Los Angeles based Snoot FX, a division of Snoot Entertainment, provides access to high-quality digital visual effects at independent film budgets. Founded by Keith Calder, an independent film producer and founder of Snoot Entertainment and Occupant Films, Snoot FX is able to deliver quality product by taking advantage of the rapidly decreasing costs of computer animation equipment and the widening availability of talented CG artists.  The company’s unique approach fills a gap in the independent film marketplace, producing high-end effects for independent projects while avoiding the large overhead of conventional effects houses.  Snoot FX allows the vision of filmmakers to truly take shape on screen whether it be for commercials, music videos, television, or feature films.

SNOOT FX SERVICES

Snoot FX has a complete in-house visual effects pipeline including artists, workstations, HD screening room, and a 150 node Dual Xeon Renderfarm. The company specializes in visual effects work in the areas of 3D animation, 3D matte painting, character animation, compositing, on- set supervision, conceptual design and consultation. Other services include:

§ SET SUPERVISION – Often the best solution is not the most elaborate or expensive. Snoot FX’s on set supervision in collaboration with the filmmakers’ vision will help determine the best and most cost effective options for visual effects.

§ CG IMAGERY – Creating photorealistic vehicles, environments and particulate materials (smoke, flames, water) requires an eye for detail. Attention to reflection, light refraction and surface specularity will help you create convincing CG surrogates for your live action plates and enhance even a modestly budgeted project.

§ COMPOSITING – Photoreal integration requires an experienced eye for the physics of photo optics and an intuition for the subtle details that ‘tell’ the eye they it is looking at real life – especially when it is not. Snoot FX’s team has years of experience optimizing live action and CG elements.

§ DESIGN – With Snoot FX’s extensive background in believable creature animation and its ability to stay abreast of industry advances, the company’s team excels at advanced design and character animation that will help translate filmmaker’s vision into full 3D reality.

CURRENT SNOOT FX PROJECTS

Snoot FX is currently working on Bunraku, a stylized action film starring Josh Hartnett, Gackt, Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, and Ron Perlman.

Snoot FX has completed all the animation and visual effects work on Snoot Entertainment’s first animated film, Terra. Based on Aristomenis Tsirbas’ 2003 award-winning short film and written by Evan Spiliotopoulos (Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, The Jungle Book 2), Terra will be completed in fall 2007. The science-fiction epic focuses on the conflict between the inhabitants of a peaceful agrarian world and a group of human interplanetary warriors who want to colonize it. The film features a stellar voice cast including Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, David Cross, James Garner, Danny Glover, Rosanna Arquette, Ron Perlman and Danny Trejo.

Snoot FX has also created visual effects for Snoot Entertainment’s sister company, Occupant Films, productions of The Wackness, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and The Key Man. Snoot FX will continue to do all visual effects works for future Snoot Entertainment and Occupant Films projects.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Snoot FX founders Keith Calder, Jessica Wu, and Dane Allan Smith have a successful track record in independent film production and specialize in offering top-quality visual effects to independent productions.

Keith Calder – President

Calder is an alumnus of the prestigious Peter Stark Film Producing MFA Program at the University of Southern California, where he now serves as adjunct faculty. He also received a BA in business administration and entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University, which honored him with the University’s Entrepreneurial Finance Award. Calder has several years of experience in the international film industry, having worked for producer Jeremy Thomas’ London-based Recorded Picture Company (Sexy Beast, The Last Emperor), Spyglass Entertainment (Bruce Almighty, Seabiscuit) and the Weitz Brothers’ Depth of Field Productions (American Pie, About A Boy, In Good Company). Calder is also the founder of Snoot Entertainment and co-founder, along with Felipe Marino and Joe Neurauter, of Snoot’s sister company Occupant Films.

Jessica Wu – Vice President

Wu is a graduate from the Dramatic Writing Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her film and television experience includes positions at management company The Firm in Los Angeles, HSI, a New York-based music video and commercial production company and the BBC.

Dane Allan Smith – Vice President

Smith is a co-founder of VFX and animation company MeniThings. MeniThings garnered a reputation for innovative, original content and collected over three dozen international awards for their original short films. In addition to producing visual effects for film and television, Smith also contributes to numerous film festivals as a programming consultant, panel guest, and jury member. He also produced the visual effects for Miramax’s A Wrinkle in Time.