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Paul Topolos grew up in Northern California and studied fine art in the US and UK. His lifelong interest in movies led him into the entertainment industry where he began work as a storyboard artist for the video game division of his childhood hero, George Lucas.
After learning many skills and working on several well received projects he went on to Lucasfilm where he briefly storyboarded on Star Wars Episode I and later was a pre-visualization matte painter on Star Wars Episode II.
In 2002, Topolos came to Pixar Animation Studios. He has worked on almost every Pixar films such as The Incredibles, Cars, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Wall-E and more, doing landscapes, concept paintings, colour studies, photographic paintings, storyboards and model paintings. His recent works include additional production art work for Toy Story 3.
He has also spoken and taught around the world and is currently using his time outside of work to complete his first children's book.
Videos
Speech Topics
A Film Artist’s Journey Through Innovation
Storytelling Through Visuals
Paul Topolos has been an artist at Pixar Animation Studios for thirteen years and has worked on every feature film since Finding Nemo, including the latest, Inside Out. Before that he worked at Lucasfilm on Star Wars Episode I and Episode II plus many critically acclaimed video games at LucasArts Entertainment. He will give a talk on the creative process in motion pictures and video games using his experiences from the past two decades. He will show through images and first hand accounts how the artwork for movies and games are based in the classic arts and the oldest traditions of storytelling. The talk will be both historical and autobiographical. Paul's childhood in the early 70's and his interest in the space program and movies led to a love of Star Trek and Star Wars. His father buying an Apple II computer at the age of twelve got him interested in painting digitally and after a traditional art education, these skills and experiences led him to work for his childhood heroes, George Lucas and later Steve Jobs.
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