Joe Raasch's compositing career started in 2001 as an intern at The Post Group, a Toronto post production boutique studio.  After contracts at GVFX and Hybride Technologies, Joe started working at CORE Digital Pictures rising up through the ranks to become a senior compositor.  After CORE disolved in 2010, Joe has taken contracts at Arc Productions and Take 5 Productions.

Joe started teaching in Seneca College's Visual Effects program in 2002, becoming coordinator of the program by the end of the year.  As the coordinator, Joe plays a major role in developing the curriculum and running the day to day operations of the Visual Effects program.

A member of the Visual Effects Society, Joe has been instrumental in organizing Toronto’s Nuke User Groups.  Joe has presented on a range of topics, including Deep Compositing, Nuke 7 features and Modo/Nuke integration.

Joe was the first Foundry Certified Nuke Trainer in Canada, and was responsible for integrating Nuke into Seneca College’s Visual Effects program, the first school on the East Coast to integrate Nuke into it’s curriculum.  Mr. X FX, Arc Productions and CORE Digital Pictures are some of the companies that have hired Joe to run Nuke training classes.

Joe has completed two Unreal Fellowships, one focused on Storytelling in Unreal Engine and another which focused on Virtual Production.

Joe runs a personal website where he blogs and posts Nuke tutorials.

He has worked on TV series such as The Tudors, Camelot, The Borgias, Penny Dreadful, Into the Badlands, Locke and Key and Vikings, as well as feature films like The Amazing Spider-Man, Halo:Forward Unto Dawn, Dolphin Tale, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Silent Hill.

At the start of 2022 Joe started working at Pixomondo as Head of Training.

Mahmoud Rahnama's visual effects career started at the Toronto studio CORE Digital Pictures in 2004.  Mahmoud worked his way up from a junior artist to senior levels very quickly before taking a position at Gallus Entertainment supervising lighting and compositing on the children's cartoon show Waybuloo.

In 2011 Mahmoud took a lead artist position at the newly formed Toronto division of Pixomondo.  Mahmoud worked his way up to become a visual effects supervisor and added such films as Hugo (Acadamy Award winner for best Visual Effects), Snow White and the Huntsman (Nominated for Acadamy Award for best Visual Effects), The Amazing Spider-Man and Oblivion to his filmography. Currently Mahmoud is the Head of Studio at Pixomondo’s Toronto and Montreal locations.

Mahmoud's career at Seneca College started in 2006, teaching in the Digital Animation program.  Shortly after he started, the Visual Effects department snapped him up to become one of their Maya instructors, which he continues to this day.  Mahmoud is constantly and consistently one of the more popular professors in the VFT program.  He holds the unique ability to make the technical aspects of visual effects simple for students to understand, and his love of learning spreads to anyone who has taken his courses.

Kenny Tam’s CG career began in the year 2000, specializing in modelling. He started in commercials, working for premium clients such as McDonalds, McCains, MTV, and Moose Head Beer.

Kenny joined the team at Soho VFX in Toronto, taking on the role as Asset Supervisor on the films Fantastic Four, The Chronicles of Narnia, Final Destination 3, X-Men 3: The Last Stand, Blades of Glory, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and The Incredible Hulk.

The Toronto division of Pixomondo was the next stop for Kenny where he worked as a VFX Supervisor. While he was there he worked on The Amazing Spider-Man, Snow White and the Huntsman (Nominated for an Academy Award for best Visual Effects) and Hugo (Academy Award Winner for best Visual Effects).

Currently Kenny works at Jam Filled where he works as the Head of CG & Development.  

While working in the industry, Kenny started teaching at Seneca College’s Visual Effects program in 2009. The VFT program immediately felt the impact of his years of experience as he shared his vast knowledge of Maya with his students. Kenny brings a remarkable work ethic and an impressive production skillset to the program.

Asha Bhaskaran is a Senior FX Artist at RodeoFX, working on world-class movies and TV shows. Her 7+ years of experience in the industry working at various award-winning studios like Mr.X and Spin VFX has helped her gain extensive knowledge of the entire VFX pipeline. With this, she had the opportunity to create realistic effects for projects such as Stranger things S03, Resident Evil, Vikings, The Umbrella Academy, Lovecraft Country, Midnight Mass, among others.

After completing her bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from India, Asha’s love for visual arts and movies pushed her to pursue the Visual effects program at Seneca college. Upon graduating with honours in 2015, she set foot in the industry as an intern at Mr.X, Toronto. Her continued passion for learning has evoked her to gain the skills required to create photo-realistic effects.

Asha’s enthusiasm to share her learning and experience with the upcoming artists has led her to begin her teaching career at Seneca College in 2021. She believes that having a strong understanding of the tools and the science behind is key for problem-solving and creating realistic FX work. Therefore, the course curriculum is structured in a way to get a deep understanding of various modules in SideFX’s Houdini such as pyro, fluids, rigid bodies, vellum, particle effects, etc. She looks forward to nurturing creative minds and helping future VFX artists get started up in their careers.

Burce Boran graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University in the Visual Communication Design Program in 2010.  His passion for 3D Modeling and Texturing led him to working as an artist working in VFX and animation companies in Istanbul, Turkey.

He decided to come to Canada to persue his dreams of working on larger projects.  In 2017 he graduated from Seneca College's Visual Effects for Film and Television program.

After graduation Burce started working at Pixomondo.  He has worked on the projects  Colony, Goosebumps2, Star Trek: Discovery, Midway, The Mandalorian, The Stand, See and Goliath.

Currently he is working on the upcoming Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender as the lead asset artist.  For Avatar he created efficient workflows of assets at every stage of Virtual Production and VFX.  He has led the asset team through creating the 26 environments for the LED volumes used in filming.

Burce believes in life-long learning and is currently diving into content creation for Unreal.  He continuously passes his knowledge on to his team and his students.

Burce also teaches Core Modeling in Seneca's Game Art and Animation program.

Viduttam Katkar’s visual effects career began at Mr. X Inc. Toronto in 2016 after graduating with honours from Seneca’s Visual Effects for Film and Television program. Trained as an Electronics and Telecommunications engineer and having a strong technical background, Viduttam decided to pursue his dream career as an artist and a visual storyteller.

Viduttam began as a Lighting Artist at Mr. X Inc. where he had the opportunity to work on movies such as Resident Evil – The Final Chapter, Legends of the Hidden Temple, American Made, Ad Astra and Goosebumps. He was proud to be a part of the Canadian Screen Award winning team at Mr. X Inc. for their work on Vikings seasons 4, 5 and 6.

Being a keen observer and a quick learner, Viduttam took up the Lead Lighting Artist role at Mr. X Inc. within 2 years of joining the company. In this role, he has worked on challenging projects such as The Boys and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Viduttam returned to his alma mater at Seneca to teach in 2019. Since taking over the reins of the Lighting, Look-development and Rendering course from Alexandre Scott, Viduttam has sought to expand the curriculum based on his experiences in the industry. The course curriculum now includes the latest Pixar’s Renderman render engine, which is an advanced physically based path tracer used in production across VFX studios.

As a Seneca faculty member, Viduttam strives to share his industry knowledge and experience with other budding artists. He seeks to inspire students to hone their skills enable them to grow in their creative domains and achieve their career aspirations. He hopes his genuine enthusiasm and his ongoing pursuit of knowledge continues to motivate his peers and students in VFX.