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Extraordinary visual experiences

Goodbye Kansas Studios creates award-winning VFX, digital animation and performance capture for film, TV-series, games, gametrailers and commercials.

Meet some of our team members.

Daniel Axelsson
Head of Modeling

Daniel always knew he wanted to pursue a future that was equal parts creative, rewarding and challenging. A love of movies, writing and modelmaking eventually opened his eyes to the world of filmmaking.After receiving his bachelor degree in computer graphics at Luleå University Daniel started his career in Visual Effects in Stockholm working for creative animation studios including Milford Film & Animation and Visual Art. There he focused on building experience of the visual effects pipeline and developed his technical and artistic ability in character modeling, texturing and grooming.In 2013 he made the move to London to fulfill his dream of working on feature films, spending 4 years at DNEG London on the modeling team where he contributed to productions such as Ridley Scott's Exodus and The Bond movie Spectre. In 2017, in search of new experiences and opportunities, he relocated to Vancouver as a lead artist on the build team at DNEG's new North American branch.During his career in feature film VFX he has honed his craft in creature modeling and facial blendshape setups through contributing to numerous award winning films including, Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, Godzilla, Pacific Rim: Uprising and recent blockbuster Dune. After several years in Canada, Daniel returned to his home country of Sweden to take on the Head of Modeling role at Goodbye Kansas.

Jim Parsons
VFX Supervisor

Jim´s childhood dream was to become a vampire when he grew up. Sadly vampires turned out to be a work of fiction so Jim vowed to work on films which portrayed them instead. Initially he learned his compositing skills in commercials and pop promos, working on videos for everyone from Oasis to Iron Maiden to various Spice Girls. As luck would have it acclaimed director Danny Boyle brought some short films to Clear Limited where Jim worked. This lead onto him working on the zombie-reviving epic “28 Days Later” as his fist feature film. He even appeared in it as a corpse.

This lead to a long and joyous stint at Cinesite where Jim worked on five Harry Potter movies, two talking dog films and was part of the Oscar winning team on “The Golden Compass”. After Cinesite Jim traveled to Image Engine, Vancouver to work on the hugely successful “Zero Dark Thirty” and the somewhat less successful “R.I.P.D” which he still thoroughly enjoyed doing. Returning to London Jim has since worked with “The Muppets”, members of Monty Python and Australians playing Gods of Egypt. After a double Marvel whammy of “Doctor Strange” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2” for Framestore, Jim took the position of Comp Supervisor at Goodbye Kansas London where he oversaw George Clooney´s “Suburbicon", Outlander and the new Robin Hood feature. He still hasn´t worked on any vampire movies... yet.

Benjamin Brenneur
Head of Motion Edit

Benjamin’s studies led him to become an Industrial/Product Designer and he worked in that field for some years but it didn't feel right so he jumped ship and started working at a theatre instead, as light and sound technician and set decorator. After 5 years he took up his old passion for 3D, learnt animation and became a generalist specialised in 3D real time for the Aérospatiale and Airbus industries in south of France. When he discovered Motion Capture all puzzle pieces fell into place, it was a key moment in his life and the beginning of a great career.
Benjamin has worked with the best specialists and companies in France, UK, Australia and then in New Zealand at Weta Digital. He's is specialized in Motion Editing, making sure we transfer the actor performance to their 3D assets to the finest animated details regardless of the size or creature like differentiation between them, be it a human, orc, hobbit, robot, penguin, troll, giant, pig, gorilla, alien or superhero.
Through the years, Benjamin has worked on many great films, including "Happy Feet", “Avatar”, “District 9”, “The Adventures of Tintin”, Three “Planet of the Apes” films, The “Hobbit” trilogy, Two “The Hunger Games” films , “Iron Man 3”, “Man of Steel”, “The Wolverine”, “The Jungle Book”, “Lady and the Tramp”, “The BFG”, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”, “Rampage”, “Avengers: Infinity Wars”, “Avengers: Endgame”, “Alita: Battle Angel” and the upcoming “Avatar” Sequels.
He joined Goodbye Kansas Studios in 2020.

