Jeff Kleiser
Jeff Kleiser is President and Cofounder of
Kleiser-Walczak Studios. In
2001,
Kleiser-Walczak
collaborated with
Ray Kurzweil on an interactive project that
required the studio
to create two virtual models for Kurzweil’s performance at the
TED11
Conference. The company’s
Ramona model enabled Kurzweil to transform
into
his female alter ego, the virtual performer Ramona, who performed
Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and spoke about the future of
computing.
He later
authored
Synthespianism for KurzweilAI.net.
His pioneering work in computer animation has spanned the
history of the medium. He has contributed to films with groundbreaking
visual effects including
Tron,
Stargate,
Judge Dredd,
Mortal Kombat Annihilation,
X-Men, and
X2. He served as senior
visual effects
supervisor on
The One, a film in which martial arts master Jet Li
battles his evil doppelganger that required the development of innovative
face replacement techniques.
With Diana Walczak, Jeff has directed ambitious CG-animated
stereoscopic films for projects such as the Thea and EDDY Award-winning
Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man thrill ride for Universal’s
Islands
of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida, the Philip Glass/Robert
Wilson digital opera,
Monsters of Grace, and
Santa Lights Up New York
for
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular.
In June 2001, Kleiser and Walczak completed
Little Miss Spider: Lost and
Found, a CG-animated short film based on David Kirk’s
best-selling
storybook. In March 2002,
Little Miss Spider: Lost and Found was
honored as the best of the shorts for tots screened at The New York
International Children’s Film Festival. The film has screened at the
Guggenheim in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
and was included in the Electronic Theater program at SIGGRAPH 2001. It
has been invited by the Project for Afghan Children’s Television to
screen as part of special broadcasts for children in
Afghanistan.
Jeff has presented papers at many international events including
the London Effects and Animation Festival, SIGGRAPH, INA Imagina, NAB,
Opera Totale and the
Virtual Humans Conference. He has served as an
industry expert in interviews with The Los Angeles Times, The New York
Times and The ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings. He serves on the
board of trustees of
The Norman Rockwell Museum.
He is a trustee of the Williamstown Film Festival and also serves on the
board of directors of the Visual Effects Society.
