Alexander Kucera

Current

• Technical Director at Red Vision
• Professional Production Journalist at EubuCo Verlag GmbH
• Founder & Lead Artist at BabylonDreams

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Past

• Compositor at Elektrofilm
• VFX Coordinator at PIXOMONDO IMAGES
• VFX Producer at cine plus vision GmbH

• VFX Advisor at Postyr Postproduktion ApS
• VFX Supervisor at Fridthjof Film
• Technical Editor at Peachpit Press
• Lead Compositor at Fridthjof Film

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4 more...

Education

• THE GERMAN FILM SCHOOL
• fxphd

Recommended

9 people have recommended Alexander

Connections

123 connections

Industry

Motion Pictures and Film

Websites

• My site alexanderkucera.com
• My company BabylonDreams

Alexander Kucera’s Summary

I'm passionate about digital film-making. From concept to 3D to compositing, I got it all covered. I enjoy maintaining my hands-on knowledge of compositing software and techniques, as this is where it all comes together. My passion for VFX is grounded in the doable.

Alexander Kucera’s Specialties:

• Shake — power user
• Nuke — entry level user
• Fusion — intermediate user
• AfterEffects — intermediate user
• SynthEyes 3D tracker — intermediate user
• Maya — power user
• MEL — intermediate user
• General scripting — intermediate user
• FileMaker — intermediate user
• MS Project — entry level user
• Windows — power user
• OS X — power user
• Linux — intermediate user

Alexander Kucera’s Experience

• Technical Director

  Red Vision

  (Privately Held; Animation industry)

  July 2009 — Present (5 months)

• Professional Production Journalist

  EubuCo Verlag GmbH

  (Newspapers industry)

  September 2008 — Present (1 year 3 months)

  The international Professional Production magazine offers its readers timely facts, dates, and trends from the media industry since 1986.
  
  • Reported in a two page article from the Cartoon Forum 2008, a convention about upcoming animation projects, where lots of new ideas are pitched and presented
  • In March 2009 I will be reporting from Cartoon Movie in Lyon

• Founder & Lead Artist

  BabylonDreams

  (Motion Pictures and Film industry)

  September 2004 — Present (5 years 3 months)

  BabylonDreams started as a local company doing small commercials and logo animations, but grew into an independent post-production service provider from there. We are creating character animations, technical animations, architectural & product visualizations and visual effects.
  
  • Lead artist responsible for 3D shading, rendering and compositing of all projects
  • Delivered 100% of projects so far within time and budget
  • Manage all the workstations and render farm machines
  • Technical direction, setting up 3D scenes and compositing of about 50 shots for the television pilot of Andy’s Airplanes — a full CG show

• Compositor

  Elektrofilm

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Motion Pictures and Film industry)

  2009 — 2009 (less than a year)

• VFX Coordinator

  PIXOMONDO IMAGES

  (Privately Held; Motion Pictures and Film industry)

  May 2008 — October 2008 (6 months)

  Pixomondo is one of the leading visual effects companies in Germany. With over 150 artists in 8 international offices, they create VFX for feature films, commercials and corporate movies.
  
  • Managed and coordinated all projects in Ludwigsburg being it film, TV or commercials
  • Helped to manage the available human resources of all departments for 3 months until a dedicated HR person was hired
  • Managed about 8–10 projects, of which 3–4 were in active production with an average shot count of 30 shots
  • Actively planned and coordinated the resources for roughly 50 people
  • Among the projects I coordinated are:
  ―□ Ninja Assassin
  ―□ 2012
  ―□ Kill Daddy Good Night
  ―□ Crashpoint: Berlin
  ―□ Vulkan
  ―□ Continental commercial
  ―□ Dr. Oetker commercial
  ―□ and several other productions
  • Delivered 100% of projects under time and budget
  • After I left, three people had to take over the work I did as a single coordinator

• VFX Producer

  cine plus vision GmbH

  (Motion Pictures and Film industry)

  November 2007 — May 2008 (7 months)

  cine+ vision was a subsidiary of cine+, one of the leading media-service providers in Germany. It was founded to provide visual effects services for the feature film production “Prisoners of the Sun.
  
