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 Media contact:  
 Phillip Rollfing  
979.458.0442
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Industry Visit

DreamWorks and plays at
College of Architecture

 

   

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and fellow DreamWorkers are coming to the Texas A&M College of Architecture to work, play, discuss the future of CG animation and treat students, faculty and staff to a movie.

The main event, “A Conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberg,” is slated for 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30 in the Preston Geren Auditorium at the Langford Architecture Center. Katzenberg will talk about the future of computer graphic animation with DreamWorks computer graphics supervisor and Viz former student Dave Walvoord in a live question and answer session moderated by Dr. Dean Bresciani, vice president of student affairs at Texas A&M University.

Tickets to Monday’s night’s event are available on a first-come, first-served basis from the Viz Lab, located on the in Langford C418. Students from VIZA, VIST, ENDS and CPSC, in particular, are highly encouraged to attend this very special happening. Please not that tickets will not be placed on hold and e-mail queries and phone calls are strongly discouraged. Also, no recording or photographic devices of any kind will be allowed at this event. This includes cell phones with photographic capabilities.

The following day, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m., DreamWorks is treating ticket-holding College of Architecture students, faculty and staff to a private screening of the new DreamWorks animated feature, "Flushed Away," at Cinemark’s Hollywood Theater in College Station.

“Flushed Away” tickets and posters are also available on a first-come, first-served basis from the Viz Lab in Langford C418. Again, tickets will not be placed on hold and e-mail queries and phone calls are strongly discouraged.

Prior to the public festivities, as early as Friday, Oct. 27, Katzenberg’s entourage will arrive in College Station to meet Viz students and faculty, review student work and lead a few highly nuanced animation workshops.

At 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27, DreamWorks special effects artist Scott Cegielski will conduct a Visual Effects Workshop exclusively for viz students in Langford C414 and C412. This visual effects problem-solving workshop is limited to 12 students with a strong interest in visual effects.

Earlier in the day, DreamWorks recruiter Kim Mackey will join Cegielski interviewing Viz students and reviewing their work. An “open presentation” by the Dreamworks staff is set for 1:30 p.m. in Langford C414.

The day of the “Big Event,” Monday, Oct. 30, Dave Walvoord, a Viz former student and computer graphics supervisor for DreamWorks, will critique Viz student’s demo reels in the morning, then lead a 3 – 5 p.m. lighting workshop for Viz students in Langford C412 and Studio A.

Prior to his public 7:30 p.m. public presentation in the Geren Auditorium, Katzenberg is meeting privately with Visualization Science faculty and students to review research projects and student work.

Jeffrey Katzenberg

Jeffrey Katzenberg is the Chief Executive Officer of DreamWorks Animation SKG. DreamWorks Animation was a division of DreamWorks SKG until October 2004, when it became a separate publicly traded company. Katzenberg co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen in October 1994.

Under Katzenberg’s leadership, DreamWorks Animation has enjoyed a number of critical and commercial successes, including “Over the Hedge,” “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (created by Aardman Animations), “Madagascar,” “Shark Tale,” “Shrek,” and its sequel “Shrek 2,” the highest grossing animated feature of all time.

From its 1994 inception until it was acquired by Paramount in 2006, DreamWorks produced a number of celebrated films, including three Best Picture Academy Award® winners – “American Beauty,” “Gladiator,” and “A Beautiful Mind.” The studio released its first animated films in 1998 – “Antz,” and “The Prince of Egypt.”

Prior to co-founding DreamWorks, Katzenberg served as Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. During his tenure, the studio produced such box office hits as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” the first animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®. Katzenberg previously served as President of Paramount Studios.

Katzenberg is currently the Chairman of the Board for the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation, and serves on the boards of AIDS Project Los Angeles, American Museum of the Moving Image, California Institute of the Arts, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Geffen Playhouse, Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, and The Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Dave Walvoord

Dave Walvoord recently completed work as a CG supervisor on DreamWorks Animation’s hit summer comedy “Over the Hedge.” He joined the studio in 2002 to help build the digital animation feature film pipeline and in addition served as a CG supervisor on the Academy Award®-nominated animated comedy “Shark Tale.” Dave is currently serving as a CG Supervisor on the upcoming action-adventure “Kung Fu Panda,” slated for release May 23, 2008

Prior to joining DreamWorks Animation, Walvoord worked at Blue Sky Studios as a supervising technical director on the animated feature “Ice Age” and as a digital effects supervisor on the Academy Award®-winning animated short “Bunny.” In the live-action realm, he has worked on the features “Fight Club” and “Star Trek: Insurrection.”

Walvoord received a Master of Science degree in Visualization Science and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.

John Tarnoff
Head of Show Development

John Tarnoff oversees three groups responsible for managing key resources and practices in Dreamworks Animation’s early production process for its animated feature films. These groups are responsible for the initial artistic designs and storyboards for films in development and pre-production, for the artistic enrichment and training of the illustrators, designers, and storyboard artists who create the look of these films, and for the studio’s ongoing relationship with art schools and other institutions that provide new ideas and talent that help shape the studio’s future.

John has been in the motion picture business for 30 years, starting in TV commercial production in New York and film distribution in Los Angeles. He was a literary agent responsible for breaking talented directors like John Landis, Michael Mann and Martha Coolidge, and an independent producer and production executive for studios including MGM, Orion, Columbia, Warner Bros, and New Line. Some of the films he has been responsible for include Diner, The Year of Living Dangerously, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and The Power of One.

A co-founder of Village Roadshow Pictures, he helped pioneer U.S./Australian co-productions in the late 1980s. He began using computers in film production as early as 1984, and branched into multimedia development in 1993, producing CD-ROM games Big Brother (based on Orwell’s 1984) and Wargames, (based on the hit movie).

Prior to joining Dreamworks, John was the co-founder of Talkie, Inc. an internet technology company that developed intelligent, conversational animated characters for online marketing, brand building, lead generation, customer service and training.

John holds a B.A. from Amherst College in Massachusetts. He grew up in New York and Paris, and is a passionate still photographer.

Marilyn Friedman
Head of Outreach and Special Projects

As Head of Outreach and Special Projects for Dreamworks Animation SKG, Marilyn Friedman spearheads the company’s school outreach initiatives, assessing university academic programs as they pertain to the studio’s varied production needs.

Prior to her current role, Marilyn led Dreamworks Animation’s world-class team of recruiters in staffing all animation studio production and technology groups. She was key in building the team for “Shrek 2”, the sequel to the Academy Award?-winning animated feature, “Shrek”, and “Shark Tale,” the first computer-generated film to be produced at DreamWorks Feature Animation in Glendale, CA.

Marilyn joined PDI 14 years ago, as one of two production managers for the pioneering production facility. She then moved into a recruiting role with the studio in 1996 when Dreamworks and PDI entered into a co-production deal to create the hit computer-animated feature film, “Antz.”

Marilyn kicked off her career in the graphics industry with the creative services agency Peterson and Dodge in San Francisco. She later moved to San Francisco’s Frazier Design, a high-end graphics design studio, where she held the role of studio and project manager for 6 years.
Marilyn is a graduate of the University of Colorado, Denver with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She has sat on advisory boards at various institutions of higher education and frequently speaks at universities and industry conferences worldwide on careers in computer animation and visual effects.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg