Emre Yilmaz
eyilmaz at pobox dot com     http://www.digitalpuppetry.com
WORK EXPERIENCE
2002-present
[2 yrs +]
PDI / Dreamworks
Redwood City, CA
Character Technical Director

 
I have worked on Shrek2 and Madagascar, and am currently working on Shrek 3.

2001-2002
[freelance]
Sesame Workshop and SMA Realtime
New York, NY
Consultant / Technical Director

 
Created and supervised performance animation characters on Sesame Street's "Elmo's World." Programmed custom plugins, capture UI, and take management system.

1995-2000
[~5.5 years]
Protozoa
San Francisco, CA
Animator, Technical Director, Director

 
Character set-up and technical direction ("wiring".) Skinning, morph targets, building skeletons, attaching articulators, writing expressions, connecting input devices, and creating high level controls. Developed creative ways to alter motion capture data for non-human characters. Devised new methods for puppeteering characters, and a face-tracking methodology.
 
Character puppeteering. Performed facial and body animation, and directed other puppeteers.
 
Programming. Wrote many plugins to Alive (C++), including dynamic simulation, body proportion remapping (making non-human skeletons from human data), simple IK, behavioral simulation, motion cycling, etc.
 
Animated shorts and web series. Created and directed numerous short animations and web series, often with Lev Yilmaz.
 
Modeling and Character Design. Extensive polygonal modeling. Deep familiarity with real time issues. Consulted with outside designers on what worked well in our system. Designed several characters.
 
Project management. Directed projects, character builds, and/or animation for CTW, MTV, BBC, SGI, UPN, CBS, Music Republic/Planet Hollywood, CGCG, Weathernews, and others.
 
Live shows. Ran many real-time co-productions (i.e., BBC, CBC) and trade show demos (i.e., NAB, IBC, Siggraph, and the 1996 Presidential Inauguration.) Handled technology setup, and performed facial animation.
 
Presentations. Gave talks at Siggraph, CGIX, MIT Media Lab, and other venues on behalf of Protozoa.

1984-1994
[on+off]
Independent Work
Boston, MA
Director, Puppeteer, Video Editor

 
Muppet-style puppet videos. Puppet making, writing, and video editing. Work shown on cable access and in museum shows.
 
Puppet building for stage plays. Sometimes to my own designs, and sometimes to spec.
 
Experimental. Performed experimental puppet acts myself and with friends in alternative performance spaces, coffeehouses, and galleries.

1994
[2 mos.]
Bread and Puppet Theater
Glover, Vermont
Performer and Builder

 
Built, sewed, painted, and repaired papier-mache masks, puppets, dummies, costumes, and props. Figured out how to make a flying six-foot but three-pound businessman out of 50 cents worth of materials. Developed and performed new acts.

1990-1994
[~5 yrs.]
Brown and Harvard Universities
Providence RI and Cambridge MA
Research Asst./Programmer

 
While finishing college, worked as a computer graphics programmer and research assistant on visual perception and motor control. This was in the Psychology and Cognitive Science departments. At Brown, used optical motion capture (BTS-Elite) to study peoples' postural reactions as they walked down virtual-reality funhouse hallways. I designed and programmed the virtual-reality scenes people walked through (C/OpenGL, on SGI.) My own research (continued as a graduate student at Harvard University and at Nissan-Cambridge Research Center) was on perception and driving, mainly in braking, and later and in attention. Wrote a series of driving simulation video games and data analysis programs for this. Also studied perspective, how we see shape from shading, and the perception of film editing. Worked as a teaching assistant in perception classes. Published a scientific paper based on my thesis.

ANIMATION AWARDS
Aug. 1999
Bad Night
Prix Ars Electronica
Honorable Mention in Computer Animation
Co-director, Animator, TD
Mar. 2000
Noggin ID
3D Design "Big Kahuna Awards"
Finalist, Corporate ID / Logo
Co-director, Animator, TD
Feb. 1998
We Should Go
World Anim. Celebration
Best Performance Animation
Co-director, Animator, TD
Feb. 1998
Floops, Spider
World Anim. Celebration
Best Animation for the Internet
Anim. Director, Animator, TD
Feb. 1997
Squeezils
World Anim. Celebration
Best Animation for CD-ROM
Squeezil Animator
Jan. 1997
Floops, Spider
VRML Excellence Awards
Best of Show; Best in Entertainment
Anim. Director, Animator, TD
Apr. 1995
Blue Man Group
Bit.Movie, Riccione, Italy
Honorable Mention, CG animation
Animator, TD
EDUCATION
May 1995
M.A., Harvard University
Major: Cognitive Psychology (Vision & Perception)
Honors: National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
May 1991
Sc.B., Brown University, Magna Cum Laude
Major: Psychology (Perception & Action); Pre-Med
Honors: Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Schlosberg Prize.
1986-1990
[on+off]
Additional art study at Rhode Island School of Design, Boston Museum School, and other classes.
SKILLS AND INTERESTS
3D Animation
Character setup: skeletons, skinning, deformations.   Motion capture, joysticks, other motion input.   Scripting, programming, custom UI's, plugins.   Polygonal modeling and texturing.   Puppeteering and animation.
Software
Maya, Alive*, AfterEffects, Nichimen/Mirai, Premiere, and Photoshop.   Also familiar with Softimage, and script-based image processing.   (*Alive is Protozoa's in house software.   It is comparable to Houdini and Kaydara, in that it is procedurally oriented and expression intensive.)
Languages
MEL, C, C++, OpenGL, Inventor, C-shell, Unix, Expressions, Scheme, HTML, and French.
Puppetry
Construction and performance, in materials ranging from latex, foam rubber and fake fur, to garbage bags and duct tape.
Illustration
Drawing, cartooning, watercolor, pen and ink; published in Quimby, Synapse, and others.
REFERENCES
 
Available on request