circa August 1999
Work
Darin Grant is a technologist who has focused his career on visual effects and computer animation. Currently, Darin is the Group CTO at Animal Logic, the preeminent Animation and VFX studio in Australia.
Previously, Darin served as the CTO at TouchCast, an enterprise collaboration company. At TouchCast, Darin concentrated on improving product and engineering practices, scaling technical operations, and improving the security of the company. Previously, he has held numerous technology leadership roles within the Visual Effects and Animation industries, most recently serving as VP, Engineering for Solid Angle (maker of the Arnold Renderer) to aid in the sale to and integration of the company, staff, and IP into Autodesk, Inc.
Over the years, Darin consulted for a variety of companies within the industry across all aspects of production and technology as well as a brief stint at Google running "the world's largest civilian video conferencing system."
He was Chief Technology Officer for Method Studios from 2012 to 2013 with a focus on the unification of the infrastructure, pipeline, and workflows across Method’s many locations. Prior to that, he was CTO of Digital Domain after returning to the company in November of 2011. Darin rode the roller coaster of the parent (NYSE: DDMG) company’s IPO, its announcements of massive expansion, the birth of the Tupac Hologram, the closure of its Florida studio; it’s Chapter 11 filing and the sale of the core visual effects business to strategic investors. He is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of saving the company where he started.
Darin also worked for six years as DreamWorks Animation’s Head of Production Technology. With the company’s multiple projects in various stages of development, pre-production and production across several different production locations, Darin is responsible for guiding several key departments (such as the technical directors, production engineering, post-production technology) towards maintaining and enhancing the unified pipeline upon which the company relies on creating all of its animated films. Darin has received credits on numerous Dreamworks releases such as “Kung Fu Panda,” “How To Train Your Dragon,” “Megamind,” and “Puss in Boots.”
Before joining the studio in January 2005, Darin worked at Digital Domain for ten years, ultimately in the post of Director of Technology, the highest-ranking technology role at the company. Most notably during his tenure at the company, he created and managed the Technical Director department -- a team of highly skilled visual effects developers that created effects and lighting systems in addition to maintaining the production pipeline and presenting dozens of techniques at SIGGRAPH over the years. He also received multiple credits, working directly on such Academy Award®-winning visual effects triumphs as “Titanic” and “What Dreams May Come,” as well as the effects-laden action films, “Fight Club,” “xXx,” “I, Robot,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Stealth.”
Darin has a Computer Science degree from Harvey Mudd College and over the years has served as a Computer Animation Festival Chair and juror, Director of Production Communities, and Sketches Juror at several SIGGRAPH festivals. He is also a member of the Visual Effects Society and is currently serving as Co-Chair of the Digital Imaging Technology Sub-Committee of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.