Biography
George Johnsen is Founder and Chief Technology Officer of MammothVision, Inc., a groundbreaking digital production studio specializing in high value digital visuals and audio for television, film and theme park markets.
As a developer of technologies for the entertainment industry, Mr. Johnsen has and continues to work with industry giants such as IBM, Sony, Audio Technica, and Crown to provide better tools for digital production and post-production world. Mr. Johnsen is himself a pioneer of digital post-production. Prior to starting MammothVision, he was the founder and owner of the word's first digital Post Production facility designed from the ground up to service the special venue and digital film/TV markets. For Warner Brothers, he co-produced the hit sci-fi TV series Babylon 5. Johnsen utilized his ability to combine and streamline various in-house visual and audio effects to create an independent digital operation for Babylon 5. That operation became the standard in the industry for streamlined efficiency, controlled costs and high creativity.
Prior to Babylon 5, Mr. Johnsen founded the first digital audio studio, EFX Systems, where he was instrumentally involved in many pivotal breakthroughs as Hollywood moved into the digital age.
Among those events for which Johnsen played a crucial role:
· The first film posted on tape ("Big Surf," 1982)
· The first digital 3D theme park production ("The Power Plant" for 6 Flags, Baltimore, 1984)
· The first digitally-recorded film score ("The Man With Two Brains," 1984)
· The first all digital audio for a television show (Brad Bird's "Family Dog" for Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories," 1986)
· The first all digital motion picture ("Final Approach," 1988)
· The first digital corporate industrial film (NDEI's "Spirit of Flight," 1989)
· The first entirely digital picture and sound television series (WB's "Babylon 5")
· Was named "Digital Production Pioneer" by the Wall Street Journal
He has consulted and designed for many high profile audio and video manufacturers, and has participated in the standards committees for SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) Time Code, the Red Book audio standard, the HD international exchange standard, the Visual Effects Society, and other professional organizations.
Additionally, his EFX feature film credits include: Mortal Kombat, The Mask, Disclosure, Dumb and Dumber and Talk Radio. Active in projects featuring computer images since The Last Starfighter and Tron, Johnsen is continuously developing new methods to bring cost effective computer generated imagery (CGI) to television shows. He has been involved with 43 3D productions and 22 IMAX films, most recently serving as the producer of the IMAX format film Avenue of the Giants for the Dunsmuir Conservancy.
Among his many roles of leadership and innovation are working with IBM Special Projects to pioneer the development of Blade Servers for rendering. He holds several patents in the areas of cluster computing for animation. He has served as an IBM Fellow for the Watson Research Center.
As an independent Visual Effects Supervisor and Visual Effects Producer, George has been part of over 100 groundbreaking film and commercial projects. For example, he led key vendor TDRL on the ultra successful Spiderman film series- his team was instrumental in bringing in their work on time and on budget. For the Shell Motor Company and BBDO advertising, he led the FX team for the Shell V-Power campaign, nominated for several Clio Awards.
He has also had a tremendous amount of cable and satellite television experience, as a launch team member for SpeedVision, SPEED, TVG, BlackbeltTV, ESPN2, ESPN3, and NBCSN. He was the lead producer for the seminal Internet entertainment network TheThreshold.com. He is well versed in network management software, editorial management and execution software, and has awards ranging from the Cable Ace to the Themed Entertainment Award.
Mr. Johnsen served as a key member of design teams contributing to every aspect of the experience on numerous highly-celebrated theme park attractions -- including King Kong and Earthquake for Universal Studios Hollywood, Ghostbusters 3D, The Hanna Barbera Jetsons/Flintstones 3D Adventure, and Alfred Hitchcock - The Art of Making Movies (3D) for Universal Studios Florida, Cranium Command, Mission Space, and CircleVision for EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World, The Boy From Mars 3D for the Kennedy Space Center, RoboCop: The Ride 3D for Running W Productions/Iwerks, Armageddon: Special Effects Theatre, and Space Mountain for Disneyland Paris, and Hershey's Really Big 3D Show for the Hershey Theme Park.
Mr. Johnsen produced Star Trek: Voyager Borg Encounter for Paramount Properties in digital 3D. Additionally, he recently oversaw special effects and animation production Edward Fudwupper Fibbed Big, a fully CGI Oscar Nominated theatrical short for Nickelodeon.
One of Johnsen's areas of expertise is unusual format projection presentations. For the Drama Desk Award winning Creation, he was responsible for creating photo-realistic scenery for the story of the creation of and early days of the universe from the big bang on a multi projector 270' screen. For 8 years, he directed and produced all the marquee content for the 1500' screen at the Fremont Street Experience Las Vegas.
Whatever the challenge, George loves the new, the unusual, the unknown, and the different.
