Dale Pretorius – Senior Film Technical Director
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4978291/
https://daleworx.wordpress.com/
Email: daleworx@gmail.com
Dale has been in Film and Television for the last 18 years with a solid grounding as a cameraman and editor working on shows such as Survivor and Idols for broadcast television. He moved on to specialize in VFX and has worked both locally and internationally on shows such as Spartacus, Falling Skies, The Amazing Spiderman 2, Maleficent and Edge Of Tomorrow to name but a few. His roles in the industry have included Nuke compositor, Environment Technical Director and CG generalist. Dale has worked for companies such as The Moving Picture Company and Artifex in Vancouver, Pacific Renaissance Spartacus and Images & Sound in Auckland.
Awards:
Best Animation Award – Talking Pictures Festival.
Gold Kahuna Award – Honolulu Film Awards.
Aspen Shortsfest Award.
Two VES Award nominations.
Athens International Film Festival nomination.
Australian International Animation Festival nomination.
Nuke trained by Frank Rueter
Phone: +64 21 0296 1214 New Zealand
+1 778 882 5315 Canada
Experience:
Digital Compositor
Weta Digital
- The Suicide Squad
- Zack Snyders Justice League
- The Tomorrow War
3D Architectural Visualizer
Buchan Group
Work closely with team leaders to deliver projects.
Quality management.
Deliver varied 3D visualisation and photomontage imagery.
Assist with 2D imagery using Sketchup and Photoshop.
VFX TD & Compositor
Cause + FX
- The Wilds
3D & VFX Lecturer
Media Design School
Auckland, New Zealand
Responsibilities: Leveraging from my industry experience in Digital Productions to teach key strategies and practices to effectively manage time critical deadlines and complex problem solving.
Project/Production Management:
• Status updates regarding progress of each teams responsibilities.
• Project updates and dailies with feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Reporting of projects for each teams production and how to move forward.
• Maintaining timelines and reassessing schedules to ensure timely delivery is met.
• Identifying the What, Why and When.
• Prioritizing parts of a project maintaining logical workflow according to schedule and delivery.
• Scope- update and expanding a project depending on speed of progression in relation to each teams schedules.
• Strategy
• Stakeholder Management (Students being the stakeholders)
• Cross-functional communication (multiple teams and expertise)
Data Analysis:
• Identify problems faced by each team and work on viable solutions to each issue.
• What are the Outcomes of each stage and do they match what was required by the brief?
• List results of each phase of production ensuring that teams are not deviating from the goal.
VFX Compositor at Artifex Studios
March 2014 – Present (4 months)Vancouver, Canada Area
If I Stay
Falling Skies
Environment TD at MPC
The Amazing Spider-man 2
Disney’s Maleficent
Edge of Tomorrow
Jersey Boys
Freelance Nuke Compositor at Toybox
Freelance Nuke Compositor at Popup Workshop
Environment TD at Pacific Renaissance Spartacus
Nuke – 3D projection of the created Latlong paintings, camera setup and finalizing the look to be followed
through by the Vendors.
Maya – Asset,set and environment creation for The world of Spartacus in 3D that gets passed to the Matte
Painters.
Vue – generating base environments that get passed to the Matte Painters.
5 recommendations available upon request
Nuke Compositor at Images & Sound
September 2010 – April 2012 (1 year 8 months)
Key roles:
As Nuke compositor at Images I handled over 300 shots from concept to completion for Features, Short
Films, Doco’s and Ad’s. I also headed up the 3D department of Images.
