Discover the speakers of this very first edition of CAFÉ!
YOUR SPEAKERS
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Alexandre Menard
HOD - VisualizationRodeo FX
Alexandre Menard
HOD - VisualizationRodeo FX
Biography
Real-Time enthusiast, Alexandre Menard has more than 20+ year experience in the vfx industry from previs to final pixel. He is currently the HOD of visualization at rodeofx, a department he built from the ground up tapping from his previous previs experience. He also occupied the role of cg supervisor and worked on many high-profile project such as Strangers Things, Fantastic Beast and Dumbo.
Teddy Wong
CTOSqueeze Animation Studios
Teddy Wong
CTOSqueeze Animation Studios
Biography
Teddy Wong is the Chief Technology Officer of Squeeze Studio. He oversees the operations and delivery of technology at Squeeze. For the last 15 years, he has built high performance technology teams for companies such as RodeoFX, SSENSE and Intelcom Express in the greater Montreal region. Scaling their reach into international markets. His goal is to continue enabling companies through technology, while focusing on culture and the people who represent it.
Shahin Rabbani
Research and Development ScientistUbisoft Montreal - La Forge
Shahin Rabbani
Research and Development ScientistUbisoft Montreal - La Forge
Biography
Shahin Rabbani is an R&D Scientist at Ubisoft. He joined La Forge R&D in 2016 after earning his Ph.D. at McGill in computer animation and control of physically-based humanoids. His current fields of interest are fluids simulation for real-time applications and rigid body destruction.
Samuel Guiraudou
CG SupervisorMikros Animation
Samuel Guiraudou
CG SupervisorMikros Animation
Biography
During his 11-year career, Samuel Guiraudou had the opportunity to work with different media, from TV to feature film, VFX and Animation, and within various departments such as surfacing, matte painting, lighting and compositing.
Since he joined Mikros Animation in 2014, he’s built his experience as an artist and a supervisor on very different projects. Today he leverages his technical and artistic experience to work with producers, supervisors, TD’s and artists to build the environments in which the stories are told. He also ensures data and information seamlessly flow across departments to help shaping creatives’ vision.
Mathieu Leclaire
Technical Director – New TechnologiesHybride, a Ubisoft Division
Mathieu Leclaire
Technical Director – New TechnologiesHybride, a Ubisoft Division
Biography
Mathieu has been working at Hybride for the past 17 years where he’s been leading and developing various R&D projects aimed at helping solve difficult production challenges by giving easy-to-use tools for artists allowing them to deliver shots as fast and as easy as possible. Mathieu and his team love to break conventional pipelines by integrating new technologies in the fields of rendering, simulation, animation and procedural modeling so they can then rebuild better more user friendly ways of delivering shots, and finding creative solutions to solve complex problems.
Martine Bertrand
Senior Researcher AIDNEG
Martine Bertrand
Senior Researcher AIDNEG
Biography
With a Ph.D. in Physics, years of industrial research experience in AI, and a passion for VFX, Martine Bertrand is researching novel approaches to keep dazzling audiences around the world at DNEG
Marc Petit has been the Vice President in charge of the Unreal Engine ecosystem at Epic Games since 2016, previously he held executive positions at Softimage (1991-2000), Autodesk (2002-2013) and Taxelco/Teo Taxi (2014-2016)
Louis Leclerc
Head of StudioLoomi Animation
Louis Leclerc
Head of StudioLoomi Animation
Biography
Currently director of the Loomi Animation studio, he is passionate about digital creation projects. Previously, Louis was creator and general manager of international events in digital animation and video games at Pixel Quebec, including the Pixel Challenge, Cartoon Connection and Pixel Animation. His next challenge is to complete an Olympic triathlon…
Ugo Louche joined Eidos-Montreal in 2019 as a machine learning expert. He received his PhD in machine learning in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Liva Ralaivola. His research activities are mainly focused on active learning and linear classification. Ugo believes that machine learning has the potential to change the way we create games for the better, allowing developers to focus on creative tasks and relegating boring tasks to AIs. He is committed to making this change a reality and his work at Eidos-Montreal focuses on all aspects of machine learning that can help in game development.
Experienced research director with demonstrated experience in applied research for the visual effects industry, including two best scientific paper awards. Expert in Houdini with extensive experience in C+, and experienced in C#, Java, Python, PHP, and software engineering. Jonathan has always loved puzzles and has a passion for abstract problems, which leads him to work on unsolved mathematical problems as a PhD student in computer graphics at the Graduate School of Technology, his research and publications focus on fluid simulation, topological changes and texture surface synthesis.
Born in Mexico but adopted by Quebec Canada, Guillermo Dupinet is a film passionate, especially those involving animation. With his 20+year experience in the Animation and VFX industry, he’s collaborated on a numerous projects, bringing animated characters that tell a story to life. He has been credited in Advertising, TV series, high-end videogames and films using various methods in a broad variety of styles.
He joined Mikros Animation three years ago as Lead Animator on The SpongeBob Movie : Sponge on the Run and evolved as Animation Supervisor on PAW Patrol : The Movie.
François Lord
Professor / ConsultantUQAC-NAD / Rodeo FX
François Lord
Professor / ConsultantUQAC-NAD / Rodeo FX
Biography
François Lord has been working in the visual effects field for over 25 years. He first graduated from NAD, worked as a general CGI artist, then became a project supervisor and specialized in optimizing production pipelines and creating tools to facilitate artists’ work and workflow efficiency. François has worked at BUZZ, Big Bang animations, Oblique FX, Framestore where he was CG supervisor and Rodeo FX where he was Head of pipeline. François is an architect of solutions adapted to the VFX context.
Today Francois is deepening USD implementations in production contexts and works as a consultant to companies. Since June 2021 Francois is a professor at the NAD school of the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi.
Florian Pellegrin
R&D ProgrammerUbisoft - La Forge
Florian Pellegrin
R&D ProgrammerUbisoft - La Forge
Biography
Florian joined Ubisoft La Forge (Montreal) in January 2020 and is currently an R&D programmer on FaceShifter, Ubisoft’s internal face creation tool. He is taking advantage of recent research on 3D hair to take creative assistance to the next level.
Florian received his M.Sc.Eng. in Computer Science from INSA Rennes (France) and his M.Eng. in Information Technology from ÉTS (Canada). Prior to Ubisoft, he experienced academic research in Japan, which convinced him that he was made for industrial research
Eloi Champagne
Technical Director, Animation & Interactive StudioNational Film Board of Canada
Eloi Champagne
Technical Director, Animation & Interactive StudioNational Film Board of Canada
Biography
Before he became Technical Director at the NFB Animation Studio in 2011, Eloi spent nearly two decades helping advertising agencies and corporations go beyond their creative limits. Drawing on his VFX expertise and creative problem-solving skills, Eloi has worked on many award winning productions, including a number of stereoscopic films. Currently, he is working on a variety of linear and interactive projects using 3D printers, head-mounted displays, projections, different types of sensors and mobile platforms.
Director of Finance / Executive Producer / Co-founderE.D. Films
Archita Ghosh
Director of Finance / Executive Producer / Co-founderE.D. Films
Biography
Co-founder and Executive Producer Archita Ghosh’s business expertise has propelled E.D. FILMS’ growth trajectory since she joined the company in 2013. Working alongside the studio’s talented team to produce award-winning, artist-led animation, immersive and mixed reality (XR) experiences, she has also worked to commercialize unique creative tools at the studio.
Fluent in Bengali, English, Spanish and French, Archita sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Media Producers Association as well as M.E.D.I.A. (Media•Equity•Diversity•Inclusion•Accessibility).