Creating works of art has been Brent J. Zorich's strongest passion his entire life. He had taken private art lessons at the Central Ohio Art Academy for twelve years, competed internationally at the Ohio State Fair (the biggest fair in the country) and won Best of Show. Peter Jackson, after he had left, had judged work from the school before. Prior to the animation industry, he had worked for the architectural firms ranked number one (Gensler) and number two (NBBJ) in the world as an interior architect; having graduated from the department of Industrial Design at THE Ohio State University- the top rated design school in the country; given honorary admission from high school. The people that he aspires to be like are Mich Chau (president of Lucasfilm), Dennis Muren (head of ILM), Art Gensler (founder of Gensler), Steve Jobs (founder of Apple and Pixar), Phil Knight (founder of Nike), Walt Disney, and Andy Serkis (motion capture specialist- Gollum). He has studied and completed his first Masters of Arts in Computer Visualization at ACCAD at THE Ohio State University (where CGI was founded- typically getting over 200 applicants a year and accepting eight - he was recommended by a partner at Gensler); focusing his research in bio mechanical character setup. This research involved working directly with supervisors from DreamWorks SKG via the DreamWorks SKG Outreach Program. At Take 2 Interactive, he did research on ways to streamline current rigs to make them lighter for game play on the award winning title NBA 2K. Later, he returned to EA Sports as a technical artist implementing rigging techniques as well as doing research on more advanced character setup for the top selling titles in the world, including MADDEN (the top selling title in North America).

At Lucasfilm, Ltd., the number one ranked entertainment company, he was apart of the team on film game convergence by collaborating on global “Star Wars” related projects while working with all three divisions: LucasArts, Lucasfilm Animation, and Industrial Light and Magic. This research involved complete analyzing and understanding of both render and real time assets for maximum output and potential (led by myself and a team of core artists and engineers). This was shown to Mr. George Lucas in Singapore. For the ease of better global communication, he was relocated (via order of the executive committee) from the Lucasfilm Animation Singapore studio (LAS) to the home office (The Presidio and the Skywalker Ranch) in San Francisco to continue research on this subject matter. He was also selected by The Director of Animation Technology (former Chief Technology Officer at Weta on The Lord of the Rings) to be on the Lucasfilm, Ltd. steering committee setting best practices and digital standards for Lucasfilm, Ltd. globally. Brent was also put through executive training at Lucasfilm, Ltd. with Mr. Larry Seal. There were approximately eight of us in training (head of public relations, legal, head of marketing, head of distribution). He was the only computer graphics person being trained to be a studio executive. Brent wrote an executive proposal entitled Offensive Attack Strategy for the President of LucasArts, Mr. Darrell Rodriguez; after reading it, Darrell requested a digital copy and forwarded it to the board of directors at Lucasfilm. Brent was also in Creature Research and Development at Industrial Light & Magic with the Department Supervisor. It was in this meeting where he critiqued colour on the film Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. His character that he did technical direction on, Ultimate Evil, was also the character chosen for the cover of the Star Wars title, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition; a very prestigious honour. Brent was also tasked on Indiana Jones Intellectual Property written by Mr. Steven Spielberg and instrumental in the cancellation of the XBOX 360 and PS3 version of the title. He has completed his first Masters (M.A.) in Technical Animation at ACCAD at THE Ohio State University and is enrolled to begin his second Masters (M.S.) in computer science at Strayer University specializing in software engineering.

His goal with this type of education would be that he could get into the software architecture of packages like Maya and ZENO (ILM's that he's used) and manipulate the software to better suit my needs when necessary without passing the task off to a different department. Brent J. Zorich looks forward to speaking to other graphics researchers on the subject matter listed above and is always open to accepting linkedin invitations from colleagues in the industry who share my passion for doing great work and has successfully started his own business selling his own custom software off of BRENT ZORICH PRODUCTIONS, LLC website that is based on experiences with previous employers.