Paula Bird, Supervising Producer, Axis Studios

A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Paula joined Axis in 2005, having served as an Advertising Agency Producer for four years, cutting her teeth and learning the ropes in the areas of Live Action, 2D Animation and Radio production.Throughout her tenure at Axis, Paula has led teams on some of the studio’s most challenging projects across its Games, Broadcast and Features sectors. Producer credits include the RTS Award-winning series, Kiss Me First (Netflix/ Channel 4), Welcome to Monster High (Mattel/ Universal), LEGO City Adventures (Nickelodeon), and Halo: Xbox One (Microsoft/ 343industries).As Supervising Producer of Broadcast and Features, Paula now works within the Executive Producers and IP Development teams planning, pitching and supervising long-format shows coming through the studio as service projects and co-productions. As a member of Axis’ senior leadership team, Paula is also an instrumental force in the studio’s strategic planning, lending her expertise to various departments within the organization as well as being an ambassador for the studio across industry events and networks, such as the newly launched Scottish arm of Animated Women UK.Outside of work, Paula juggles motherhood alongside her long time passion of musical theatre, getting out into the great Scottish outdoors and immersing herself into the worlds of books and moving pictures for constant sources of inspiration and learning.

Maria Koumis, Head of HR, Axis Studios

Maria’s passion for HR evolved at university where she studied business psychology, leading her into a postgraduate degree in Human Resource Management at Glasgow Caledonian University. Having worked in the world of Human Resources for companies big and small, Maria’s love of animated films led to her joining us in 2019.

With expertise in management analysis, coaching and mentoring, Maria oversees all employee relations matters whilst ensuring the vision and values of Axis Studios are upheld. Maria relishes the opportunity to make tangible, positive changes in the workplace, cultivating a career that is challenging, exciting and ever-evolving. Maria supports and advises our team on how to build the best working relationships and makes sure that we all feel heard at Axis. Wearing many hats, Maria advises on people solutions to add value to Axis, drives the outputs of the employee engagement survey with the team and develops HR policies and processes, all the while steering our ethically focussed People Strategy.

Greg Butler, Snr VFX Supervisor, Method Studios

 Greg Butler is responsible for creating award-winning visual effects for major feature films including Starship Troopers, American Sniper and the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.  He is currently Sr. VFX Supervisor at Method Studios in Montréal. Prior to that he spent 15 years with MPC Technicolor, first in the original London office, then at the Vancouver and Montréal studios.  He has been VFX Supervisor on numerous projects, culminating in his Oscar and BAFTA winning work overseeing some 600 artists on 1917.  The "single shot" style of the film and intricate combination of visible and invisible effects made the project unique.

Butler grew up in northern Connecticut, received his liberal arts degree from Hampshire College and then moved to Northern California where he interned in 1992 at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), during the making of Jurassic Park. His first job after graduating was also at ILM, and after a short foray in games he joined Tippett Studios just as the company was completing its transformation from photochemical filmmaking to digital effects for Starship Troopers.  He has been instrumental in building production infrastructures at Tippett and other VFX houses including Weta Digital and MPC Film.  Previous awards include a BAFTA in 2012 for his work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 and a VES award for his work on Gollum in The Return of the King.

Since 2017, Greg has lived in Montréal wife, Lisa and their two young sons.

Andrea Espinal, Head of Studio & VFX Supervisor, Folks VFX

Andrea has over 13 years of experience in the VFX industry. She spent 8 years of her career in Montreal, specializing in VFX for cinema as a senior compositor. Her artistic background and structured workflow provide her a unique understanding of the VFX process.

Andrea’s experience at top level studios eventually led to her her appointment as the Head of office in Bogota, which has grown rapidly under her leadership.

Known for: The Avengers, Deadpool 2, Robocop, Riddick, The Twilight Saga

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm3257676/

Marian Dobrunz, Head of Human Resources, RISE I Visual Effects Studios

Marian joined RISE back in 2016 with actually no clue about VFX at all. But he's been around people before. While he's apparently still figuring out the difference between a good simulation and a flip-flop, he's part of the RISE HR department which is the go-to option for joining RISE. Berlin? Stuttgart? Cologne? Munich? London? You name it, we got it.

Imke Fehrmann, COO & Executive Producer, Akkord Film Produktion GmbH

Imke Fehrmann has been producing Animation and Visual Effects for more than 25 years. She has been managing and producing innovative projects all around the world, building and leading creative teams everywhere.

Since the beginning of her career in 1990, she has been passionate about the art of animation and the people who create it. Imke has successfully worked in Producer roles for Animal Logic and Lucasfilm and as Executive VFX Producer for Framestore and Rodeo FX, and has led the animation studio Hahn Film as CEO.

In 2016, Imke began working with award winning filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, initially starting with mentoring and coaching of Waadi Animations team in Karachi, Pakistan. Most resently, Imke has been Lead Producer on Sitara: Let Girls Dream, the first ever Pakistan animated short film that qualified for the Academy Awards. 

Imke’s global experience in animation and VFX production combined with her passion and talent of not only bringing people- of different backgrounds, skill sets and talents- together but also helping them bring their optimum creativity and efficiency to the projects, is what sets her apart as a successful Producer.

Imke is an active member of Women in Animation and VES for years, and as of 2018 also founding member of the German Initiative for Women in Animation, VFX and Visual Arts.

Urte Zintler, Animator & Fine Graphics Artist

Urte Zintler, animator and fine arts graphic artist, is trained in classic animation techniques in Luxembourg, Great Britain and Germany. After almost 20 years of working as a freelance animator, she founded her studio Federfisch Animation in Leipzig in 2015, where she strikes the balance between art and commerce and organizes, creates and supervises character animation for award-winning children's series such as “Patchwork Pals” and “Animanimals” in a small team as a service studio. Urte uses a wide range of styles and techniques and, as an animation artist, works on movies as well as on short films and TV series from cartoons, 3D, digital cut-out to analog paint-on glass animation. As an artist and director, she produces her own artistic films in which she can act out and develop her own vision of independent animation. Urte is a Senior Lecturer at the Animation Institute of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, where she is head of the Character Animation specialization. With her involvement in the AG Animationsfilm and Women in Animation she is committed to improving the work situation of animation freelancers in Germany.

As the mother of a young daughter, she tries to reconcile the everyday challenges of an animation atist with those of the family and still wonders how that should work.

www.federfisch-animation.de