PAUL GEORGE PALOP
Summary
VFX Supervisor and CG Team Lead with broad experience across feature film, commercials, immersive media, and high-end product visualization. Leads teams from bidding and staffing through shot production and final delivery, while staying hands-on in lighting, rendering, compositing, and pipeline troubleshooting.
Overview
1
1
Language
26
26
years of professional experience
Work History
VFX Supervisor / CG Team Lead
APPLE
01.2019 - Current
- Lead CG teams creating high-end product visualization and motion content for Apple's biannual product launches, including keynote presentations and apple.com.
- Led teams of 6-8 artists through shot assignment, daily reviews, and creative direction to meet tight launch schedules.
- Represent the CG team in reviews with Apple hardware art directors and creatives; work closely with production to prioritize and deliver presentation-ready work.
- Maintained hands-on involvement in lighting, rendering, and compositing, effectively troubleshooting complex rendering and pipeline issues.
- Utilized Maya to establish a robust pipeline that enhanced efficiency in project execution.
- Employed V-Ray to create realistic lighting and textures in product visualizations.
- Applied Nuke for compositing tasks, integrating various visual elements seamlessly.
- Managed contract negotiations, ensuring continuity of project work and resources.
CG Supervisor / On-Set VFX Supervisor
METHOD STUDIOS
Los Angeles
01.2016 - 01.2018
- CG Supervisor for Guardians of the Galaxy attraction screen content at Disney California Adventure and 360 VR content for Verizon.
- Provided on-set VFX supervision, contributing to development of studio pipeline, improving workflows, and planning render resources.
- Led CG teams in assignments, conducting creative and technical reviews, troubleshooting issues, and overseeing final delivery.
- Supervised CG production for commercials, immersive media, location-based entertainment, and feature-film support, ensuring high-quality visual effects.
Technical Director ? Lighting Lead ? CG Supervisor ? Digital Effects Supervisor
DIGITAL DOMAIN
Los Angeles / Vancouver
01.2001 - 01.2016
- Advanced from technical director to digital effects supervisor over 15 years, supporting full VFX shot-production pipelines from bidding and staffing through CG compositing and final delivery.
- Supported major feature work on Deadpool, Iron Man 3, Real Steel, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Speed Racer, and I, Robot.
- Coordinated multi-facility bidding, staffing, scheduling, resource planning, and oversight of CG and compositing, enhancing pipeline development, rendering, look development, simulation, and technical troubleshooting.
- Developed MEL tools for animation upon joining in 2001, led lighting and rendering development on I, Robot, and supervised 25 artists across 600 shots at peak.
- Evaluated and improved technical workflows for rendering, compositing, and animation departments.
- Guided teams on software tools, scene setup, and pipeline standards.
- Addressed and fixed production challenges across Digital Domain creative and technical departments.
Education
Master of Fine Arts - Computer Animation
Savannah College of Art And Design (SCAD)
Savannah, GA01-2001
Bachelor of Science - Information Engineering
UNITEC
Venezuela01-1996
Skills
- VFX / CG Supervision
- Team leadership
- Shot production
- Resource planning
- Creative direction
- On-set supervision
- Photoreal rendering
- Pipeline Development
- Technical Troubleshooting
- Software: Maya
- Software: V-Ray
- Software: Nuke
- Software: Adobe Photoshop
- Software: Adobe Lightroom Classic
SIGGRAPH PUBLICATIONS
- “Jordan vs Jordan: Recreating the Basketball Legend” — ACM SIGGRAPH — Author. Technical sketch documenting a photoreal digital 23-year-old Michael Jordan, including photographic acquisition, image-based lighting, skin shading, eyes, hair, RenderMan rendering, and Nuke compositing.
- “I, Robot: Character Pipeline, Tools, and Methods” — ACM SIGGRAPH — Co-author. Technical sketch covering asset-management, character, animation, deformation, and rendering pipelines developed at Digital Domain for I, Robot.
SELECTED PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
- Deadpool — Digital Effects Supervisor — Supervised production across Vancouver and Los Angeles. Oversaw character and environment work including cloth and muscle simulation, large-scale rigid-body destruction, fire and smoke FX, and the massive CG carrier featured in the final act.
- Iron Man 3 — Digital Effects Supervisor — Oversaw CG and compositing production with responsibility for bidding, staffing, scheduling, and resource allocation. Reassessed production scope against available resources to protect final delivery; participated in motion-capture volume and virtual-production testing.
- Real Steel — CG Supervisor — Supervised lighting, modeling, texturing, environments, rigging, FX, and front-end pipeline development. Worked with compositing leadership to deliver approximately 400 shots on schedule and within budget, integrating photoreal CG robots with practical animatronic robots.
- Star Trek / Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — CG Supervisor — Oversaw front- and back-end CG departments, working with compositing supervisors and production on bidding, scheduling, staffing, resource planning, artist recruitment, and final delivery.
- Speed Racer — CG Supervisor — Supervised sequence-level CG production with emphasis on lighting/rendering pipelines, rendering technology, technical troubleshooting, and quality control of CG elements delivered to compositing.
- I, Robot — Lighting Lead / Rendering Development — Led lighting across approximately 600 Digital Domain shots, supervising roughly 25 artists at peak through three sequence leads. Led development of lighting and rendering methodology for the robots' semi-translucent shells and multi-pass rendering/compositing workflow.
SELECTED FEATURE FILM CREDITS
- Digital Effects Supervisor — Deadpool
- Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
- Iron Man 3
- CG Supervisor — Real Steel
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
- Star Trek
- Speed Racer
- Lighting / Technical — King Kong (Weta Digital)
- Transformers
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
- I, Robot
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- The Time Machine
Languages
Spanish
Native/ Bilingual
Timeline
VFX Supervisor / CG Team Lead
APPLE
01.2019 - Current
CG Supervisor / On-Set VFX Supervisor
METHOD STUDIOS
01.2016 - 01.2018
Technical Director ? Lighting Lead ? CG Supervisor ? Digital Effects Supervisor
DIGITAL DOMAIN
01.2001 - 01.2016
Master of Fine Arts - Computer Animation
Savannah College of Art And Design (SCAD)
Bachelor of Science - Information Engineering
UNITEC