Sabine Heller

Work History

• 

  Head of Characters

  Blue Sky Studios

  August 2018 - Present
• 

  Instructor

  School of Visual Arts

  September 2017 - May 2019

  Instructor for the courses Thesis I and II in the BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects department.
• 

  Character Development Supervisor

  Blue Sky Studios

  September 2013 - August 2018

  As a Character Development Supervisor I accompany all characters of all films from their design phase to modeling, rigging and animation until they are finished assets for animation production. While keeping the schedule in mind, I make sure that the characters work in 3D and look out for their animation performance requirements for the movie. This requires me to work closely with all departments involved in the pre-production process, as well as the CG supervisor and the production manager.
• 

  Rigging Show Lead

  Blue Sky Studios

  January 2013 - August 2014

  Rigging Show Lead for 'Peanuts' (2015)
• 

  Senior Character Technical Director

  Blue Sky Studios

  June 2012 - August 2013
• 

  Character Technical Direction Instructor

  AnimSchool

  July 2011 - July 2013

  Teaching Character Technical Direction / Rigging and developing syllabi for Character TD classes
• 

  Lead Character Technical Director

  Blue Sky Studios

  January 2012 - January 2013

  Creative lead for face rigs on 'Rio 2' (2014)
• 

  Character Technical Director

  Blue Sky Studios

  May 2009 - May 2012

  Character TDs create the expressive, flexible and efficient rigs that allow animators to bring life to the characters and props in films. This includes building skeletons, setting up deformations, and engineering control systems that meet the particular needs of a character or prop.

• Technical Director

  SPANS & PARTNER

  September 2006 - March 2009

  Character rigging, set supervision, development of pipeline tools, special effects, including water, cloth and particles
• 

  Lab Assistant

  School of Visual Arts

  January 2005 - May 2006

  Maintaining the MFA Computer Art network and assisting the staff in all aspects of Computer System Administration, maintaining the MFA Computer Art Intranet website

• Internship

  ProSieben

  February 2004 - June 2004

  3D animation and modeling with Lightwave in one of Germany‘s largest TV production house
• 

  Internship

  Gentle Giant Studios

  August 2002 - February 2003

  3D scanning and preparing of 3D scans for toys and special effects

• Research Assistant

  Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV)

  October 2001 - July 2002

  Modeling of low resolution characters for Virtual Reality purposes
• 

  Internship

  IBM

  July 2001 - September 2001

  Development of Java-Applets and Java Server Pages