Alexander Kucera

Work History

• Professional Production Journalist

  EubuCo Verlag GmbH

  September 2008 - Present

  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 - Kucera & Kucera Gbr

  September 2004 - Present

  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

• BabylonDreams - Kucera & Kucera Gbr

  November 2016 - April 2017
• 

  Senior Compositor

  LAVAlabs Moving Images GmbH & Co KG

  September 2016 - September 2016

  Düsseldorf, Germany

• Senior Compositor

  Mackevision Hamburg

  June 2016 - August 2016

  Hamburg, Germany

• Senior Compositor

  Mackevision Hamburg

  March 2016 - April 2016

  Hamburg, Germany

• Freelance Compositor

  space digital

  September 2011 - November 2014

  Compositing for Young Dracula, Doctor Who and other projects
• 

  Freelance Compositor

  Animationsfabrik GmbH

  August 2011 - September 2011

  Hamburg Area, Germany

  Compositing for VW "Up" convention trailer. Finalized ~34 of 50 shots on the project.
• 

  Freelance Compositor

  Animationsfabrik GmbH

  February 2011 - April 2011

  Hamburg Area, Germany

  Compositing for Werner "Eiskalt" and several smaller commerical projects.
• 

  Lighting TD and Compositor

  Red Vision

  July 2009 - February 2010

  Set up sequences and individual shots for rendering, including shading, look development, animation, scripting, particles and lighting. Created composites for my own shots and several sequences.

• Compositor

  Elektrofilm

  2009 - 2009
• 

  VFX Coordinator

  Pixomondo

  May 2008 - October 2008

  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

  November 2007 - May 2008

  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

  October 2007 - 2008

  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

  March 2006 - October 2007

  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

  June 2005 - August 2005

  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

  March 2005 - April 2005

  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