Date: Tuesday, November 19th
Time: 9:00am 10:45am
Venue: Great Hall 1&2

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Speaker: Jonathan Pytko, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America
Paul Kanyuk, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America
Renee Tam, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America
Cody Harrington, Onward FX, United States of America
Seth Freeman, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America
Michael Bidinger, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America
Max Rodriguez, Pixar Animation Studios, United States of America

Abstract: Makers of the upcoming Pixar Movie Onward are going to share some details about the making of the new movie. Various departments are going to present and talk about the difficulties encountered during the course of the production. The team are going to reveal some of the details of making magic for Onward.

Speaker(s) Bio:
Jonathan Pytko joined Pixar Animation Studios in January 2004. He started as a lighting artist on “The Incredibles” and “Cars.” He worked in the lighting department on several Academy Award-winning feature films “Ratatouille,” “WALL-E,” “Up,” “Brave,” and “Coco.” Pytko is currently the lighting supervisor on Pixar’s upcoming feature film “Onward,” which is set to release in theaters on March 6, 2020. As a lighting supervisor, Pytko’s job is to collaborate with the director of photography for lighting to help realize the director’s vision of the film, with the support of the story and art departments. Additionally, he helps guide the team of lighters to craft their shots while working closely with surrounding departments to put the world onscreen.

Paul Kanyuk started at Pixar Animation Studios as a summer intern in 2004. He returned to a full-time position in June 2005, and has earned credits on multiple feature films including Golden Globe ©-winning “Cars,” “Cars 2,” and “Monsters University,” as well as the Academy Award©-winning features “Ratatouille,” “WALL•E,” “Up,” and “Brave.” In addition, he contributed to the short film “Lava,” which opened in front of the studio’s summer 2015 release “Inside Out.” His specialty is crowd simulation, shading, and rendering, and he is responsible for the procedural animation and rendering of numerous crowd spectacles, including the hordes of rats in “Ratatouille,” the deluge of falling passengers in “WALL•E,” and the vicious pack of talking dogs in “Up.” He recently completed work on the Fall 2018 feature film, “Incredibles 2,” and is currently the Second Unit and Crowds Technical Supervisor for Disney•Pixar’s upcoming feature film “Onwards,” set to release on March 6th,. 2020. As a Second Unit and Crowds Technical Supervisor, Kanyuk supervises a team of technical artists responsible for simulating and rendering large numbers of characters using artificial intelligence and visual effects techniques. The team collaborates with animators to perfect the acting of the characters and develop the software and tools needed to bring crowds to life on screen. Beyond scenes with large numbers of characters, the Second Unit and Crowds Team also animates technically challenging shots of any number of characters using the techniques developed for crowds.

Renee Tam first joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2006 as a shading technical director on Disney•Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning feature film “WALL•E”. She also worked on the stereo development team to help figure out the stereo pipeline for Pixar. She then transitioned to roles as both rendering and lightspeed technical director on “Toy Story 3”, “Brave”, “Monsters University”, “The Good Dinosaur”, “Finding Dory”, “Coco”, and "Incredibles 2", she has also worked on many Pixar shorts. She has led the lightspeed teams for "The Good Dinosaur" and “Coco.” Tam's most recent role is lightspeed lead on the new Pixar's movie "Onward". As the lightspeed lead, Tam oversees a group of lightspeed technical directors, the lighting team and works with other department leads, tools and research to resolve any technical issues that present themselves during production. She also focuses on assisting the lighting and rendering department to make sure the tools and pipeline are efficient and without technical problems.

Cody Harrington, an effects technical director employed at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville California since 2009, is a Houdini (SESI) artist, and musician, with extensive production experience in live action feature films, practical visual effects, broadcast television graphics, and interactive media. Projects at Pixar span ten years with work on many feature and short films: Toy Story 3 (2010), Cars 2 (2011), Brave (2012), The Blue Umbrella (2013), Monsters University (2013), Lava (2014), Inside Out (2015), The Good Dinosaur (2015), Sanjay’s Super, Team (2015), Piper (2016), Finding Dory (2016), Cars 3 (2017), Incredibles 2 (2018), Sea Rider (2018 - theme park division), Smash and Grab (2019), Onward (2019). Previous Digital projects include: Sony Pictures Imageworks (2004-2009), Culver City, CA., specialty: 3d volumetric atmospheric and elemental effects (clouds, tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, snow, dust, rain, and fire), as seen in feature films such as: Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs (2010), Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" (2009), I am Legend, Beowulf (2007), Spiderman 3 (Sandman team,SPI, 2006), (Triple-X, StarTrek Nemesis, Daredevil, Stealth, and The Day After Tomorrow -- Digital Domain, Venice, CA).

Seth Freeman is character modeling/rigging technical director with 12 years of experience at Pixar animation studios. He has worked on suck films as Toy Story 4, Inside Out, and the Cars Franchise. For Onward, He modeled and rigged Blazey the Dragon.

Michael Bidinger has been working as an animator at Pixar since 2015. He graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design and his thesis film 'Jinxy Jenkins, Lucky Lou' (with Co-creator Michelle Kwon) won Best Student Project at Siggraph Asia 2014, and Best Computer Animated Short at Siggraph USA 2015.

Max Rodriguez is a simulation technical director at Pixar Animation Studio, just finishing on Pixar's upcoming feature "Onward". He started at Pixar in 2017 for Pixar's "Incredibles 2". Prior to Pixar, he worked on full length feature animation and live action features at PDI/Dreamworks, Atomic Fiction, Rising Sun, and Image Engine. He got his start in animation as a production intern on the Gary Trousdale directed short "Shrek's First Christmas" at PDI/Dreamworks.

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