  • Managed 20–25 employees and artists
  • Created the final production estimate for all 365 shots in collaboration with the department supervisors
  • Daily tasks included
  • Handling of the project plan
  • Supervising shot assignments
  • Managing external providers
  • Daily rounds with the artists as well as the producers and the director
  • Before the production was shut down (due to legal matters on the production companies end), 18 shots were completed and about 100 of all 365 shots were pre-visualized with elaborate animatics
  • The animatics helped the director to plan a re-shoot and to avoid extra expenses by reducing the amount of set construction necessary
  • Set up the color management pipeline together with the compositing supervisor

• VFX Advisor

  Postyr Postproduktion ApS

  (Media Production industry)

  October 2007 — 2008 (1 year )

  Postyr (formerly Fridthjof Film) is a post-production service provider. They produce their own feature films, which are among the biggest national successes in recent Danish cinema.
  
  • Left Postyr as VFX Supervisor, but stayed their technical advisor for another year
  • Consulted the VFX department on commercials and set supervision matters
  • Helped to plan several VFX shootings and continued to teach the trainees and artists

• VFX Supervisor

  Fridthjof Film

  (Privately Held; Media Production industry)

  March 2006 — October 2007 (1 year 8 months)

  Fridthjof Film is a post-production service provider. They produce their own feature films, which are among the biggest national successes in recent Danish cinema.
  
  • Handled everything that was not editing related
  • Set up pipelines for short movies
  • 3D setup, rendering, keying and general compositing for commercials, feature films, DVD and TV productions
  • Guided the VFX team (3–5 people) on shots that needed more attention
  • Worked heavily with shake, but also did 3D in Maya, scripting in in MEL, shake and AppleScript to keep the fast paced environment running
  • Delivered 100% of projects under time and budget and achieved a 100% customers satisfaction rate

• Technical Editor

  Peachpit Press

  (Public Company; Publishing industry)

  June 2005 — August 2005 (3 months)

  Peachpit is part of Pearson, the international media company. Peachpit has been publishing books on the latest in graphic design, desktop publishing, multimedia, Web design and development, digital video, and general computing since 1986.
  
  • Proofread of all the written material, on average one 10–paged chapter per day
  • Helped the authors to make the complicated technical details better understandable to a broader audience
  • Searched for inconsistencies in the flow of the book and pointed these out to the editors

• Lead Compositor

  Fridthjof Film

  (Privately Held; Media Production industry)

  March 2005 — April 2005 (2 months)

  Fridthjof Film is a post-production service provider. They produce their own feature films, which are among the biggest national successes in recent Danish cinema.
  
  • Keyed about 150 green-screen shots in two months
  • Built my own shake keyer, which was used by all other compositors for 90% of the shots (ca. 400 of 450)
  • Created the title sequence in close collaboration with the director, which required to upscale and clean-up smaller then PAL footage

Alexander Kucera’s Education

• THE GERMAN FILM SCHOOL

  Master , Digital Artist , 2001 — 2004

• fxphd

Additional Information

Alexander Kucera’s Websites:

• My site alexanderkucera.com
• My company BabylonDreams

Alexander Kucera’s Interests:

LaTeX, Terry Prattchet, Scott Sigler, Neil Gaiman, rendering techniques, podcast, karate, mountain bike, playing with our two ferrets, cooking

Alexander Kucera’s Groups:

•    Visual Effects, Film and Games Professionals (www.vfx-recruit.com)
•    ThoseInFilm (Motion Pictures & Film Industry)
•    Animation, Media & Entertainment
•    Mac Users
•    [VFX_AG] - The Visual Effects Artists Group
•    nuke network
•    Visual Effects Professionals
•    Digital Artist Outsourcing Group (InArtists)
•    Rapidweaver xperts group
•    i NEED SOME WORK DONE...

Alexander Kucera’s Honors:

my dog eats beats:
• Animago Award 1st place (Musicvideo/Compositing) — http://www.animago.com/2003/
• Audience Award 14. Internationales Bochumer Filmfestival
• Honorary mention by the Erdiözese Freiburg

Alexander Kucera’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch