Engineer behind the animation
by Nicole Mikajewski
When
he was learning about maths and computer graphics, Dominic Glynn
(pictured) would read textbooks and tinker with algorithms invented
by "famously smart people".
"Now I bump into those people during lunch and they are genuinely interested in my ideas," Glynn said from San Francisco.
As Image Mastering Engineer with Pixar Animation Studios, the company behind animated classics such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, Glynn is one of the industry’s elite.
He graduated from UniSA with a Master of Engineering (Information Technology and Telecommunications) in 1999, and within four years was Lead Software Engineer for Disney where he first applied a new colour engineering and mathematics concept to the animated film, The Wild.
A combination of colour science, computer science and
mathematics, the concept is used to finetune the consistency and
accuracy of colour array.
"I am the closest to the finishing end, implementing the technical details of laser film transfer, colour correction and digital cinema," Glynn said.
"You can make a big difference to an animated film by tweaking the colour mathematics."
Glynn moved to Pixar last year and has since used the colour maths concept for the films Cars and Ratatouille.
When it comes to using the concept, which is still new to animated film, only a small number of image engineers are in the picture. It makes Glynn very much in demand.
"I receive flattering job offers every other week," he said.
"It just goes to show that radical theories are rapidly embraced in this industry. Even the slightest improvements are genuinely appreciated."