The creative and technical teams at Pixar Animation Studios work closely to combine art and technology in every project they undertake, much like many consider as engineering as both art and science.

Oren Jacob, Senior Technical Director at Pixar, will discuss the trade-off's between art and engineering in the making of Toy Story 2. In the opening scene, the most concentrated set of effects shots Pixar had ever attempted, Oren rendered 280,000 robots all with their laser blasters drawn and firing at Buzz Lightyear. Learn about how Pixar modelled and developed this scene and others at this year's Crab Feed.

About the Speaker: Oren Jacob graduated with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 1993 and a M.S. in mechanical engineering in 1997. He is a Senior Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios. Oren has been with Pixar for more than nine years now and has worked on numerous award winning commercials like Listerine Arrows, Mission, and Jungle, Levis Khakis, and Hallmark Magnet. He has also worked on many commercials that did not win any awards, but his mother still loves him. Oren worked in the lighting and special effects departments on the chase sequence in Toy Story, creating the smoke contrail effects and assembling the overhead helicopter shots of a suburb. He was also the lead technical director on the first THX Robot logo for LucasFilm, and spent a few months doing character modelling and putting together the opening shot of A Bugs' Life. In addition, Oren taught the first Pixar University, a 10 week intensive training program for newly hired technical directors. Oren just completed three years of work on Toy Story 2, where he helped supervise modelling, shading, and, for the last nine months, all the special effects work on the film.

Time:

6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Social

7:00 - 8:00 p.m. Dinner

8:00 - 9:00 p.m. Presentation

Cost:

$25.00 Professionals

$15.00 Students

RSVP by Friday, March 17 to asme@me.berkeley.edu. Include your name and number of attendees.