October 2024
October 8, 2024 Pipeline to Success: Pathways and Career Growth in Media & Entertainment
Panelists
- Leila Schemali Fouqué, Head of Pipeline, Squeeze Animation Studios
- Tram Le-Jones, Vice President, Solutions – Creative, Backlight
- Kristine Middlemiss, Senior Technology Leader
- Katalina Williams, Senior Technology Officer, The Mill
- Fran Zandonella, Senior Pipeline Technical Director, Plenoptic Cognition
September 2024
September 10, 2024 Part 1: Integrating AI / ML into VFX, Animation & Games Studio Pipelines
- Kristine Middlemiss, Professor, Georgian College
With over 20 years of experience, Kristine Middlemiss is a leader in innovation and software development, specializing in AI, Python, and C++. She has driven advancements at industry giants like IBM, Autodesk, Rockstar Games, and DreamWorks Animation, focusing on motion capture, pipelines, and emerging technologies like AR/VR and GenAI. As the CTO at Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies, she spearheaded pipeline advancements in cloud, Microservices, IT, and rendering technologies, and successfully led two groundbreaking generative AI products, VanityAI and LibDubAI. - Ishrat Badami, Senior CTV Computer Vision & Machine Learning Engineer, Triplelift
Ishrat Badami is a highly accomplished professional with a master’s degree in computer vision and machine learning from the University of Bonn, Germany. She began her career as a full-time researcher at the University of Aachen, contributing to the European Union project STRADS on mobile assistive robots. Following this, Ishrat transitioned to the healthcare industry, where she developed automatic fall detection systems for elderly care centers. As an early member of the Vanity AI product at MARX VFX, Ishrat played a pivotal role in advancing AI-driven solutions in visual effects. Currently, she is leveraging her expertise at Triplelift, specializing in ad tech for post-production ads in CTV. - Host: Chelsea Blasko, CEO and Partner for Iron Galaxy Studios
As Iron Galaxy’s Co-CEO, Chelsea Blasko is the adult in the room who runs the company’s day-to-day operations and makes all of the magic happen behind the scenes. She maintains the well-being of its employees and the culture of the studio, overseeing IT, HR, DEI, PD, mentorship programs and more.
Chelsea was the company’s 13th employee and has been instrumental in Iron Galaxy’s growth and high employee retention. While she was initially brought on to produce titles, she proactively took the reins on the hiring, expansion and culture development to help shape the studio’s elevation from 13 to 250 employees across multiple offices. Chelsea mentored many of the studio’s leaders by overseeing product development and teaching others the process along the way. Additionally, she created Iron Galaxy’s career coaching program that assigned every employee with a more senior staff member to ensure they were offered opportunities to continue to support their growth and areas of interest. Iron Galaxy now has offices in Chicago, Orlando and even a virtual Austin location.
A Notre Dame graduate, Chelsea was a high school German teacher, and managed an H&M and high-end boutique before finding her start in games at Electronic Arts in Chicago. There she was enticed by the ability to flex her creative and artistic muscles. While at EACHI, she served as the assistant to the GM and a Production Producer and Project Manager. She was finally convinced by Iron Galaxy’s Founder Dave Lang to share her production expertise at Iron Galaxy and quickly took over the entire company’s production department and internal operations before becoming the co-CEO. Iron Galaxy strives to be a welcoming and diverse place to work, and Chelsea is key to making sure that goal is realized.
Professor,
Georgian College
Senior CTV Computer Vision & Machine Learning Engineer, Triplelift
CEO and Partner,
Iron Galaxy Studios
March 2024
March 28, 2024 Stellar Creative Labs: A practical implementation of USD
- Bert Van Brande, Co-Founder, Stellar Creative Labs
- Fermi Perumal, Pipeline Supervisor, Stellar Creative Labs
- Ignacio Urruty, Software Developer, Stellar Creative Labs
- Host: Aaron Thibault
Co-Founder
Stellar Creative Labs
Pipeline Supervisor
Stellar Creative Labs
Software Developer
Stellar Creative Labs
March 26, 2024: How USD is supporting evolution of film & game pipelines at Ubisoft?
- Cyrus Rahgoshay, Technical Lead, Ubisoft
- Alessandro Bernardi, Director of Technology Operations, Ubisoft
- Host: Doug Sherman, VP of Technology, DreamWorks Animation
Technical Lead
Ubisoft
Director of Technology Operations
Ubisoft
VP of Technology
DreamWorks Animation