The Devil & Demon Strategy (http://devilanddemon.com), manufacturer of super-fast computers for everyone, announced today that renowned visual effects (VFX) creator, Richard Edlund, has joined its board of directors. The winner of seven Academy Awards, Edlund brings a depth and breadth of experience in motion picture and high-end television VFX to the company, and will consult on the development of the Devil and Demon product line to meet the needs of digital artists and studios in entertainment imaging worldwide. Edlund is one of cinemas most prominent VFX supervisors and cinematographers, with a long and distinguished career. He and Helena Packer are the founding partners of duMonde VFX, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a satellite facility in New York City. They created and supervised VFX for the feature hits 21 Jump Street, Bullet To The Head and Grudge Match. Edlund joined the board of Devil & Demon Strategy, a Silverdraft brand, after successfully using the companys super-fast computing technology to deliver highly-complex VFX shots for NBCs new pirate adventure series Crossbones, starring John Malkovich.
As a founding member of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Edlund won four Oscars for VFX on Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Return Of The Jedi, as well as two BAFTA Awards for Poltergeist and Jedi. He has received six additional Oscar nominations, three Academy Scientific & Engineering Awards, plus an Emmy for the original three-part miniseries Battlestar Galactica.
After ILM, Edlund founded VFX company Boss Film Studios in 1983, whose maiden project was Ghostbusters, and produced VFX for blockbuster movies, among them 2010, Die Hard, Ghost, Poltergeist 2, Cliffhanger, Batman Returns, Alien3, Species, Multiplicity and Air Force One. The company achieved ten Academy Award nominations. Following Boss, Edlund continued building his credits as a freelance supervisor with Bedazzled, The Stepford Wives and Charlie Wilsons War, plus HBOs miniseries Angels In America with director Mike Nichols.
Edlund has served as a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) for eighteen years, was chairman of their Visual Effects Branch for twelve years since its inception, and for twelve years as chairman of the Academys Scientific & Technical Awards Committee. In 2007, AMPAS honored him with the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation for outstanding service and dedication to the Academy. Currently, Edlund also serves on the boards of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and the Visual Effects Society (VES). In 2008, the ASC presented him with its prestigious Presidents Award for his contributions to the art and craft of filmmaking, and he was honored by the VES Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
duMonde VFX recently delivered over 100 VFX shots for NBCs Crossbones series, using Devil & Demons mobile super-computer, The Devils Playground. These included many complex ship-replacement shots, involving CG simulation, texturing, modeling and lighting work, that Edlund described as number-crunchingly intensive and would not have been possible without the unrivalled speed of Devil & Demon technology.
Speaking about Edlunds appointment, Devil & Demon president Ted Schilowitz said, We are reshaping outdated models of computing in the media and entertainment industry, by democratizing the availability of ultra-high-powered computing. Richard is a towering figure in the VFX industry. His insight and experience is of immense value, especially as he has also now enjoyed mission-critical success with Devil & Demon technology on a flagship TV series.
Entertainment imaging is now an internationalized industry, with a nomadic workforce, and needs a forward-looking business approach. Plus, theres an insatiable demand among digital artists to be able to turn around their work faster than ever, while keeping down the true costs of their computing resources in pursuit of the desired result, said Edlund. Devil & Demon technology is blazing a disruptive trail by empowering digital artists to be more interactive with the creative aesthetics on a project, while using the dramatic time and cost savings to put better images on screen, whether thats HD/2K/4K or beyond. I look forward to working with the Devil & Demon team to deliver the creative and economic benefits of their technology to creative digital artists and facility owners.
Devil & Demon product line:
Devils and Demons are a family of pre-configured systems, powered with Micron components and featuring AMD technology, that unleash unparalleled computing muscle in small footprints, with a breakthrough business model delivering flexible and cost-competitive purchasing options. They can process render- and graphic-intensive jobs in a fraction of the time of normal desktop and render solutions.
Demon boxes are fast standalone, desk-side workstations. For higher performance, Demon artist stations can be easily connected to a Devil, and its multi-layer supercomputer design, in an ultra-fast Infiniband network. For artist work that is too complex even for a Demon, The Devils Advocate offers a single-layer, four-processor system with 64 cores, designed to supercharge time-consuming workstation tasks, such as simulations or lighting/shading. Beyond this, the Devils Playground, with its large-scale supercomputers, offers computing with thousands of cores, providing world-class speed for rendering and data processing.
About Devil & Demon Strategy:
Devil & Demon Strategy is brand of Silverdraft, based in Boise, Idaho, with offices in Hollywood. The company is known for its mobile, on-set services rig, which houses a supercomputer for post production needs, including rendering. The supercomputer system in the mobile rig, called The Devils Playground, offers over 1,700 computing cores, and is one of the f
