Alyssa Zárate is an Art Director based in Vancouver, BC. She is also a co-founder at The VFX Mentor. Up until recently, she served as Environment and Matte Painting Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks. For over a decade, she has worked on films such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs The Machines, Game of Thrones, The Wolverine, Jurassic World, Prometheus, The Chronicles of Narnia to name a few; and various shows produced by HBO, Starz, National Geographic, Amazon Prime, Disney, and Netflix.

She started working in the Art Department as an on-set production illustrator and designer for film and television productions around New Zealand and Australia. She is passionate about leadership, mentoring, and inspiring current and future generations of artists in Visual Effects and Animation, especially those from underrepresented communities.

Amy Sendon is a seasoned visual effects professional with over a decade of industry experience. Growing up in Adelaide, South Australia, Amy’s passion for art and technology has been evident since she was young. She began her visual effects education by studying computer graphics and Visual Effects at TAFE SA, followed by honing her animation skills at Animation Mentor in 2011.

Before joining Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for the production of Thor: Ragnarok in 2017, she accumulated valuable experience by working on numerous VFX projects at MPC, Double Negative and Method Studios. Amy’s time at ILM, has provided her the opportunity to contribute to franchises that once inspired her as a child, including Star Wars, Jurassic World, Transformers and Space Jam.

Amy Tang, a Supervising Producer at Mainframe Studios, Co-Chair of Mainframe Studios Culture Club, proud volunteer on the leadership team for Spark CG Society. Even though the recent years have been more quiet than the past, as part of the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Animation Network, more than ever, it is important for Amy to evoke strong community connections to help the Vancouver CG industry grow and thrive.

Amy’s ability to maintain a grass-roots and organic yet structured approach, along with a loud voice and active energy, compliments the teams she oversees and events she helps organize and run.

Aparna Mepani joined Industrial Light & Magic 6 years ago as a Creature Technical Director. For the past 2 years, she has been working as Lead Creature TD on a variety of projects.

As a Lead Creature Technical director, Aparna has been responsible for doing simulation/dynamic setups on shows, mentoring the team members in ILM’s proprietary tools and working towards achieving aesthetic goals in collaboration with the show leadership. The last few projects Aparna contributed to include: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Mandalorian and Aladdin.

Aparna is originally from India where she did her undergrad in commercial arts. She then finished her post-grad diploma in 3D animation at Sheridan College in Toronto, Canada. Before joining ILM, she worked at Sony Imageworks, Method Studios and DreamWorks India.

Apoorva Shah, an FX Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in Vancouver, Canada, boasts a remarkable career spanning over a decade. Rising swiftly from FX Technical Director to FX Supervisor in under five years at ILM, Apoorva has overseen projects like Willow and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, amassing over 20 credits in feature films and series. Leading a team of top FX technical directors, he pushes the boundaries of visual effects, excelling in both traditional and technical effects.

Over the course of a 20-year career, VFX Supervisor Arek Komorowski has worked on a diverse range of projects for the world’s biggest studios.

From superhero spectaculars and period epics through to dystopian sci-fi and fantasy adventures, Arek has always brought his trademark craft, care and skill to the project in hand.

Recent supervisory credits include Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Roland Emmerich’s planet-smashing Moonfall, the episodic adaptation of Stephen King classic The Stand and Terminator: Dark Fate. Prior to these, he worked across titles such as Spider-Man: Homecoming, Aquaman and Captain America: Civil War.

All of this experience is grounded in an enviable compositing reputation, built at companies such as MPC and Method, where he worked across challenging titles such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Duncan Jones’ Source Code and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Brian Tatosky is a VFX Supervisor for CBS Studios, recently having worked on Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Star Trek: Picard.

Brian brings over 3 decades of production, VFX and post-experience in everything from corporate training videos and commercials to feature films, spending almost 15 years at Rhythm and Hues Studios and more recently, 5 years at FuseFX working on multiple Emmy-winning and nominated VFX projects. More importantly, Brian has been a Star Trek fan since the 1970s as a child, watching the original series in syndication with his family, and everything else since.

He regrets not keeping every Lincoln Enterprises catalog he received and has *lots* of opinions on warp nacelles and Bussard collectors.

Following an international journey in visual effects from Spain to Australia and back again, Javier Roca joined Rodeo’s Montreal team as VFX Supervisor in 2021 where he tackled the challenging project of bringing the Stranger Things digital upside-down world to live audiences in Stranger Things: The Experience. He has worked with some of the biggest directors in the industry such as Steven Spielberg and Luc Besson and has contributed to many award-winning projects like X-Men Days of Our Future Past (2014), The Impossible (2012), The Martian (2015), and Jurassic World (2015).

Known for recreating the destructive tsunami in the 2012 VES-winning film The Impossible, he was also involved in Game of Thrones, Season 8, and The Mandalorian Season 1, both nominated for several Emmy Awards, and in John Wick: Chapter 4 for which he scored two VES nominations.

Jeff White, an award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor and Creative Director at ILM Vancouver, oversees the studio's creative operations. Renowned for his technical prowess, especially in creature work, White earned an Academy Technical Achievement Award in 2018 for designing ILM's procedural rigging system, Block Party. The same year, he received an Oscar nomination for visual effects in Kong: Skull Island.

