The Coaching Crew
Our Coaching Crew is sourced from the world's leading production studios. We have experts in all fields of production ready to discuss your work and offer direct advice that will help you secure your dream job.
Andrew McDonald
About: Andrew has a background in industrial design and has been in the digital effects industry for eight years. He has worked at a number of studios including Ambience Entertainment, Animal Logic, and The Moving Picture Company. His film credits include Happy Feet, Harry Potter 5 and 6, 10,000 BC, Fred Claus, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Sweeney Todd, Watchmen, Australia, Knowing, Legend of the Guardians and Suckerpunch (2011).
Sydney, Australia
Company: Animal Logic Film
Job title: Modeling Supervisor - VFX
Alwyn Hunt
About: Alwyn has a background in fine arts and has been in the industry for nine years. He has worked at a number of studios around the world including Sony Imageworks (Los Angeles), The Moving Picture Company (London), Double Negative (London), Animal Logic (Sydney), and Starz Animation (Toronto). His main film credits include House of Flying Daggers, Harry Potter, Everyone's Hero, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Watchmen, The Wolfman, Alice in Wonderland and is currently working on John Carter of Mars.
London
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Senior Texture Artist
Sam Rowan
About: Sam graduated three years ago from Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art with a first class honours degree in animation. Since then he has worked for studios such as Studio Django and Passion Pictures. He is currently a senior character modeler at The Moving Picture Company in London. His main film credits include 10,000 BC, Fred Claus, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Harry Poter, Wolfman, GI Joe, Clash of the Titans. Sam is currently working The Chronicles of Narnia:The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
New Zealand
Company: WETA Digital
Job title: Modeler
Drago Avdalovic
About: Drago adds a wealth of knowledge to the rigging front. He has worked in the industry for over ten years in Europe, Canada, and now London. He enjoys scripting, basketball, and fine wine. His main film credits include The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, 10,000 BC, Sweeney Todd, and Fred Claus. Drago is currently working at Dreamworks.
San Francisco
Company: Dreamworks
Job title: Lead Rigging TD
Alan Rogers
About: About: Alan is a classically trained animator and has been in the industry for seven years. He has a background in both commercial work and feature film. His past studio experience includes Blue Sky, DNA, Vanguard, and Starz Animation. His main film credits are Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Ant Bully, 9 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Los Angeles
Company: Sony Imageworks
Job title: Senior Animator
Steve Kahwati
About: Steve Kahwati comes to us with a wealth of knowledge accumulated over his career working in the animation industry. He has taught cg lighting, surfacing, and modeling for 5 years while being the head instructor for a 2 year CG animation course in Canada. He has a wide skill-set that have been honed by working on commercials, tv-series, and feature films at various studios across Canada and the US, such as Starz Animation in Toronto, The Mill NYC, Sony Imageworks (Los Angeles).
Los Angeles
Company: Sony Imageworks
Job title: Senior Compositor/Lighting TD
Giles Davies
About: Giles has over five years' experience in the industry. He has worked as a lead character modeler for a number of years at the Moving Picture Company in London. His recent credits include Harry Potter, 10,000 BC, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Watchmen, Wolfman and the classic 1981 film, Clash of the Titans.
London, United Kingdom
Company: The Moving Picture Company
Job title: Lead Modeler
Rahul Dabholkar
About: About: Rahul is a senior animator at Sony Imageworks and has worked at some of the world's leading production studios including ILM, Framestore, Rainmaker, and Starz. His film credits include The Tale of Despereaux, Nutty Professor, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He is currently a senior animator at Sony Imageworks in Los Angeles working on Alice in Wonderland.
Los Angeles
Company: Sony Imageworks
Job title: Senior Animator
Ben Gunsberger
About: Ben is the Associate Digital Supervisor at Animal Logic Film working on Guardians of Ga’Hoole. His film credits include Matrix, Shrek, and Happy Feet. Ben has a Degree in Computer Science and has been in the industry for over 12 years. During this time Ben has worked as an Animator, Technical Director, Lighting Supervisor and CG Supervisor.
Sydney
Company: Animal Logic
Job title: Associate Digital Supervisor
Davide Pasare
About: Davide Pesare is a shader writer currently working at Pixar Animation Studios on Toy Story 3. Davide has extensive experience as a shader writer, software engineer and R&D Engineer. His film credits include Harry Potter & the order of the Phoenix, 10000BC, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sweeney Todd, Australia and Guardians of Ga'Hoole.
