Virtual Production and the use of game engines in pushing dynamic environments into film production has captured the imagination of the traditional film industry, and the Unreal Engine from Epic Games is the primary game engine technology that enables this work. Epic's Unreal Fellowship started in 2020, and offers experienced professionals in the Media & Entertainment space an intensive and deep 5-week training in the engine, and each participant produces a complete animated short to graduate from the Fellowship. The results have to be seen to be believed.

This panel is a conversation with Brian Pohl, Academic Dean of the Unreal Fellowship and a Technical Program Manager at Epic Games. Brian has a unique perspective on this, having cut his teeth at LucasFilm in the Art Department managing Pre-vis for many projects over many years. We will be talking with Brian about his career, how it led to work for a games company, and what the Fellowship and Unreal are all about.

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Guest Speaker:

Brian Pohl - Academic Dean of the Unreal Fellowship

Brian J. Pohl has over seventeen years of experience as a Visual Effects Artist and Previsualization Supervisor. A veteran of George Lucas’ previs team and Industrial Light and Magic's art department, Pohl is credited for creating or supervising previs on over twenty-eight feature film and television productions. Pohl has also served multiple years within the software development industry designing new tools that assist the digital artist's workflow. In 2017, Pohl joined Epic Games as a Technical Account Manager to provide media and entertainment clients the support they need to integrate Unreal Engine into their creative workflows and technical pipelines. Recently, Pohl transferred to Epic’s education department to act as the administrative dean of the Unreal Fellowship. Based in Los Angeles, CA, Pohl is a member of the Visual Effects Society, Previs Society and the Joint Technology Subcommittee on Virtual Production and the VR Committee.

Moderator:

Ben Baker- NextGen Production

Ben’s professional experience has been across a broad range of projects in the US, the UK and Australia, working for broadcast networks, feature film studios and independent producers as a post supervisor, producer, project consultant, manager and executive.

His most recent credits include VP of Studio Services at HBO and VP of Post Production for Vice Studios.