David Lombardi Design

VFX Demo Reel

I originally...

studied industrial design in college, acquiring a broad base and understanding in practical aspects of the creative process.  My work in the visual effects industry began just at the beginning of the “boutique” boom of the mid 90’s. 

This foundation gave me a knowledge of all aspects of VFX work and led to Two Emmy nominations working on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek Voyager as well as contribution for a wins in both Star Trek Enterprise and Boardwalk Empire.  My skills quickly expanded while working on commercials for clients such as Sony, SFR, Untied Airlines, Jeep, Honda, Nissan and BT.  All of which led to an nomination by the Visual Effects Society for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial. 

Working at small facilities also necessitated a development into the role of onset supervision to help projects go smoothly and on-budget.  My work has also delved into the realm of films such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sin City, and Underworld 2.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Justin McClure TV to create pre-sale visualizations of several models of Cessna aircrafts. From single engine turboprops to long-haul private jets.

Source material was often in-progress CAD that would be updated regularly during projects, requiring a great deal of prep for render. Material samples and other historic reference was used to predictively match the future release.

Faction Technology Inc. is a driverless vehicle startup, where I’ve been responsible for all Creative Visualization. This covered Industrial Design, UI, UX, Marketing, investor pitch material and co-developing a technology patent. The startup environment demanded a multi-disciplined approach to every aspect of work. As such, I’d be responsible for all aspect of content creation from pre-production to post. There were also numerous opportunities to get back to my Industrial Design roots and collaborate on design pitches for partners that could leverage Faction’s architecture. This gave a chance to get creative while working within a limited budget and tight time constraint.

As a “one man shop”, thoughtful choices had to be made in regards to production, aesthetics and rendering.

Website and pitch content is essential for investors and potential partners to understand the vision of the company. Showing what the future could be was instrumental in creating relationships and achieving funding rounds.

To help “sell” the idea, VFX shots done in live footage were very effective. I would be responsible for capturing environments, and onsite reference. Then creating the model, tracking, lighting, rendering and compositing the shots.

During my 10 years at Procter & Gamble, I lead the Visualization Team for the corporate Packaging Transformation department. This involved bringing in techniques and technologies not typically used in the Consumer Product Goods (CPG) industry for prototypes, consumer testing, and to customer buy in.

We developed VR tools and process for full virtual aisle consumer testing, and partnered closely with the Foundry in the development of Colorway for creating highly realistic renders of early design ideas. This gave the team exceptionally fast turnaround for photo-real prototypes. These could then be tested early with consumers giving constructive insights on products in accurate context.

A key part of my Colorway work was the use of real shelf background and HDR lighting to seamlessly blend virtual products and real ones. This established accurate stimulus for consumer tests.