Jeff Barnes' plate is full these days. His ComputerCafe Group encompasses The Syndicate, CafeFX and Sententia Ent., plus he's the new chairman of the VES. Here he speaks at the last VES awards. © Spelling Communications.

With Jeff Barnes recently becoming the new chair of the VES, and the flurry of projects at The ComputerCafe Group (which encompasses feature film visual effects company CafeFX, commercial visual effects and design division, The Syndicate, and feature film production division, Sententia Entertainment.), we thought it was a good opportunity to discuss his increasingly important role in the industry.

Bill Desowitz: Let's begin with an update on The ComputerCafe Group and the launch of your character animation division.

Jeff Barnes: We kicked that off at CafeFX with Pan's Labyrinth, really, and then we moved onto The Mist. After that we did Nim's Island and now we're working on a project they won't let me talk about.

BD: Is it for this year or next year?

JB: It's probably going to come out next year.

BD: Is there a lot of character work?

JB: There are a couple of big characters in it. It's substantial work.

BD: How would you characterize the division at this point?

JB: Our animation supervisor, James Straus is brilliant. He's obviously very experienced and the crew really likes him. He's a forward thinker, a creative thinker. The thing that impresses me the most is that he's so impassioned about the craft. He's so, so into it, which is great. That's something you can't pay for. It's good for overall morale.

BD: How large is the division now?

JB: We recently delivered a several shows and at our peak so I think we were up to 15 or so. We're currently at around 12.

BD: So character animation is definitely becoming a specialty of yours.

JB: You know, the industry right now is going through a lot of changes, with the globalization happening. Rates have gone down and incentives have affected all of us in some way, shape or form. So a lot of people are trying to figure out what's the best way to be positioned as a company in order to capture the most amount of work or have the possibility to capture the most amount of work and still be efficient with the quality and be effective with the end product. So this is kind of an experiment for us.