The Foundry Appoint Ron Brinkmann As Special Advisor

The Foundry has announced the appointment of Ron Brinkmann as special advisor to its Nuke development team.
For nearly two decades Brinkmann has enjoyed a variety of roles as both an end-user and supplier to the post production industry, giving him an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the technological and workflow issues involved in the creation of first-class digital images. His expertise will be focussed on assisting the development of Nuke, The Foundry’s high-end compositing application.
A respected supervisor in the visual effects and animation world, Brinkmann’s film credits include 'Die Hard With A Vengeance', 'James And The Giant Peach', 'Contact' and 'Valiant'. He was nominated for a British Academy Award for his work on 'Speed', and is the author of 'The Art and Science of Digital Compositing', which is regarded as a standard book of reference in the visual effects industry.
Brinkmann was part of the initial design and development team at Nothing Real, the software company that produced the digital compositing application Shake. Apple acquired Nothing Real in 2002, and for the last five years Brinkmann has continued his role at Apple as the product designer for Shake.
"I’m very happy to be part of the development team at The Foundry," commented Brinkmann. "They have a huge amount of talent, incredible cutting-edge technology, and for many years have produced a vast array of powerful tools and image effects for digital artists. The combined experience of the team involved with the development of Nuke will result in considerable enhancements to the product. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s set to be a really exciting proposition for the film-making community."
"Ron’s addition is a terrific coup for The Foundry, and clearly signals our intent with Nuke," said Dr Bill Collis, CEO of The Foundry. "We have known Ron on a personal and professional level for many years, and his insight and experience will add enormously to the next wave of our products."
Brinkmann is joining a team of highly regarded engineers including Bill Spitzak, the original author of Nuke, Matt Plec formerly of Sony Pictures Imageworks, and The Foundry’s Chief of Engineering Bruno Nicoletti.
Available on Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms, high-end compositing application Nuke delivers unparalleled speed, an extensible 64-channel TCL-based architecture, and powerful feature set unrivalled in the desktop market.
(DS/SP)