🎥 Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Machine Learning | Virtual Production | Filmmaking | Visual Effects | Consultation | Public Speaking | Creativity and Innovation
🎬 What happens when a VFX artist trained by a horror legend blends Oscar-winning artistry with cutting-edge AI? You get Freddy Chávez Olmos.
For nearly two decades, Freddy has helped bring some of the most visually striking worlds in film and television to life — with credits on District 9, Blade Runner 2049, Pacific Rim, The Mandalorian, and Superman & Lois. Along the way, he’s collaborated with legendary directors including Guillermo del Toro, Neill Blomkamp, Robert Rodriguez, Tim Burton, and Christopher Nolan, contributing his VFX artistry to bold, genre-defining cinematic visions.
Now at the forefront of innovation, Freddy combines deep visual effects expertise with emerging technologies to enhance storytelling and streamline production. As Creative Director for AI & Innovation at Boxel Studio, he has led the integration of Autodesk Flow Studio for AI-driven motion capture and Beeble SwitchLight for advanced relighting — accelerating delivery for episodic content while maintaining creative control.
A member of the Directors Guild of Canada, Freddy also directs genre-driven short films and episodic anthologies, bridging traditional cinematic craft with next-generation production tools and cloud-powered workflows — transforming not only how stories are told, but how they’re made.
His creative contributions span a long list of acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy-winning projects, including:
- Blade Runner 2049
- The Mandalorian
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Pacific Rim
- District 9
- Elysium
- The Dark Knight
- TRON: Legacy
- The Incredible Hulk
- Watchmen
- and many more episodic, streaming, and theatrical projects
Born in Puebla, Mexico, Freddy’s creative journey began with special effects make-up training in Los Angeles under the mentorship of legendary SFX artist Dick Smith (The Exorcist). He later transitioned into digital visual effects, building a dynamic career at renowned studios including Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital, Image Engine, Scanline VFX, and Double Negative.
Today, Freddy serves as Creative Director for AI & Innovation at Boxel Studio, where he leads initiatives exploring the intersection of generative AI, machine learning, and high-performance cloud computing for film and episodic production. He’s an early adopter and pipeline architect for groundbreaking AI tools like Leonardo AI, Wonder Dynamics, Dream Machine, Viggle, and Pika Labs, driving faster, more flexible, and creatively empowered workflows for artists and studios.
As a director, his work includes the internationally acclaimed short SHHH (praised by Guillermo del Toro) and episodes of Two Sentence Horror Stories for CW and Netflix.
A passionate educator and thought leader, Freddy has presented at TEDx, San Diego Comic-Con, VES, and SIGGRAPH, consistently advocating for the creative potential of new technology and inspiring the next generation of digital artists to reimagine storytelling through innovation.
🎙️ Catch Freddy at SIGGRAPH 2025!
Panel: Birds of a Feather Session (BOF)
Title: From Pixels to Possibilities: The AI Creative Cloud Journey (BOF 153)
Date/Time: Wednesday, 13 August; 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Location: Vancouver Convention Centre
Room: Theater
🔍 What Freddy’s Sharing:
At the heart of Freddy’s presentation is an in-depth look at how Boxel Studio is pioneering AI-enhanced VFX pipelines in episodic production — with a spotlight on the studio’s implementation of Beeble SwitchLight on Advanced AI Cloud Clusters.
The centerpiece of Freddy’s session will focus on: Beeble SwitchLight on CenterGrid’s AI Cloud: Freddy will unveil how Boxel Studio has partnered with Hoon Kim, founder of Beeble, to deploy SwitchLight — a powerful AI relighting tool that generates PBR passes (normals, depth, occlusion) directly from 2D footage. This dramatically expands a compositor’s creative control over relighting and effects, without requiring additional 3D rendering.
Exclusive to SIGGRAPH 2025, Boxel Studio is now running SwitchLight on Virtual Studio VFX Raptor servers, powered by multipul RTX A6000 GPUs. This scalable, cloud-based configuration delivers lightning-fast relighting, PBR generation, and AI-enhanced compositing — with the speed, flexibility, and scalability necessary for high-end VFX episodic work. Freddy will walk audiences through this workflow, sharing production insights from Superman & Lois.
Supporting this, Freddy will also touch on:
- Flow Studio (formerly Wonder Studio): Used by Boxel’s team to extract motion capture data from greenscreen performances and apply it to CG characters — enabling animators to rapidly generate their own mocap performances for complex sequences like the Superman & Lois Doomsday finale.
This BOF session will offer a unique behind-the-scenes look at how AI and cloud infrastructure are actively transforming VFX pipelines today, with CenterGrid’s AI Cloud platform playing a pivotal role in delivering scalable, on-demand power for these advanced AI production tools.
📍 Meet Freddy and the Boxel at the Expo!
Stop by CenterGrid Booth #511 on the SIGGRAPH show floor to meet Freddy in person and discover how he and Boxel Studio are pushing the boundaries of cloud-based AI computing for film, VFX, and virtual production. Learn firsthand about the creative possibilities unlocked when AI innovation meets scalable cloud infrastructure.
