John Russell [email protected] Cell: 214-864-7662 russell-vfx.com

OBJECTIVE: Pipeline Technical Director AVAILABILITY: IMMEDIATELY

HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS: ● 7 years of TD experience in VFX/Animation ● Strong understanding of CG workflow and pipeline ● Firm understanding of software and UI design ● Proficient in scripting and expressions ● Passionate about efficiency and problem solving ● Strong knowledge of cinematography and lighting techniques

SKILLS: Programming Languages: Programs: Operating Systems: Python Katana Mac OS X PyQT/PySide Bash/tcsh Maya Enterprise Linux C/C++ 3DS Max CentOS 7 MEL/PyMEL Houdini Windows 7/10 Lua Syntheyes MySQL/PostgreSQL PFTrack Git Shotgun Rez/Rez2 Qube Farm Manager

EDUCATION: The Art Institute of Phoenix (Phoenix, AZ) Graduation – Dec 2011 Bachelor of Applied Arts – Visual Effects & Motion Graphics

Texas State University (San Marcos, TX) Graduation – Dec 2004 Bachelor of Science Degree – Science

EXPERIENCE: DreamWorks Animation Department Technical Director Nov 2015 – Jan 2020 ● Pipeline Development o Modeling ▪ Worked on tool in PySide/PyMEL to import assets into Maya using new service-based pipeline. ▪ Debugged facesets tool for creating facesets for Alembic files. ▪ Ported C++ Maya plugin to new pipeline for geometry deformation. ▪ Assisted in designing services for storing and retrieving model assets in the library using REST commands. o Animation ▪ Debugged and updated launcher for proprietary animation software. o Pipeline ▪ Added several features to web launcher in ECMAscript, Javascript, Google Polymer, and HTML. o FX ▪ Overloaded menu commands with custom dialogs to access Houdini files using a new service-based pipeline. ▪ Debugged C++ plugin to access service-based pipeline. ● Production Support o Generalist TD ▪ Supported artists from several departments such as Animation, Surfacing, Lighting, and Compositing for short animated film, “To Gerard”. ▪ Supported deployment of Katana. ▪ Debugged USD reading and writing tools. o Lighting ▪ Supported lighting artists for the feature animated film, “Trolls World Tour”. ▪ Debugged rendering from Katana and Nuke. ▪ Updated farm submission tool for Katana in PySide with new features requested by artists. ▪ Debugged USD reading and writing nodes within Katana.

Legend3D Pipeline Technical Director Jan 2013 – Oct 2015 ● Developed Gizmos, groups, and C++ nodes in Nuke to help stereo comp, working with artists and supervisors to maintain and troubleshoot tools and workflows. ● Help develop rendering workflow tools in Maya using Python and PySide. ● Developed Nuke tool using Python and PySide to streamline internal depth and comp approval. Generated depth assets and ingested for immediate use. (Formerly a 4 hour process became a 20 minute process.) ● Developed Nuke tools to help QC footage for ingest and outgest (checking for colorspace, bit-depth, frame range, resolution, pixel aspect ratio, etc.). ● Developed templates for generating delivery assets (with slates) to clients with Python and Nuke. Delivery assets were in multiple file formats and resolutions. ● Developed Nuke tool to relink client Nuke scripts with ingested assets. ● Developed several Python tools for asset ingestion and organization. ● Developed Nuke tool for creating 3D mark-ups for depth reviews. ● Contributed to internal Python libraries. ● Contributed to the 3D conversion of such films as “Man of Steel”, “The Lego Movie”, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”, “Maleficent”, and “Transformers: Age of Extinction”.