CGI Festival speakers announced

The CGI Festival has announced details of the first speakers presenting at the Festival later this year in Leeds and London.
They are: Craig Hayes, Tippett Studios; Andrew Chapman, Framestore CFC;
Andrew Daffy, CGI Supervisor; Jordi Bares, Senior 3D Animator, The Mill; And Benjamin Smith, Red Star Studio.
Craig Hayes is an Academy Award-winning Special Effects Supervisor, Art Director, and partner in Tippett Studio. In early 2004, Hayes began supervising Tippett Studio's contribution to another Keanu Reeves starring movie for Warner Bros, ‘Constantine’. This occult thriller is directed by Francis Lawrence, an accomplished music video director and actor, and also stars Rachel Weisz. Hayes and his team are creating a series of hellish sequences for this early 2005 release.
Andrew Chapman has recently been the Lead Crowds Technical Director for work on the feature film ‘Troy’, and is currently wrangling with a room full of CGI squirrels. Other recent projects include the title sequence for ‘James Bond: Die Another Day’, and various high profile commercial spots.
Before joining Framstore CFC Andrew worked at Animal Logic Film in Australia as part of their R&D department during productions such as ‘The Matrix’and ‘Moulin Rouge’.
Andrew Daffy specialises in CGI Supervision for the postproduction industry. He studied at CDIS in Vancouver, Canada and got his first job at Framestore CFC as a Junior Animator in 1996. After earning the position as Head of 3D Commercials, he worked on award winning commercials such as Levis ‘Odyssey’ and Johnnie Walker ‘Fish’. His final project within the company was the CGI supervision of a bat sequence for ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’.
Jordi Bares has experience in the games industry, commercials, television and film in several different capacities, from animation director to software analyst. He is both an artist and technician, mixing 2d cell animation with computer science and graphics. After eight years of freelance work in his native Spain, Jordi moved to London in 2000. He is currently a senior animator at The Mill.
Red Star Studio is a creative digital film production company run by award winning 3D artist Benjamin Smith. Red Star produces effects and animation based digital films for a variety of media and venues.
Smith’s credits include visual effects for Chris Morris’ BAFTA winning short 'My Wrongs' for Warp Films; and he has recently completed museum film ‘The Mission’, telling the story of a B17 Bomber’s final flight in World War Two.
The conference forms an important part of the CGI Festival and is being assembled by Martine Parry. Parry has worked within visualisation, simulations, special effects and games development for over 15 years and brings many years of experience gained through her production of successful conferences and seminars - the most recent being the entire programming of the highly successful Games Developer Conference Europe 2004.
(GB)