Ian Unterreiner has been appointed president and partner of VisualCreatures (VC), a virtual production studio recently acquired by the Russo brothers’ company, AGBO. (Anthony and Joe Russo’s directorial credits include Avengers: Endgame.) VC, which specializes in real-time applications in visual effects and animation, opened its new studio equipped with a motion capture enabled sound stage at AGBO’s downtown Los Angeles’ creative campus.
Unterreiner’s appointment will push VC’s research and development deeper into virtual production workflows and AI solutions to provide AGBO and its production partners world-class visuals using efficient, state-of-the-art filmmaking techniques. Unterreiner will report to AGBO and collaborate with VC co-founders Ryan McNeely and John Cranston on innovation, strategy and creative deployment.
“Ian joins our team with an abundance of thoughtful leadership and vision. His passion for forward thinking perfectly aligns with VC and AGBO’s common goal of making the very best work with the very best people. He will be an incredible partner on our continued path towards creating innovating workflows and game changing content,” said McNeely.
Unterreiner said, “Having spent 13 years at Zoic, whose life blood is innovation, joining Ryan, John and the AGBO team to advance virtual production efforts was a natural progression. I’m both humbled and privileged to play a role in guiding VisualCreatures’ evolution, whose growth potential is immeasurable.”
AGBO COO Nick Anglewicz said of Unterreiner, “He embodies the perfect balance of artist champion, futurist and business pragmatist. Ryan and John are animals of innovation and storytelling, especially on the frontier of virtual production. Having these capabilities in-house is a huge boom for AGBO’s creative process and slate, and a perfect complement to our business strategy.”
Unterreiner brings deep business and creative strategy to the role with nearly two decades of postproduction experience having most recently served as EVP at Emmy-winning entertainment company Zoic Studios. While at Zoic, Unterreiner handled corporate strategy and studio oversight across the company’s Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver locations.
At Zoic Studios, he fused his wide breadth of visual effects and business development expertise to curate top creative talent and generate innovative methods that enhanced the company’s global VFX pipeline. Over his career, he has produced large scale projects in film and television for top studios including Netflix, Marvel, Paramount, Apple and Warner Brothers. Unterreiner started his career assisting James Cameron during principal photography and postproduction of the feature film Titanic.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More