The guru of visual effects, Pablo Helman, will be offering a master class at Sitges 2014
Pablo Helman, one of the key figures in fantastic cinema in recent decades, will be visiting the 47th Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia to give a master class. Helman (Buenos Aires, 1959) is the supervisor of visual effects at Industrial Light & Magic and has worked shoulder to shoulder with both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
Saving Private Ryan, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones are just a part of the long list of films directed by Spielberg and Lucas that Pablo Helman has worked on. His beginnings date back to the early 80’s, as the composer of music for a Los Angeles TV station, the time when the digital revolution was starting in cinema, a time that Helman lived intensely.
Following his work on the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, he was summoned to work at Digital Domain, the visual effects and animation company founded by film director James Cameron, among others. Helman was in charge of the special effects for big blockbusters like Apollo 13 or Independence Day, directed by Roland Emmerich, who will also be in Sitges this year to receive the Grand Honorary Award. It was at that time that George Lucas decided to make him a part of Industrial Light & Magic, working closely with visual effects director Stan Wilson until his death.
Presently, he’s done his latest work on the films Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (produced by Michael Bay) and Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Pablo Helman is considered to be one of the best in the world in his specialty and will share his experiences with Festival-goers, in addition to other items of interest like digital shots of actors on the set, the relationship between technology and art, the creation of characters, or different production models, as well as unseen images and material from his job as Spielberg and Lucas’ right hand man.
