San Antonio, Tex. - NewTek, a provider of 3D animation and video products, announced that Emmy Award-winning NewTek LightWave 3D visual effects artists will be honored at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Hollywood on November 10, 2011.
Actor Jeri Ryan, having achieved cult status early in her career as the character Seven of Nine in the hit series, Star Trek: Voyager, will host, and be joined by special guest Dick Van Dyke to celebrate the numerous Primetime Emmy Award-winning visual effects created with LightWave 3D software.
Variety magazine Features Editor David S. Cohen will moderate the "VFX Minds" panel event, discussing the current challenges of producing high-end, award-winning visual effects for television, while juggling increasingly difficult budgets and schedules.
The panel will feature:
Ron Thornton: A legendary Emmy Award-winning VFX producer and studio owner whose impact on television visual effects launched the new era of television CGI visual effects in 1993 with Babylon 5. Throughout his career, Thornton has supervised numerous television and film projects, including
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek: Voyager, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the upcoming
Red Tails.
Chuck Comisky: A VFX supervisor and film producer for Terminator 2 3D,
Aliens of the Deep, and stereoscopic VFX supervisor for James Cameron's
Avatar. His credits also include on-set stereo supervision for
Sanctum 3D and
Final Destination 5 3D. Comisky has more than 20 years in the motion picture industry, with credits on
The Crow,
Jaws 3,
Dungeons & Dragons, and many more.
Gary Hutzel: A visual effects supervisor with 18 Primetime Emmy award nominations and four Primetime Emmy awards for his work on Star Trek and
Battlestar Galactica. Hutzel is presently completing the pilot for the upcoming
Blood and Chrome, a
Battlestar Galactica prequel.
Eric Hance: An Emmy Award-winning animator and supervisor with an impressive list of television visual effects credits; Hance is currently supervisor at Pixomondo for the Steven Spielberg series, Terra Nova, where he and his team are pushing the limits of visual effects in every episode. Hance's earlier credits include
Star Trek: Enterprise,
Surface,
Hellboy,
NCIS: Los Angeles, Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles, Life After People, and
Ghost Whisperer.
The evening will begin at 6:30 pm PST at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Leonard H. Goldenson Theater in North Hollywood.
NewTek TriCaster will broadcast the event live on the NewTek Web site at www.newtek.com, with live updates on the LightWave Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/newtekinc and Twitter @lightwave3d.