Cinesite chooses Inspire Internship winner

Visual effects house Cinesite has selected the winner of its 2012 Inspire Internship program. The winner is Firtina Ozbalikci, a second-year computer science student at the University of Bath.

Cinesite launched the Inspire talent development program to help identify and encourage new talent in an industry which is lacking sufficiently well-trained artists and technicians.

Ozbalikci has won a six-week paid placement at Cinesite this summer. He will be working on integrating Cinesite’s core libraries into new technology and developing Cinesite’s real-time rendering capabilities.

“I was looking for an internship when my placements officer at the University of Bath told me about Cinesite’s Inspire program,” said Ozbalikci. “I saw that Cinesite has worked on an impressive list of movies and realized that this would be a great opportunity to broaden my horizons. I’m honored to be selected as the winner as I’ve wanted to work in the entertainment industry since I was young. I’m very excited about the prospect of learning from the experts at Cinesite and having this opportunity to contribute to the company.”

“Firtina’s application showed a real determination to investigate graphics programming beyond what he’d been taught in his computer science course,” said Alexander Savenko, head of pipeline at Cinesite. “He demonstrated a keen interest in the subject and went far beyond what we asked in the initial brief, taking it in interesting and novel directions.”

“We see a distinct lack of skilled programmers coming into the visual effects industry which is why we decided to offer a technical effects internship this year,” said Antony Hunt, managing director, Cinesite. “Programmers play a vital role in creating the tools we need to deliver stunning visual effects. We’re looking forward to showing Firtina what it’s like to work in this world-class industry, and we hope we’ve inspired other talented programmers to consider visual effects as an exciting career option.”