California
Company: Pixar Animation Studios
Job title: Shader Writer
Sandy Sutherland
About: Sandy studied 3D graphics and animation at the Silicon Graphics Center in Sydney, and has been in the visual effects industry for seven years. He has worked at Ambience Entertainment and Animal Logic in Sydney, and is currently employed at Framestore in London. He specializes as an effects technical director and has several feature film credits including The Dark Knight, Australia, The Golden Compass, 28 Weeks Later, Fool's Gold, World Trade Center, Stealth, and House of Flying Daggers. He is currently working on Sherlock Holmes, Prince of Persia and Where The Wild Things Are. He is also a keen photographer and is currently developing a short film.
London
Company: Framestore
Job title: Effects Technical Director
Adrian Chan
About: Adrian is a senior character modeler at Animal Logic and has worked on major films such as Avatar, TinTin, 10,000 BC, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Harry Potter. He has worked in a number of studios including WETA Digital, Rainmaker Entertainment, and The Moving Picture Company.
Sydney
Company: Animal Logic
Job title: Senior Character Modeler
Aaron Webster
Aaron started his career in games and currently works as head of surfacing at Starz Animation in Toronto. His past experience includes Dan Krech Productions, Calibre Digital Pictures, Medium Inc., Setworks Inc, and Ratloop, Inc. His Blue short film was used as a basis for all the tutorials in the official training guide publication, Learning Maya 7: Foundation. His main film credits include Everyone's Hero and 9. He is currently working on Gnomeo and Juliet.
Toronta, Canada
Company: Starz Animation
Job title: Surfacing Technical Director
Punn Wiantrakoon
About: Punn is pretty much a self taught CG guy who's been in the industry for about ten years. He's worked at studios such as Lucasfilm Animation, Disney Feature Animation, Starz Animation, Luma Pictures and is currently at Imagemovers Digital.
San Francisco
Company: Imagemovers Digital
Job title: CG Artist-Art Department
Samy Fecih
About: Samy has been animating for the past 4 years and worked on major films like The Tales of Despereaux, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Where the Wild Things Are, Avatar, Ironman 2, Harry Potter, The Deathly Hallows: Part II and is currently working on John Carter of Mars. He practices sports like Capoeira, Parkour and Trampolining and has a very energetic personality...like most animators.
London
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Character Animator
Jakub Krompolc
About: Jakub graduated in computer animation at Bata University in Czech Republic. After being a 3d generalist for couple of years, he specialized as a rigger and moved to UK. Since then he has worked in Axis Animation, Moving Picture Company and Double Negative. His movie credits include 10,000 B.C., Chronicles Of Narnia, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Clash Of Titans, John Carter Of Mars and Captain America: The First Avenger.
London
Company: Prime Focus
Job title: Senior Rigger
Philippe Gaulier
About: Philippe graduated over 12 years ago from the "ESAG Penninghen" in Paris with a degree in graphic design and illustration. He has worked for the video game, publishing and commercial industry for several years before moving to London nearly 9 years ago. Since then, he has worked for studios such as The Jim Henson's Creature Feature shop, Nexus productions, Passion pictures, MPC, Double Negative. His main film credits include Sunshine, X-Men 3, 10 000 BC, Harry Potter, Prince of Persia, Scott Pilgrim VS the World, Iron Man 2, Paul.
Philippe is currently working on Captain America (as well as a few secret projects...) for Double Negative.
London
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Senior Concept Artist
Mike Bain
About: Mike studied a Bachelor of Design at University of Western Sydney and has been in the VFX industry for 9 years, and has worked in various capacities in the industry. Studios he has work for include Photon VFX, Weta Digital, Framestore and Double Negative. His main film credits include Lord of the Rings, Inception, King Kong, Avatar, John Carter he is currently working for Digital Domain on Lost Paradise.
Sydney
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Texture Artist
Andrew Baggarley
About: Andrew graduated from the University Of Portsmouth in 2003 with a BA Hons in Computer Animation and has worked in the visual effects industry in London ever since. Over the last 8 years he has worked for MPC, Blue Zoo and DNEG on movies including: X-Men 3, Sunshine, 10,000 BC, Fred Claus, Prince Caspian, Angels and Demons, GI Joe, Night At The Museum 2, Robin Hood and Clash of the Titans.
He specialises in look development, creating hero characters, before moving into lighting for the final stages of the production. Andrew is currently working on John Carter of Mars at Double Negative.
London
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Look Dev Artist
Robin Konieczny
About: Robin studied Illustration at Art college, worked as an Illustrator in advertising and then moved into the heady world of CGI over 10 years ago. He then worked as a freelancer covering a large range of work from Gorilaz at Passion Pictures to HBO's Rome, for the last 6 years he has been working on Feature films and his credits include The DaVinci Code, Hellboy2, KickAss, Narnia and is currently working at Double Negative on John Carter.
London
Company: Double Negative
Job title: Environments build lead
