About us
The demands on filmmakers have never been higher. With new business challenges and disruptive technologies like virtual reality, storytellers need tools to quickly pitch their ideas, plan their productions, and align their stakeholders. All of us at Accelerated Pictures have backgrounds in filmmaking and storytelling, and we care about the creative and production challenges and opportunities you're facing.
Don Alvarez is passionate about building technology to improves the lives and productivity of artists, filmmakers, and designers. Don was Technical Art Director for Microsoft's 343 Industries game studio, enabling world class art production on the $1B Halo franchise. Before that he worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation as Technical Director for the movie Dinosaur, well-known for its innovative graphics and special effects. Don holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University, undergraduate degrees from MIT, and while working at the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica, managed to convince two co-workers to pose naked outside at the South Pole (-40F) for photos.
Mark Parry's career in the motion picture industry spans 20 years and includes work in nearly every position critical to the creation of a film. As an award-winning cinematographer, he has shot over a dozen features as well as commercials, music videos and shorts. A member of the prestigious Directors' Guild of America, Mark was second unit director for “Flying Elvises” and the Hawaii aerial sequences in Honeymoon in Vegas, a 1993 Golden Globe nominee for Comedy. In 2006, Mark mentored the director of the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Award winning film The Reel Monkey and served as cinematographer. Mark earned a BA in Art & Communications from Chapman University and a MFA in Film Production from the University of Southern California. Mark currently teaches at Ringling College and guest-lectures at USC's School of Cinematic Arts.
Mark Davies began his career as a Studio Engineer for the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he developed special effects hardware and software for shows like Dr. Who. Mark founded a successful startup focused on instrumentation and telemetry and then spent twenty years at Microsoft in senior technical consulting and management roles, including serving as Chief of Staff for Microsoft's Market Research team. Mark is passionate about the sport of rowing and has served as President of the Board of Directors and Executive Director of the Sammamish Rowing Association in Washington state in addition to being an active master's rower.
Barry Briggs has a long and distinguished history in the technology industry. Originally responsibly for Space Shuttle telemetry programming at NASA, Barry was lead developer and architect for Lotus 1-2-3, the most popular application of its time, and in 1995 was named the company's first Lotus Fellow. He served as CTO for a number of successful startups before joining Microsoft to take on roles like Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft's 4000-person IT organization, helping lead the transition to cloud computing. A prolific author and coder, he has written three novels and several screenplays, numerous technical articles, and Enterprise Cloud Strategy from Microsoft Press.