White previously served as ILM Visual Effects Supervisor for The Avengers in 2012, earning Academy and BAFTA nominations. His diverse portfolio includes supervising work on Transformers: Age of Extinction and Warcraft. In 2017, he garnered nominations for Kong: Skull Island and later supervised projects like Aquaman, Terminator: Dark Fate, The Underground Railroad, and The Witcher's Nivellen, which won a VES award for Outstanding Character.

Joanna joined Wētā FX in 2009 to work on Avatar as a Lighting TD. Since then, Joanna has worked on some of Weta’s key projects including The Hobbit trilogy, where she became a Lighting Lead, managing the lighting design for several sequences. She was also a Lighting Artist for The Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Joanna has recently wrapped on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and before that, on Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder.

As CG Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, Joanna was responsible for delivering 3D content for the film, collaborating with supervisors and colleagues across the VFX pipeline to ensure the work is delivered to the highest quality.

Before joining Wētā FX, Joanna worked at Framestore in the UK and Animal Logic in Australia.

Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Jon moved to the west coast of Canada in 2008, shifting from freelancing in commercials and music videos to feature film work. With over a decade of experience, he has contributed to 25+ movies and shows, including Star Wars, Jurassic World, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Specializing in digital environments and rigid body FX simulations, Jon has worked at Frantic Films, Scanline VFX, and Industrial Light + Magic, where he was a Generalist Supervisor for ILM's environment team, earning a Visual Effects Society Award in 2016 for his work on Dr. Strange. Now as a VFX supervisor and founder of Distillery VFX, Jon has worked on shows like Star Wars: Book of Boba Fett, Masters of the Air, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and The Last of Us, which earned him and the Distillery team an Emmy award for their work on the show.

Vancouver-born and raised, Keith Blackmore is a passionate supporter for all things animated in the Vancouver area. A producer for the SPARK ANIMATION Festival, Keith has presented, interviewed and moderated at many festivals and studios. Most recently, he was on the Film Jury for the 2022 Taiwan International Student Design Competition, the largest student design competition around the world. Keith is also the host of the monthly Vancouver Civic Theatres’ film series, Silent Movie Mondays, at the opulent and historic Orpheum Theatre.

Besides his work with the Spark CG Society, Keith continues to educate and inspire students at the Vancouver Film School, in his weekly History of Animation classes.

Marina has been writing and discussing film for over 15 years, first on a personal blog, followed by a decade-long tenure on the now retired Row Three. In 2008, she joined the writing staff at Quiet Earth, becoming Editor-In-Chief in 2014, a role she still holds. Over the years, she has also produced and hosted a number of podcasts including Before the Dawn, a long-running podcast on the Twilight franchise, Girls on Pop, a podcast on film and popular entertainment from women’s perspective and After the Credits, bi-monthly film podcast with nearly 300 episodes.

Marina is a member of ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH, the Online Film Critics Society, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and the Visual Effects Society. She is the President of Spark CG Society and the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH chapter. She has also served on juries for several film festivals including DOXA, St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Whistler Film Festival. She joined the Spark CG Society in 2014.

Over the past 20 years, Bob Winter has contributed to some of the world’s most prominent films and franchises at leading VFX studios such as Sony Pictures Imageworks, MPC, and currently Framestore. Throughout his career, Bob has served as a VFX Supervisor on VFX-heavy films and critically acclaimed franchises, including The Lady and the Tramp, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Suicide Squad, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Bob enjoys helping bring a filmmaker’s bold creative vision to life. He serves as a vital liaison between the filmmaker and Framestore’s dedicated artists, technicians and production staff, providing feedback, direction and oversight to ensure the team’s world-class visual effects skills deliver the very best for any given project.

After supervising the visual effects for Zack Snyder’s groundbreaking Army of the Dead for Netflix, Bob began a new collaboration with Snyder on the epic saga Rebel Moon, overseeing the visual effects for Part One, Part Two, and the director’s cut version.

Sean Konrad is a monster enthusiast and Visual Effects Supervisor. He currently lives in Vancouver, Canada where he is working on the greatly anticipated series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters for Legendary Entertainment and Apple TV+.

An industry veteran, Sean has worked on major features and episodics such as The Witches (VES nominated for Outstanding VFX in a Photoreal Feature), Ms. Marvel, For All Mankind season 1, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 & 2 , Deadpool 2, and has previously worked on Monsterverse films Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Sean was named to Variety’s Artisan Elite Up Next in 2018 a report honouring up-and-coming behind-the-scenes crew and artists.

Sue Rowe is a visual effects supervisor with over 25 years of experience in the film industry. As a child, Sue loved drawing, so it was no surprise that she went on to study for a BA in Animation at university. Following this, Sue went on to study for her MA in Computer Animation back in the day when it was all programming! This is where she experienced the creative buzz of Visual Effects, with her first job in the industry on Space Jam with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny! Sue’s latest project was as Scanline’s co-VFX Supervisor for Meg 2: The Trench, where she brought three huge Megalodons and a T-Rex to life!