Join industry leaders Larry Cutler and Kane Lee, Baobab Studios, in an evening dedicated to virtual reality. Thursday, February 15 at 7 p.m. in the Cloobeck Screening Room, Digital Media Arts Center.  Seating for this event is first come, first serve, please plan accordingly.

Cutler and Lee are dedicated craftsmen who see the power of marrying art and technology. Their short film Invasion! set the stage for the studio’s deep venture into virtual reality. It was this project which lead to the next film, Asteroids!, which saw much acclaim at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Both films push the boundaries of filmmaking using virtual reality as a storytelling tool.

 

About Larry Cutler, Chief Technical Officer

Larry Cutler brings deep technical leadership over the past 20 years in the area of animation creation and development. Larry currently serves on the Digital Imaging Technology Subcommittee for the Oscar Technical Achievement Awards. He was most recently the Vice President of Solutions at Metanautix, a big data analytics startup company (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to that, Larry spent 10 years at DreamWorks Animation where he served as Global Head of Character Tech and held several leadership positions in the areas of character development, animation workflow, rigging, and character simulation. Larry began his career at Pixar Animation Studios as a Technical Director on the films Monster’s Inc., Toy Story 2, and A Bug’s Life. Larry holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.

About Kane Lee, Chief Content Officer

kane lee baobab studios guest speaker at dodge college
Emmy Award-winning producer Kane Lee heads content development and strategy for Baobab. At the virtual-reality studio, his groundbreaking works include the 2017 Emmy Award winner Invasion!, featuring Ethan Hawke, the 2017 Unity Vision Award-winner Asteroids!, with Elizabeth Banks, and the highly anticipated VR experience Rainbow Crow, starring John Legend. Lee spearheaded the first-ever adaptation of VR IP (Invasion!) into a traditional Hollywood feature film. He has long worked at the frontier of technology and media. He is lead producer of the 20th Century Fox animated feature, The Dam Keeper, based upon the Academy Award-nominated short, and is on the producing teams for
projects ranging from The School for Good and Evil at Universal Pictures, Frozen, and Jennifer Lee’s The Way Between, to the award-winning children’s series Spooksville. Previously Vice President, Development and Production for Jane Startz Productions, Lee worked on Horton Hears A Who!, Ice Age: The Meltdown, and Robots, among other films. He is an interactive media advisor for the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

About Baobab Studios

Baobab Studios is the leading VR animation studio.  Our mission: Inspire you to dream by bringing out your sense of wonder.  We will immerse you in fantastical worlds, introduce you to characters to fall in love with, and let you interact with these characters.
Founded by Eric Darnell (Director of all 4 Madagascar films), Baobab’s Emmy-award winning VR animation, INVASION!, starring Ethan Hawke, launched to substantial critical acclaim and has become the top downloaded VR app. In a first, Hollywood is taking IP from VR to become a feature film: Roth Kirschenbaum Films (Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman) has signed to adapt INVASION! into a feature film.
Baobab’s 2nd VR animation, ASTEROIDS! starring Elizabeth Banks was an official 2017 Sundance Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival selection and won Best VR Experience at the Unity Vision Conference.  Baobab’s latest Rainbow Crow, starring John Legend, Diego Luna, and Constance Wu premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes this year.