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bits & pieces Pixar’s GM/EVP production and former VES chair, Jim Morris, was presented with the 2010 VES Founders Award. The award was given out at the VES Annual Membership Meeting on September 23. Morris is currently producing Disney’s John Carter of Marsfor release in 2012. He produced Pixar’s Wall-E, which won the Oscar for “Best Animated” film in 2009, and also served as production executive on Ratatouille, Up,Toy Story 3and Pixar’s upcoming Cars 2,Brave and Monsters,Inc.2. Prior to Pixar (www.pixar.com), Morris worked for Lucasfilm and its divisions for 17 years. at a glance... On January 28, 2011,THE VISUAL EFFECTS SOCIETY (www.vi- sualeffectssociety.com) will hold its 9th Annual VES Awards.The event will take place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los An- geles, marking the third year the venue has hosted the awards. HARMONIC (www.harmonicinc.com) a San Jose-based provider of broadcast and on-demand video delivery solutions, has completed the acquisition of OMNEON (www.omneon.com), which offers video production and playout solutions.The deal represents a value of $273 million. Omneom’s Spectrum media server offers a modular and expandable video server architecture, while its MediaGrid is a scalable production storage system.The company has customers in more than 85 countries.The deal allows Harmonic to offer solutions that span content contribution through delivery. VFX producer LIZ RALSTON has joined CIS HOLLYWOOD YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR POST PRODUCTION DIGITAL TRANSFER, EDITORIAL & QC SERVICES 5555 Melrose Avenue Hollywood, California 90038 323.956.3991 www.TheStudiosAtParamount.com DEPT FINISHING TOUCHES STOCK FOOTAGE LIBRARY DIGITAL & PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGING SERVICES 6 FULL SERVICE THEATRES & SCREENING ROOMS (www.cishollywood.com) as executive producer. She will oversee all feature production, marketing and client relations. Ralston has over 20 years of experience in visual effects production and facility man- agement. She began her career as a rotoscope artist at Roto Effects of America, where her first feature was Beetlejuice. She went on to work at deGraf/Wahrman, and in 1991 joined Rhythm & Hues as a producer. She also held production executive positions at The Walt Disney Company,The Secret Lab and Imaginary Forces. Her most re- cent project is the upcoming release Red Dawn, for which CIS Holly- wood served as the primary visual effects vendor. The 129TH AES CONVENTION, set to take place November 4- 7 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, has published its calendar of events (www.aes.org). Grammy-winning engineer/producer Bob Margouleff will present the keynote at noon on November 4, fol- lowing the theme:“What The Hell Happened?”ANGEL LA RIVA has joined editing, audio and visual effects boutique 3008 (www.3008.com) in Dallas as post producer. He comes to the stu- dio from Dieste, where he was a broadcast producer for 14 years. La Riva began his advertising career as a copywriter at Sosa, now Bromley Communications, in San Antonio. He also worked at Or- nelas & Associates and Berry Brown before moving to Dieste in 1996. First as copywriter, then broadcast producer, he teamed with clients such as Taco Bell, Southwest Airlines, Nationwide, Clorox and Western Union. BLIND (www.blind.com), with offices in New York and Santa Monica, has hired CG supervisor HATEM BEN ABDALLAH,a Paris native who’s worked in interactive entertainment and visual effects for more than a decade. Abdallah is skilled in lighting, texturing, shad- ing, modeling, compositing, matte-painting and design. His toolset in- cludes Maya,VRay, Mental Ray, After Effects, Shake, Boujou, PFTrack, Elastic Reality, Syflex, 3DS Max and Photoshop. Prior to joining Blind, Abdallah spent time at Method,Moving Pixels and Radium/Reel FX. Commercial animation, visual effects, production and editorial company INTAKE STUDIO (www.intakestudio.com) in Wichita, KS, has signed senior editor LONNY QUATTLEBAUM and editor KEVIN WILDT to its staff.The studio has also installed Avid’s new Media Composer 5 nonlinear editor. Seattle-based GETTY IMAGES is holding its annual Mishmash challenge, which is designed to inspire music video producers of the future. Creatives have a chance to produce their own short using Getty content and win prizes such as a MacBook Pro and Sony cam- corders. Entrants need to upload their submission to the Mishmash Website (www.gettyimages.com/mishmash) before October 31. 6 Post • October 2010 www.postmagazine.com