nailgun* with Erik van der Wilden in 2003, and since then has guided the young company to its lofty status as one of the industry's most respected broadcast design houses.

He began his career as art director at NewsChannel6, Richmond, VA and left there to become creative director at The Diecks Group, New York.

Specializing in broadcast design, nailgun*'s clients include some of the most  recognized networks in the business including: A&E, ABC News, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, CBS, Comedy Central, E!, ESPN, Food Network, Fox, HBO, HGTV, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Spike, TV Land, VH1, and Versus.

Michael's work has been recognized by awards from Graphic Design USA, PROMAX/BDA, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Type Directors Club and ID magazine, to name a few.

When not serving as nailgun* Creative Director, Waldron teaches graduate students at Parson's School of Design and helps foster young design talent through the AIGA Mentoring Program.