Ed Trost has more than 30 years in the arts + entertainment industry producing varied media from websites and interactive multimedia to VFX and animated feature films.
During this time Ed has still found time to pursue his own creative works. With an Arts major in sculpture, Ed has created many ceramic and metal sculptures, however, his latest work has been developing a series of pyrographic or ‘pokerwork’ portraits on plywood. This hand drawn technique produces a textural element to the art as the portrait is burnt into the plywood reducing it to an abstracted collection of tones. Ed selects his subjects from people whose inner strength has given them resilience in the face of mental health challenges. He hopes that by highlighting people actively working through these issues, his art will help to correct misconceptions about this debilitating illness.
Professionally, Ed was responsible for the style and production of hundreds of hours of film, television and new media products. He led large teams of artists as Senior Producer for: Energee Entertainment, Australia’s largest animation studio; Photon VFX at Warner Brothers Studios; and Oktobor, New Zealand’s finest TVC, film and interactive studio.
Some of the larger projects that Ed produced components of include: the animated feature film “The Magic Pudding” a twelve million dollar production for 20th Century Fox with an associated website, interactive CD game, DVD title package, and large range of print and plush merchandise; “Tales from the Kangaroo’s Crypt” an interactive CD rom detailing the 4 billion year history of Australia’s unique flora and fauna; VFX for numerous US films including Walt Disney’s “Inspector Gadget 2”, “George of the Jungle 2” and Sony Screen Gems’ “Boogeyman”. He also produced many television series, pilots and interactive products for national and international clients including: ABC (Aus), Viacom (USA), Discovery Channel (USA), RTV (Germany) and the BBC (UK).
Ed currently works from his studio in the hinterland behind Byron Bay, on a property just outside the small town of Wardell NSW Australia.