ROBERT U. TAYLOR

BRIEF RESUME & BIO 2009

SCENIC, ARCHITECTURAL AND VFX/CGI ART DIRECTOR & PRODUCTION DESIGNER


ROBERT U. TAYLOR (Artist, Scenic & Architectural Designer, Production Designer, VFX Art Director, CGI Art Director) began his career studying classical styles of painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania. He went on to Yale University to study Scenic Design. Taylor has created designs for over one hundred productions in repertory and regional theaters throughout the country. His work as a designer has been seen in both off Broadway and Broadway productions (where he has had three shows running on Broadway at once.) He won the Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards and other theater awards. He designed six restaurants in New Jersey and New York city, and several more in Florida. He has worked extensively in film and television, and has designed over seven hundred commercials, many of which have won Clios. He has taught on the faculty of Princeton University, Hunter College, the Rhode Island School of Design, and has been a Lecturer on CGI film design at Yale University.

He has had ten one man shows of his paintings, watercolor and oil, on the east coast. Several of his designs and models can be seen in various books on set design over the past 20 years, and have been on exhibition at the Smithsonian, the International Theater Institute, and at the San Antonio McNay museum's permanent collection of scenic art. For the past 20 years, he has also engaged in watercolor painting, of the Berkshire area, and of Greece. He had a one-man Exhibition in 2010 at the Welles Gallery in Lenox, MA.

Taylor was the Production Designer for the VFX motion control film; Back to the Future - The Ride, with Douglas Trumbull directing, for Universal Studios Florida. He was the Production Designer on film projects for Steven Spielberg, a video simulator film for Sega, a group of technically innovative simulator base films and a six acre theme park design for LUXOR Las Vegas. Taylor was the VFX Art Director with Mass.Illusion for the model sets for the feature films: Judge Dredd, Eraser, Event Horizon, Shadow Conspiracy, Starship Troopers, shot planning for the VFX in The Matrix, and the “painted” location effects for What Dreams May Come. Taylor then returned to work as VFX Art Director for Doug Trumbull, designing for Entertainment Design Workshop. He designed an interactive ride for Hitachi, designed extensively on an unfinished CGI project based on the book “Dinotopia”, and finally The Book of Pooh, directed and produced by Mitchell Kriegman for Disney Productions. He designed and textured the pilot project, helped develop the process of smooth integration of flat art into CG application, and worked as VFX Art Director for Shadow Digital on 120 segments of The Book of Pooh.

He designed several short 3D films and ridefilms for Powderkeg Productions most of which were built entirely in CGI (one of which won Best New Production at the IAPPA convention in Orlando, FL. 2002). He also designed a historical ridefilm for ITA productions, called Time Elevator, shot in The US and Hungary. He designed a themed 200' long Santa Claus Workshop several stories high for Santa Claus Village in Vermont, with accompanying interior themed entertainment; and several other US Theme Park 3D film projects.

He then, for several years, designed and rendered exterior and interior architectural projects in various styles, in western Massachusetts and Connecticut (Canyon Ranch condominiums, Lenox Marriott, Great Barrington Comfort Inn, Berkshire Theater Festival, Berkshire Railway Museum, Hudson Valley Spa Resort, the New Amsterdam Urban Center in Pittsfield for Beth Pearson, an uncompleted project – Stockbridge Equestrian Resort, and many others). He more recently designed the Aspinwell Condo Development, and the Pontoosuc Lake Condo Project with 52 duplexes and 18 single house units (still in building phase).

In 2008 – 10, he designed for Adirondack Scenic, an amusement park ride for Universal Studios Dubailand in Dubai. In 2010-11 he acted again as Production Designer for Doug Trumbull, designing several space station sets for a projected motion picture from the book “Ender’s Game”, a Burger King commercial based on Doug’s VFX for the film “The Tree of Life”, and a cutting edge commercial for Apple.

In 2011-15 he completed a large interior design project for the Make A Wish Foundation: the 20,000 sq.ft. Wishing Castle in Monroe, NJ; a Sesame Street Darkride project for Resorts World, Universal Studios, Singapore, designs for Westgate Park in Singapore, and show environment designs for Wuhan Movie Themepark, created by the Dalian Wanda Group in Wuhan, China. This project has grown and at present (2014-15) includes his designs for attraction facilities for the Dalian Wanda Group through Shanghai XianDai Arch.Des. Ltd., in Harbin, Nanchang, and Guangzhou parks, mostly involving entertainment features centered on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.. He designed again for Doug Trumbull on a pilot project involving 3D 4K 120fps imagery, called U.F.O.T.O.G.

In 2015-16 his concept design work has involved restaurant and large commercial themed venues in a Syracuse NY supermall, the Hollywood Margaritaville Hotel in Florida, Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado, Great Wolf Lodge in LaGrange, GA, and a huge 40 acre park-hotel-restaurant-condominium complex in Orlando FL. He recently completed design elements for Dreamworks at Motiongate Dubai, Dubai Parks & Resorts, and for a new theme park in Singapore.