About - Floating Rock

Aiko Sato

Talent and Project Manager

Aiko is an established project manager with extensive experience working in WētāFX, Ministry, universities, and other multicultural organisations. She is a musician and enjoys working with creatives. Aiko has a strategic mind with a critical eye, providing analytical and innovative advice to the team.

Alex Ronco

Senior Animator

Alex is the best animator at Floating Rock (according to Benji.) Alex is french like over half the team here at Floating Rock but based in the Caribbean islands. Alex recently worked on one of our biggest projects Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.

Amnon Schwarz

Senior Animator

Amnon is an Animator of 14+ years in NZ, Germany, Ireland and Sweden. He's animated feature films and TV shows, talking geese for Air NZ, game trailers for Cyberpunk 2077 and Suicide Squad. He was Emmy nominated in 2022 as Animation Director on the Netflix series, Ada Twist, Scientist, executive produced by Michelle & Barack Obama. He enjoys gaming, gardening, hugging trees, spotting native birds, surfing, postgrad studies, and being a proud doggy Dad to golden retriever, Zelda.

Benjamin Mulot

Senior Animator

Benji is an artist who animates with an incredible eye for timing and weight. He has animated countless creatures and characters, including “Kong vs Godzilla, “Eternals”, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Game of Thrones”.

Chay Johansson

Technical Artist

Chay is a Technical Artist with over 16 years of experience in film and games, having spent a good chunk of his career working at Weta Digital on creature fx for movies such as Avengers Endgame, Disney's Jungle Book, and Avatar 2. Chay specialises in muscle and cloth simulation as well as working closely to provide other rigging and pipeline solutions.

Garrick Rawlingson

Co-Founder // Chief Business Officer

Garrick is a versatile professional with expertise in client outreach and creative project leadership. He has extensive experience in character and creature animation and devleoped his creative eye having worked for top VFX studios around the world on films like Alita: battle Angel, Peter Rabbit 2, and The Hobbit 3. His natural social skills aligned him well for connecting with people and businesses.

Gregoire Dehame

Rigger

Gregoire is versatile across both character and creature rigging. He has created his own proprietary rigging system, along with tools to allow for increasingly efficient animation and overall production. During his time at Luma Pictures, Gregoire worked on projects such as The Tomorrow War

Henry Bennett

Senior Animator

Henry worked in Animation at Weta Digital, Animal Logic Sydney, and various advertising studios as a character animator and rigger. Henry’s passion lies in 3D character animation but he also enjoys delving into all aspects of the film making process and creating tools to speed up animation workflows.

Jarrod Crossland

Production Manager

Jarrod is a local Rockie working in our production team, he has been in VFX for 8 years and leading production teams on everything from Game of Thrones to Avatar 2. Outside of work, he is a hiker, bike rider, excel guru, and proud dad. Jarrod is super excited to be part of the growing Floating Rock family!

Kezzia Flynn

Production Assistant

Kez has worked on some really exciting game trailers and commercial spots since starting with Floating Rock. But that’s not all she does, her other duties include, assisting with marketing and communications, by writing copy and content for the website, press releases, and social media. Much to the relief of her family, Kez is indeed using that English degree they all thought would be useless.

Laurent Herveic

Co-Founder // Chief Creative Officer

Laurent, has an asset creation background, specializing in facial modelling and FACS. His work on Pogo from The Umbrella Academy earned the prestigous VES award nomination. His additonal work includes memorable characters for movies like Alita: Battle Angel and Planet of the Apes. Laurent's artistic eye leads the way when it comes to creative needs for high quality and structure for outstanding production.

Lukas Niklaus

Co-Founder // Chief Executive Officer

Lukas, a spreadsheet pro and our chief strategist, has a background as an Animator at major VFX studios like Industrial Light & Magic and Weta Digital. He's extremely passionate about character animation and elicting genuine preformances. Lukas passionately manages the in's and out's of the studio to ensure excellence as a successful studio.

Mel Chatain

Animator

Mel is up for any challenge, creative or technical, when it comes to animation. Her animation career started in video games at Ubisoft but a passion for character animation led her to seek out the feature film industry.

Nathan Santell

Executive Producer

Nathan is based in Montreal although soon to be making the big move to NZ. He is an Emmy-nominated Producer, Consultant, Project Manager, Writer and Development Executive with deep experience in animation, visual effects, story development, artist management & live-action production. Nathan’s strengths include company building, business development, brand strategy, team management, leadership and communications. As Executive Producer for Floating Rock, he is focused on drumming up business on the service side of the company, making sure those projects run smoothly and he’s also instrumental in the development and sales of Floating Rock’s IP’s. He's worked on feature films (Mad Max: Fury Road, Gravity, Iron Man 2&3, Sonic the Hedgehog, Oz the Great & Powerful, Total Recall, Men in Black 3, Avengers, Hunger Games, and so much more.

Rafael Gonzalez Quinones

Animator

Raf’s career began at Weta Digital after winning a month-long internship through the Rookies competition. A month turned into 3 years, after which Raf spent some time abroad honing his animation skills at other large VFX houses like Method Studios. Now Raf has focussed his strong artistic skills on storyboarding, previs and supervision

Richard Cooper

Operations Manager

Richard is our math whizz and cocktail making expert, who makes sure everything is running smoothly here at Floating Rock. Highly versatile, he has over 25 years of experience in different roles. He led teams of Marketing, Finance and IT specialists and managed external PR, social media, and communications strategies. Richard is educated in Maori and Pacific Studies with Minors in Maori Business and Resource Management, giving him a unique understanding of complex relationships, histories, and cultures. Additionally, he is a strong mentor and believes in growing skills and abilities for all staff. Is there anything he can’t do?

Ruby Cumming

Line Producer

Ruby has 10+ years of film and TV production experience, mainly in VFX. Ruby oversees all aspects of production at Floating Rock, ensuring timely and budget-conscious completion while finding creative solutions to maximize potential. She finds great fulfillment in exploring creativity in her role, working closely with creative teams to bring their visions to life.

Stephanie Parker

Co-Founder // Chief Marketing Officer & PItchfest Lead

Steff is an Animator by heart, while focussing on Marketing and Floating Rock's Pitchfest. In the past she has worked on major films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Angry Birds and studios like Sony Pictures Imageworks and Animal Logic. Her favourite thing about animation is creating empathetic character moments that resonate with audiences. This translates now to showcase and build an innovative space and experiences for peers to have their memorable moments.

Steffen Schubert

FX/Generalist Artist

Steffen is a highly experienced professional in the VFX industry with over 20 years of expertise. He has previously worked as a CG Supervisor and Creative Director in LA and a tenure at Weta FX, where he served as a Technical Director for 7 years. Driven by his deep-rooted love for art, he spent 5 years studying and teaching Advanced Drawing and Oil Painting at The Florence Academy of Fine Art. Steffen continues to push the boundaries of visual storytelling and create groundbreaking visual effects here at Floating Rock.