José María de la Puente is a Visual Effects and Animation Producer with extensive experience in film and television. Born in Asturias, José has spent most of his career in the United Kingdom and Canada, where he has worked on internationally acclaimed projects.

With over 15 years of experience in production, José María began his career in animation, working on films such as Planet 51, Metegol (Futbolín), and, years later, the acclaimed Klaus. In 2014, De la Puente decided to make the leap to VFX and, since then, has worked at renowned studios such as DNEG, MPC, and CoSA VFX, contributing to notable titles like Venom, Justice League, The Jungle Book, and DUNE, the latter two having won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

José María is a multidisciplinary producer with experience in virtual production and video games, and has also served as a professor and academic director of the Master’s in VFX Production at Voxel School. In addition, he balances his career as a producer with his passion for short filmmaking. His film Mi Lucha has won awards at more than 20 international festivals and was selected for the final round of the 2012 Oscars.

María is a professional with more than 8 years of experience in the visual effects industry. Born and educated in Granada, she has worked in a wide variety of roles within the world of VFX, particularly standing out as CG Supervisor at Amuse, where she leads multidisciplinary teams and supervises projects of creative diversity.

Throughout her career, María has contributed her talent to major productions such as Dune, Aquaman, Love, Death & Robots, and the Ripley series, collaborating with internationally renowned companies such as DNEG, Cinesite, Axis Studios, and Redefine. In all of them, she has held roles as Lead/Supervisor of Lighting, combining her technical skills with a strong artistic vision.

Passionate about education, she enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience with other artists in the industry, fostering the professional and creative growth of those entering the world of VFX.

David works as Rigging Supervisor at Skydance Animation Madrid, participating in the feature film Luck and currently in the final phase of development of Pookoo.

Previously, and from his position as Rigger Artist, he was part of the Ilion Animation Studios team in Planet 51 and later as Rigging Supervisor in Mortadelo y Filemón contra Jimmy el Cachondo and Wonder Park.

David graduated in History from the University of Santiago de Compostela and continued his studies with a Master's Degree in Digital Creation and Communication at the University of A Coruña. During the master's degree, he participated in the first European 3D animated feature film, The Living Forest, and then worked in the research laboratory Videalab, where he was dedicated to the design and development of projects in 3D Animation and Virtual Reality.

In this "Coffee with...", we will be joined by Jerome Denjean, Supervising Creative Director and Monica Haley, Director of Internal Operations at Blur Studio.

Blur Studio is an American visual effects, animation and design company. It produces 3D character animation, motion design and visual effects for film and television, game cinematics and trailers, large format films, location-based entertainment, commercials and integrated media.

Carlos started in animation as a character designer at Amblimation-Universal Pictures in London, and worked on Were Back: A Dinosaur´s Story and Balto. Also on Cats, Just So Stories and Crazy Dog, films never made.

After establishing his studio with his brother Jordi in 1993 he designed characters for the DreamWorks movies The Prince of Egypt, Antz, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit, Sinbad, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Flushed Away, Kung-Fu Panda, Bee Movie, How to train your Dragon. 

And for other studios Arthur Christmas, Hotel Transilvania, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Pourquoi j’ai pas mangé mon Père, Ron’s gone wrong and Pinocchio from Guillermo del Toro. Currently his studio is engaged on two new films, an stop-motion and a CGI movie. 

He is the original creator with Tim Burton for the characters on Corpse Bride, his studio was  deeply involved working during three years including services on the puppets supervision, logo, title and credits design, ideas on costume and prop design and final merchandising supervision.

He also contributed designing characters for various shortfilms like The Periwig Maker, Alma, Mathilda, The ClockWork Clone, La Nória and Nina.

In 2002 he won the Annie Award for Character Design in the Animated Feature Film Spirit, he was also nominated on the years 2004 for Shark Tale, 2006 for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride  and 2012 for character design on the feature film Hotel Transylvania.

His art has also influenced Consumer Products Designs, Branding and Mascots, to name a few: Gambrinus for Cruzcampo or CAT for the FCBarcelona.

His work has been exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The American University Museum (Katzen Arts Center), The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), The Toronto Bell Lightbox, La Cinémathèque Française in Paris, The Seoul Museum of Art, The World Expo Shanghai 2010 and The Modern Art Museum of Palma (Es Baluard). And just recently for the celebration of the 40Th Aniversary of Grangel Studio with an   exhibit at Casa Seat, in Barcelona, with more than 450 original pieces. He is also member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and member of l’Acadèmia del Cinema Català.