Ed Manning

Background

About Ed Manning

I create images and solve problems at the intersection of visual technology, art and commerce. My adolescence was filled with model rocketry, a chemistry set, ham radio, science fiction, A/V club, scale models, amateur pyrotechnics, Super-8 filmmaking, and computer programming. In college, I went from physics and applied math to design and animated filmmaking; my extracurricular time was consumed in technical design and production for student theatre. My career began in proto-digital Hollywood creating VFX for feature films, commercials and in broadcast design. I then went to R/Greenberg Associates in New York, becoming Visual Effects Supervisor of a group that helped to lead the digital transformation of not only VFX, animation and filmmaking, but of advertising, graphic design, photography and games as well. At Click 3X, I helped build and maintain one of the first distributed, all-digital VFX, animation and postproduction studios with offices in NY, LA, San Francisco and Atlanta. I subsequently freelanced primarily as a VFX Supervisor and Technical Director and occasionally as a director. I developed expertise in large-scale media – screens as architecture – as both technical and content designer. During this time I also consulted for an ambitious software startup called Synapix, culminating in the creation of an automated image-based 3D modeler, which never made it to market. With a partner I then formed Special Branch, later called Q Division, providing VFX and CG services to design and postproduction companies, agencies and direct-to-client. I wound down operations after the Great Recession hit. I continue to freelance in the VFX and CG worlds, but am applying myself to artistic endeavors in the real, physical world. I am working with fine artists, architects, exhibition designers and environmental artists to help design, visualize, and create content for their works. Specialties: 3D computer graphics, digital compositing, high-dynamic-range photography, panoramic photography, VFX cinematography, digital imaging, motion and performance capture, matchmoving, photogrammetry, practical optics, motion control, color theory and practice, advanced display technology, 3D scanning, 3D printing, encyclopedic knowledge of VFX history, motion graphics design, machine shop skills, non-linear editing, and VFX and animation production (bidding, scheduling & staffing).