Key Nuke Compositor:
Matte Extraction
Tracking
Painting
CG intergration
Rotoscoping
Colour grading
3D Projection
Maya:
Water TD
Modeller & Texturer
Environment Modeller
Camera Layout
Compositor for:
Page2
Kiwi Flyer – Feature
Snow in Paradise – Short
Shackelton’s Captain – Documentary
Koros Medal – Official Selection for:
Berlin Kinderfest Film Festival 2010
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Chicago International Childrens Film Festival
New Zealand International Film Festival
National Geographic All Roads Film Festival
Spartacus Vengeance – TV Series
Spartacus Gods Of The Arena – TV Series
Noir – TV Series
Ladi 6 “Like Water” Music Video
3D for:
Rugby World Cup 2011
Shackelton’s Captain
The Almighty Johnsons
Rialto Cinemas
Digital Modeller & Texture Artist at Nature’s Sunshine Products
3D Medical anotomy visualisation
Languages
Afrikaans
Xhosa
English
Skills & Expertise:
Nuke
Maya
Vue
Rotoscoping
Photoshop
Education:
Nuke X by Frank Rueter
Foundry Nuke, 2012 – 2012
Nuke X by Frank Rueter
Compositing, 2010 – 2010
Graduate Diploma of Advanced 3D Productions – Media Design School
Diploma, VFX/3D Animation, 2009 – 2010
Diploma of 3D Computer Animation – Media Design School
Diploma, 3D, 2008 – 2009
9 people have recommended Dale
“It was an absolute pleasure to work with Dale on Spartacus, where he was vital piece of glue holding the
environment team together! He is an incredibly talented guy with a fantastic work ethic and an eye for detail.
Dale is resourceful and adaptable, picking up new tools and workflows with ease. When the chips hit the fan,
he remains calm, organised and keeps his approachable happy demeanour. I highly recommend Dale and look
forward to working with him again in future.”
— Nick Hamilton, Assistant On-Set VFX Supervisor / VFX Artist, Pacific Renaissance Spartacus, worked
directly with Dale at Pacific Renaissance Spartacus
“I have had the pleasure of working with Dale in the last season of Spartacus. Our throughput was enormous.
In season 3 there are 4272 VFX shots. Dale was a key member of our VFX production team. He consistently
delivered to superlative standard while working within demanding deadlines. I recommend him without
hesitation”
— Romola Lang, was Dale’s client
“I have worked with Dale during the final season of Spartacus: War of the Damned and Dale had a key role in
the creation of most of the shots of the ten episodes of the season. He knows exactly what he is doing and we
could always count on him for everything related to 3D environments, render passes, compositing and all the
camera projection systems in Maya, Vue and Nuke. Dale always delivers on time and is always there for the
rest of the team. If you’re ever looking for a highly skilled Nuke Compositor & Environment TD, he is the
person for the job. I recommend him highly.”
— Jean Baptiste Verdier, Digital Matte Painter, Pacific Renaissance Spartacus, worked directly with Dale
at Pacific Renaissance Spartacus
“Dale shows great skill with Maya and Nuke, producing numerous 3D environments with technical precision
and a natural intuition for topography. He’s able to juggle tasks and deliver on time, first time. He tackles
new tasks with an intelligent approach and he understands how his work fits within the overall project
pipeline. Dale has a great sense of humour and comes highly recommended. I hope to work with him again in
the future.”
— Amanda Boock, VFX Onset Coordinator, Pacific Renaissance Spartacus Limited, worked directly with
Dale at Pacific Renaissance Spartacus
“It is a great pleasure to work with Dale during the production of Spartacus. As the key member of the team
in Environment, Dale is an extremely talented artist with great leadership and management skills, who is also
very approachable and always ready to share his knowledge with fellow team members. He is dedicated, hard
working and has the technical and creative ability to tackle any problems we face during production. I would
love to work with Dale again in future projects.”
— Alyssa Zarate, VFX Jnr Matte Painter, Pacific Renaissance ‘Spartacus’, worked directly with Dale at
Pacific Renaissance Spartacus
“Dale is a talented compositor who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on a couple of projects over the past
year or so. His eye for detail, tenacity for tackling a problem from every angle until he cracks it, and being
able to draw upon his 3D animation experience has been a real asset. One of the signs of a good compositor is
a clean, clear, logical script, …Dales are a pleasure to open and easy to find your way around, and efficient at
render time. I highly recommend him.”
— Andrew Shanks, freelance, Images & Sound, worked directly with Dale at Images & Sound
“Dale never ceases to surprise me with his ability to problem solve and provide visual solutions for film and
short form projects, his skill as a compositor and understanding of the 3D realm makes him an exceptional
asset to any Visual FX team.”
— Richard Borg, Designer & Nuke Compositor, Images & Sound, worked directly with Dale at Images &
Sound
“Dale is a vfx guy who can do anything! 3D, effects, match-moving, compositing… A great guy to work with
as well. Definitely somebody I’d like on my team anytime.”
— Davee Ramos-San Diego, Flame Compositor, Images & Sound, worked with Dale at Images & Sound
DaleworxVFX 