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I met Jeff and Anne Scheetz, the owners, told them who I was and what I did and told them how their grads really shined above the other candidates I'd received over the years.Ībout 6 months later, I received a call from Jeff asking if I'd like to be the guest Director for their award winning live action space adventure movie "NASA Seals" (right down my alley, how could I refuse?).
I had noticed over the past few years that many of the best demo reels I had received while hiring, were grads from this school so I decided to stop in and let the owners know they were doing a great job teaching their students. In 2004, while scouting a location at Universal Studios Orlando, I saw a sign for The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School.
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The series was very popular and I would regularly receive emails from all over the world, so I knew I was onto something.
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So I began production of an comprehensive all-inclusive video and book Special Effects & Visual Effects curriculum which I began posting some for free online in around 1997. I quickly realized, while training dozens of new artists on all of this cutting edge technology, that I needed to somewhat formalize what I was teaching in order to streamline this start-up time (and save me from having to repeat this training over and over again). In the late 1990's I decided to turn my focus to my original love and passion, motion pictures.
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Over the years I produced everything from motion pictures, television, music videos, radio shows and advertising to full interactive multimedia architectural, previz, visual effects and even medical training curricula. Please tell us a bit about your work and the movies you have contributed directly and indirectly to. Q: You have trained hundreds of visual effect artists, who have gone on to top visual effects companies for blockbuster films, and you have created productions for many multinational and Fortune 500 clients. We were the first on the internet to stream a radio station 24 hours a day over the internet and spearheaded new technologies for many big companies. Always being in love with the latest in bleeding edge technology, when I heard about this new communication system called the internet and the new hypertext creation method called the world wide web, I jumped all over that and formed one of the largest internet content providing companies in the Southeast at the time, producing cutting edge interactive 3D, video & VR content for large companies. By the time I stopped touring, the first personal computers came on the scene and the first 3D software. Then it was stop-motion and hand-scratched animation using a needle and a magnifying glass (8mm film is VERY small lol).Īs I got older and began performing in rock bands, I naturally began producing music videos for my own band as well as others (including fog, laser and explosion effects of course).
First it was firecrackers for bullets and homemade fake blood for squibs, hand made props, and model spaceships.
I was always interested in making bigger-than-life movies so I gravitated to special and visual effects right from the beginning. As a kid I would wrangle all the neighborhood kids into making action and adventure movies. It was hardly an epic, but even at that very young age I was hooked on making movies. At 4 years old I hijacked my dad's 8mm movie camera and took secret movies of the gardener. I'm one of those people who has just always known what they wanted to do. Please tell us a bit about yourself, how you started, and your extensive background. Q: Jon Gress you are a writer, producer, director, and visual effects producer. Writer / Producer / Director and Visual Effects Producer
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Jon has been on the cutting edge of digital production technologies since their beginnings and has taught production and software applications courses in Visual Effects, Compositing, Filmmaking, VFX Supervision, the entire Adobe Production Suite, Nuke, Fusion, Lightwave 3D, 3D Studio Max, PF Track, Boujou, Mocha Pro, RealFlow, Turbulence FD, Digital Matte Painting and UDK & Unity game engines. With over 25 years of digital & visual special effects, film, video, audio, and multimedia production experience, writer/producer/director and visual effects producer Jon Gress is one of the new breed of independent filmmakers who can write, shoot, direct, edit, and produce Hollywood sized digital & visual special effects.