Absolute Brings Trio To Its CG Team
London-based Absolute has added VFX supervisor Risto Puukko, CG supervisor Patrick Keough and jr. CG artist Musharaf “Rasel” Hussain to its CG team. Puukko first established himself as a sr. VFX artist in London–moving there from his hometown in Finland, working at such studios as Framestore, The Mill and Wargaming. He’s worked across campaigns for Netflix, Disney, Tesco and Vodafone, adding that his greatest career moment thus far is “getting the opening sequence of Guardians of The Galaxy II finished on time.”
Keough worked earlier as a motion capture artist at Weta. His credits span such clients as Amazon, PlayStation, Dior and Hyundai. Keough lists working on 2014’s Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes as a pinch-me moment.
And “Rasel,” who initially secured a job as a graphic designer, enrolled in a course at VFX outlet Escape Studios. He later interned at Framestore through its Launchpad competition, using Unreal Engine to create a 30 second short over eight weeks, before nabbing his first industry role at Absolute.
Funding Lands On MARZ
Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ), a technology and VFX startup with an office in Toronto and a remote workforce worldwide, has raised $6.5 million (in Canadian dollars) in Series A funding. The investment was led by Round13 Capital with participation from Rhino Ventures and Harlo Equity Partners, digital transformation company Torinit, and strategic angel investors John Cassaday and Jake Cassaday.
MARZ will use the infusion of capital to grow its core VFX services business and to accelerate the research and development (R&D) of its AI for VFX technology solutions, which adds a high level of automation to address the significant and growing VFX capacity shortage that is plaguing the entertainment industry. In beta since Q1 2021, MARZ’s first AI for VFX solution has been used on 17 Hollywood productions to date, with that number expected to double in 2022.
The funding will also enable MARZ to hire key personnel across research, engineering, and product; and to build out its technology infrastructure to increase production capacity and improve the efficiency of its AI solutions.
Five Sheridan alumni nominated for Annie Awards
The animation program at the Sheridan school in Canada continues to turn out alumni who score impressively at the Annie Awards. Recently five Sheridan alums garnered nominations from the prestigious industry competition which honors excellence in animation.
The Sheridan quintet currently in the running for Annies consists of Ami Thompson (Bachelor of Animation 2013) who earned an Annie nod in the Best Character Design–Feature category for Raya & the Last Dragon; Richard Chen (Animation 2004), Best Production Design–TV/Media, for Maya and the Three; Nachiket Pujari (Computer Animation-Digital Visual Effects 2009), Best Effects–Feature, for Vivo; Dimitre Berberov (Graphic design 2001), Best Effects–Feature, for Encanto; and Deanna Marsigliese (Animation 2004), Best Character Design–Feature, for Luca.
Sheridan alumni have repeatedly brought home Annies in previous years for their outstanding work. They include Trevor Jimenez (Animation ’07), who won last year for Best Storyboarding in a Feature category for his work on Soul. In 2019, Jimenez received Best Animated Short for his own project, Weekends. In 2015, Dean DeBlois (Animation ’90) won Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Achievement–Directing, for How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Sheridan students have also been successful at the Annies as in 2020, The Fox & The Pigeon won Best Student Film.
