Jeff Kleiser's pioneering work in computer animation has spanned the history of the medium. He has contributed to films with groundbreaking visual effects including "Tron," "Stargate," "Judge Dredd," "Clear and Present Danger", "Mortal Kombat Annihilation", "X-Men" and "X-Men United". He served as senior visual effects supervisor on "The One"-a film in which martial arts master Jet Li battles his evil doppelganger that required the development of innovative digital face replacement techniques. More recently, Kleiser has supervised visual effects in "Exorcist The Beginning", "Son of the Mask", "Fantastic Four", "Scary Movie 4" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." With Diana Walczak, Kleiser has directed ambitious CG-animated stereoscopic films for projects such as the Thea and EDDY Award -winning "Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man" thrill ride (for Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida); the Philip Glass/Robert Wilson digital opera, "Monsters of Grace", "Santa Lights Up New York" for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and "Corkscrew Hill" an original ride attraction written by Kleiser and Walczak for Busch Entertainment. In June 2001, Kleiser and Walczak completed "Little Miss Spider: Lost and Found," a CG-animated short film based on David Kirk's best-selling storybook. In March 2002, this film was honored as the best of the shorts for tots screened at The New York International Children's Film Festival. The film has screened at the Guggenheim in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and was included in the Electronic Theater program at SIGGRAPH 2001. It has been invited by the Project for Afghan Children's Television to screen as part of special broadcasts for children in Afghanistan. Jeff Kleiser has presented papers at many international events including the London Effects and Animation Festival, SIGGRAPH, INA Imagina, NAB, Opera Totale and the Virtual Humans Conference. He has served as an industry expert in interviews with The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings. Kleiser serves on the board of directors of the Visual Effects Society, the board of trustees of The Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Board of Advisors to the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts. In addition, he is a founder and trustee of the Williamstown Film Festival, a member of the CGSociety Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Grid Institute, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Brother of Randal KleiserCo-founder of Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company (effects house)
On a journey to San Francisco, Richard, his father and cousin Emmeline find themselves on a ship about to explode. Rushed to a lifeboat with Paddy Button, the two children escape while their father (and uncle) are on another lifeboat. In the chaos following, the lifeboats are separated. Paddy, Richard and Emmeline find themselves with no food and no water stuck in the middle of nowhere. After some time, the three come across an uncharted paradise, where Paddy quickly teaches the children fishing, hunting and building. After maybe a month or two, Paddy gets very drunk off a barrel of rum found on the island when they first arrive, and drowns in the middle of the night. Emmeline and Richard, now alone and very scared, move location and rebuild their island home. Many years later, the two young teenagers have developed a very real home, but hormones and feelings between the two strain their friendship...