Jeff Barnes’ career has taken him from two Amigas and a VHS deck to the world’s most cutting-edge digital display screens. After discovering a love for post-production, Jeff co-founded CafeFX in the early-90s and created VFX for over 90 movies including Flubber, Armageddon, Panic Room, Pan’s Labyrinth, Sin City, The Mist, and Alice in Wonderland. Jeff then oversaw DD’s 3D pipeline and consulted in the industry before moving to the innovative lightfield company Lytro, where he produced the world’s first 2k light field short.

In this podcast, Jeff reminisces about the early days of CafeFX, revealing how the company demonstrated its abilities via a Rocketeer laserdisc, reveals the pros and cons of being based in Santa Maria, and talks about meeting directors including John Hughes, Robert Rodriguez, and Guillermo del Toro. Jeff also discusses his current work at the Light Field Lab, in which he shares one of the company’s goals to make immersive Star Trek Holodeck-style experiences a reality.

If digital humans are evolving, Isaac Bratzel is the scientist altering their DNA. Beginning his career as a character artist (because it represented the biggest challenge), Isaac helped create Amelia, a conversational AI with a digital human face, and then went on to establish virtual social media phenomenon Lil Miquela.

Today, Isaac is bringing his expertise in AI and digital humans together in AvatarOS, the company he founded to create digital humans with personalities. In this podcast, Isaac reveals how he overcame some of the technical challenges of creating digital humans that work across the platforms of tomorrow and reveals his ultimate goal for the company.

For the past 30 years, Digital Domain has been ahead of the CG curve, delivering everything from True Lies’ CG jet to The Last of Us’ desolate landscapes. But what does the future hold for this innovative VFX studio? This week, Lala Gavgavian, the president and COO of DD, explains how it's charting a course through the waters of new technology.

Lala talks about how Digital Domain has branched out beyond blockbuster VFX and is now taking on gaming projects and medical imaging. She also talks about how AI and machine learning have been changing things behind the scenes at Digital Domain and how the technology behind its Digi Doug and Digi Zoe projects is helping create the perfect digital double.

Could Macroverse change the way creative content is created and consumed? In this podcast, Chris is joined by Adam Martin, an assistant director who has worked on productions including Transformers, Dave, and Barry. After growing frustrated with the Hollywood system, Adam co-founded Macroverse to give writers and artists a platform to share their stories and visions.

Adam gives a full overview of Macroverse and what makes it work, explaining how its Tap Story system enriches comic stories and gives them a cinematic flair, and covering how this democratized web 3.0 platform gives everyone a chance to tell their story and adds a level of transparency to funding and payments.

We want some of Chris Browne’s energy. This multiskilled VFX supervisor, currently working at Sony Pictures Animation, has helped bring animated series to life, including The Fast and Furious Spy Racers, Kung Fu Panda, and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. At the same time, he’s devoted his spare time to his own award-winning short films, beginning with “Gibb” at university, alien sci-fi “Beating the Abductors,” and now “Pleroma,” which examines themes of AI versus humanity. 

Chris breaks down what it was like to work on “Pleroma” during the pandemic, talks about shooting in a dangerous particle accelerator facility, and shares how he single-handedly created 200-plus visual effects shots and built robots for the short. He also reveals his big plans for the future of “Pleroma,” as well as discussing what’s coming up in the world of animation.