Craig Barron

Explore about the Famous Artist Craig Barron, who was born in United States on April 6, 1961. Analyze Craig Barron’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is Craig Barron dating now? Look into this article to know how old is Craig Barron?

Craig Barron Biography

As a public-programs lecturer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Barron presents public screenings showcasing the art and technique of visual effects in classic studio films. Often partnering with sound designer Ben Burtt, the duo have also guest-hosted on the TCM Network. The pair have done extensive research to find the hidden history of classic film production. For a presentation on Gunga Din (1939), they visited the Lone Pine, California Alabama Hills location where the film was shot, and found pieces of the set buried there. Using camera drones, they then recreated the film’s locations as CGI environments. In addition, Barron is an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His “World of Visual Effects” course focuses on the history of visual effects in film and how visual effects have influenced narrative in filmmaking from its inception to today.

Craig Barron (born April 6, 1961) is an American visual effects artist, currently Creative Director at Magnopus, a Los Angeles media company that produces augmented and virtual-reality experiences.

Another 1970s-era film, David Fincher’s Zodiac, needed shots to establish the grittier San Francisco of that era. Barron shot digital images of existing city-building textures and then added painted period details in the computer. One such shot features the Embarcadero Freeway alongside the Ferry Building and San Francisco Bay. The freeway had been demolished after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake so MWD digitally rebuilt the structure, viewed from an overhead computer-generated “helicopter-shot” to introduce the City and timeframe. CG lighting techniques were applied for an sped-up animated sequence showing the Transamerica Pyramid being built, establishing the passage of time. Barron researched archival photographs and architectural drawings for the shot.

Matte World Digital was the first in the industry to apply radiosity rendering to film in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. Collaborating with software company, LightScape, the MWD crew was able to simulate reflective effect of millions of neon lights from the 1970s-era Las Vegas strip. Radiosity rendering provided a true simulation of bounce-light reflectivity in a computer-generated environment.

Barron began working at ILM in 1979, hired at age 18 by Richard Edlund to work with Neil Krepela and Ralph McQuarrie in the matte painting department. Then the youngest person at the studio, he eventually worked in the camera department, compositing matte-painted effects for scenes in landmark visual-effects films including The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. From 1984 to 1988 he was matte photography supervisor, working to combine matte paintings and miniatures with live-action photography. This included going on far-away locations often with matte painters Michael Pangrazio or Chris Evans to design and photograph matte shots requested by various productions. On Willow (1988), Barron’s last film at ILM, he was credited as director of matte photography.

Barron co-founded Matte World with Michael Pangrazio and executive producer Krystyna Demkowicz in 1988. The company, based in Novato, California, produced seamless matte-painting effects for film and television productions. Soon after formation, Barron and Pangrazio’s work won an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for HBO’s By Dawn’s Early Light (1990). Barron and his crew initially worked on traditional effects shots with matte paintings on glass and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects for Batman Returns in 1992.

Matte World Digital was renamed in 1992 to reflect the new technological tools available to matte painters. The company produced digital-matte environments for feature films, TV commercials, cable productions, computer games and IMAX projects, serving the artistic visions of directors Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Alfonso Cuaron, Gore Verbinski, Ron Howard, Tim Burton and David Fincher, among others. Barron contributed to the visual effects of more than 100 films during MWD’s near-25-year run, creating innovative techniques for the digital effects of Zodiac, Captain American: The First Avenger, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 2009. MWD closed in 2012 after 24 years of service. The company’s last project was for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

While heading Matte World Digital, Barron co-produced and directed the science-fiction short, The Utilizer, broadcast on Syfy (then called the Sci-Fi Channel) in 1996. The film won the best special effects award at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Working at Industrial Light & Magic on such films as The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and later at his own VFX studio, Matte World Digital, on Zodiac, Alice in Wonderland and Hugo, Barron has contributed to the effects on more than 100 films. He is an Emmy Award recipient for By Dawn’s Early Light and received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects on Batman Returns. In 2009, he won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Barron was a visual effects supervisor at Tippett Studio in 2013, where he developed digital environments for film and commercial productions alongside his former ILM co-worker Phil Tippett.

Barron worked with Fincher again to build several digital matte and CGI environments for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The interior of the film’s New Orleans train station had to change and deteriorate throughout 29 shots representing different eras. MWD built one CGI station model using Next Limit’s Maxwell rendering software—software that was generally used as an architectural visualization and product-design tool. MWD revamped it to mimic real-world lighting as seen from multiple angles and light sources.

In 2014 Barron became creative director at Magnopus—a visual research and development company based in downtown Los Angeles, where he specializes in virtual and augmented reality experiences created for new media platforms. At Magnopus, Barron directed the VR tie-in to 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Entitled Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab, the 30-minute VR production is set in the world of the film where users act as replicant android hunters. A review in UploadVR said the experience, “…manages to contribute somewhat to 2049’s story without stepping on it, shedding more light on one of the film’s central characters that gives the entire piece an even deeper sense of purpose.” Memory Lab was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program in 2018.

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