Guest Speakers

Lost Boys Learning is privileged to host a variety of Guest Artists and Speakers each term, who share their experiences in the industry, demonstrate specialized skills and lead the students in hands-on activities.

A well-rounded selection of visitors ensures that the students have face-to-face discussion time with active artists and supervisors in the industry. Some of our guests in the last few years have included:

John Gajdecki: Visual Effects Supervisor

With over 17 years of international experience as a VFX Supervisor & Producer, John has worked on features, television shows and commercials for clients in Canada, US, Europe and New Zealand. Clients include Disney, Touchstone, Fox, MGM, Paramount and Universal Studios.
Selected credits include: Slither, Dungeon Siege, Stargate Atlantis, I, Robot, A Wrinkle in Time, Down to Earth, The Other Side of Heaven, Stargate SGI, The Outer Limits, Johnny Mnenomic and Friday the 13th.
John has three Gemini awards and three Emmy nominations.

He has great understanding of all film and digital production formats, film IO methodologies, and an excellent grasp of 3D, 2D, and miniatures production pipelines. He designed & built a VFX Database and web interface to bid and manage large VFX projects using worldwide artists. Both on individual projects and as owner of GVFX, he negotiated multi-million dollar deals and produced countless hours of visual effects. He is an accomplished second unit and VFX unit Director/Cinematographer.

“Mark and I have worked together many times over the past 15 years, so when an opportunity came to speak to the students at Lost Boys Learning I was there. The school’s in a great location, the students were very tight and co operative, and seemed like a social group. I think my talk at LBL was the longest I ever did, the student’s asked intelligent questions so I was happy to spend the entire day with them. They understood all of the basic and most advanced concepts and had great artistic flare in their work, by far one of the best groups I’ve spoken to.”

Kenneth Meyer: Jackrabbit Pictures

Raised in Chicago doodling in his sketchbooks, Ken moved to Tucson, Arizona to pursue 350 days of sunshine a year as well as a BFA at the University of Arizona. After graduation, he worked for five years at East West Media Productions creating 2D, 3D, and stop motion animation. In 1998 Ken moved to Vancouver to experience nine months of rain a year and study character animation at the Vancouver Film school. After completing the course, he was hired as the Animation Director for Lost Boys Studios where he worked until 2004. He then founded Jackrabbit Pictures and the Caffeine Collective. Ken lives and works in Vancouver where he collaborates with international artists, directors, agencies and studios to create beautiful digital imagery for film, television, and the gaming industry.
Ken discusses the animation pipeline and character design, and leads the class in a Sculpey maquette making workshop.

Scott Dewis: Racerocks Digital

Scott’s company works for TV series such as “Lost” and “Alias” and feature films such as “Star Trek” as well as producing animated sequences for Disney Interactive.
Scott specializes in characters and introduces the class to advanced creature/character rigging techniques.
“I have the privilege of giving short lectures to the Lost Boys Learning students, I also reviewed their demo reels which are very impressive. The class size is small and production based, the equipment is high end. The problems are real world and the instruction is from a proven professional in Mark Benard, supplemented by industry speakers.The focus seems to be on getting each student production ready, and the demo reels reflected this.”

Eric Petey: Senior Visual Effects Artist

Currently working as Lead Rigger/Animator at Digital Domain in Vancouver, Eric is a BC native who started out at Lost Boys Studios, then continued his VFX career at companies such as Digital Domain, Weta and Cinesite, working on films including Transformers, Speed Racer and King Kong. Eric has also written and directed an independent film.
“Having worked for Mark Benard at Lost Boys Studios, I was interested to see how he would impart his vast vfx wisdom at Lost Boys Learning. After seeing the program in action, and meeting the students, I can see why their grads are snapped up so quickly – they are truly given the training they need to hit the ground running in production.”

Gregory Marquette: Director/Writer/Filmmaker

Having been based in Hollywood for the past 20 years, Gregory Marquette entertains the Lost Boys crew with stories of filmmaking in Los Angeles and worldwide. Gregory works as an Executive Producer, Director, Cinematographer and Screenwriter, both on features and TV commercials, with credits including feature films “Innocence” and “Monarch of the Moon”. He always shares his great George Lucas stories with the students.

Barbara Dawson: CG Scout Inc.

CG Scout expert Recruiter and CG Production Manager Barbara Dawson enlightens the students about the wild world of production and the fine art of acquiring a job. Don’t chew gum, swear, expose too many body-piercings… and lots of great advice pertaining to how production workflow actually works (from her years at ILM, LucasArts & Mainframe) and which demo reels get the right attention. An entertaining and knowledgeable speaker, Barbara owns CG Scout Inc., a Vancouver-based animation and visual effects recruiting company with recent credits at Vanguard Animation and Technicolor.

“Lost Boys Learning has a wonderful small studio feel to it. Mark and Gillian give the students hands on training that is pertinent to the current marketplace. They emerge from a year of study with a well rounded demo reel that could give them a leg up in the CG industry. Gillian offers great support from a production standpoint, playing the role of producer for each of the students personal projects. She also aids the students with their resumes and has many inroads and connections for immigration and job opportunities.”