Conductor Technologies announced that sr. VP of sales and marketing Mac Moore has been named president. With more than 20 years experience guiding enterprise software partnerships globally, Moore has been a vital asset to the Conductor team since joining ahead of the cloud rendering platform’s SIGGRAPH 2017 launch. He assumes the president role from co-founder Kevin Baillie, who remains at the helm of Conductor’s board of directors but is shifting his primary focus to creative leadership at VFX studio Atomic Fiction, which recently signed an agreement to be acquired into Deluxe’s global VFX brand, Method Studios.
“From his first day on the job, Mac has been my right-hand man. He constantly blows me away with his depth and breadth of knowledge, and how personally committed he is to our mission of bringing efficient, enterprise-scale cloud rendering to the market,” said Baillie. “He knows cloud rendering and the M&E space like the back of his hand and has tangible love for our customers, which makes him the ideal person to shepherd Conductor along its remarkable growth path.”
Moore noted, “Throughout my career, I’ve gravitated towards transformative technology, and cloud has completely altered how we think about and execute in the content creation ecosystem. Conductor’s position in leading the cloud charge brought me here, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to guide it forward.”
Prior to Conductor, Moore led a worldwide sales team for Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment division, helping navigate the company’s transition to SaaS and cloud-based models. Moore began his career in creative technology as an Software Applications Engineer at Mentor Graphics before eventually expanding into project management and broader business development roles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University, and is based in Raleigh-Durham, NC.
Conductor’s cloud rendering platform launched into commercial availability mid-summer 2017, after a two-year customer beta, and to date has achieved dynamic scale of over 100,000 simultaneous cores. Conductor will be showcased at SIGGRAPH 2018.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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