Felipe Borges
VFX Supervisor

When Felipe was 9 years old ”Jurassic Park” was released in theaters. After experiencing such visually impactful movie magic he knew he just had to work with VFX and filmmaking. Growing up in Brazil, filmmaking was not an easy career path but at the age of 17 he got his first job in media – at a local TV ads production house – whilst finishing high school and attending college at night. It was at that production house where he first came in contact with professional 3D software. It was love at first sight and the following years he kept educating himself, studying photography, visual art and filmmaking.
In 2012 he started his international career, moving to Vancouver and later Montreal to work on studios like MPC, Method, ZOIC and DNEG. In June 2021 he moved to Stockholm and joined Goodbye Kansas Studios as VFX Supervisor.
Felipe loves troubleshooting, mentoring and working on complex projects with large teams. Through the past 15+ years in the CG industry and involved on 1000+ vfx shots, he’s worked on films like Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp”, “Pacific Rim: Uprising” and the latest Bond film “No Time To Die” as well as series like “Apple's Foundation”, “Game of Thrones” and George Clooney’s VFX Emmy nominated “Catch 22”.
He still watches “Jurassic Park” at least once a year. That film has – for obvious reasons – a very special place in his heart and clearly also in a generation of vfx artists and filmmakers.

Anton Söderhäll
Executive Producer

Anton is a true Goodbye Kansas veteran and begun his career 15 years ago as Director and Producer of music videos and commercials. A few years later he moved on to Motion Capture. Since then he has been involved in the production of over 50 successful AAA game titles alongside various film, commercials and interactive projects. Digital Humans, Performance capture and engaging narratives has been a key focus. Striving to push creative and technical boundaries has kept him as the go-to guy for clients such as Sony, Microsoft, WB Games, EA to mention a few.

Gabriel Björk Stiernström
Lead Concept Artist

Born and bred in Gothenburg, Gabriel studied 2D Graphics in the Game Development programme at the University of Skövde where he also graduated with a bachelor's degree in art. Before he joined Goodbye Kansas in 2021, he worked at Digic Pictures in Budapest as a Senior Concept Artist.
Gabriel has worked as a freelancer on many great projects through the years and is especially proud of a book cover he created for Isaac Asimov's Foundations Series.
When he doesn’t work, he enjoys traveling, to see new places and meet new cultures. He always brings his camera, constantly collecting future visual references. He loves to explore and to get lost for hours doing it, both home and abroad.

Gabi Gharib
System Administrator

Since the first time Gabi was introduced to a computer, he was amazed with this piece of human art. It was the start of a lifelong love affair with technology, especially computers. For 13 years he worked in various IT roles at a variety of companies, and is especially proud of when he was involved in the media production for the documentary movie trilogy “Civilization Ecco”. He joined Goodbye Kansas in 2018.
When he’s not working with computers, Gabi enjoys reading and writing, especially about topics like ethical dilemmas, trying to find the thin line between what’s ethical and unethical in our day and age. The legacy of human philosophy is very important to him. But he’s also an avid video gamer.

Taylor Kennard
Senior Producer

Taylor graduated from Kent University (Media Technology and Design) and his VFX career started at Framestore, where he worked in Integrated Advertising, starting in editorial and then progressing into production. During his progression, he was fortunate enough to be involved in projects such as Sainsbury's Christmas Ad 'MOG' and the opening title sequence for James Bond: Spectre.
Whilst working at Framestore, he switched focus from pre-rendered VFX production to real-time and has since produced several global real-time experiences, including VR activations, AR games and theme park rides, bringing his visual effects learning to this emerging medium and its multiple platforms.
In 2021, he transitioned to VFX production in episodic at MPC London, where he produced some of the most talked about sequences for Amazon’s - The Boys Season 3, alongside other episodic shows due to be released in early 2023.

Jonas Skoog
Lead Character Artist

Jonas is a legend in his field, having worked with many of the largest game studios in the world. His greatest love and speciality is creating high-res characters for cinematics, and his work is frequently featured in 3D Art Magazines and blogs. But he’s also working with 3D prints and In Game projects – as well as being one of the regulars in the Goodbye Kansas podcast “Yellow Brick Road”. Jonas has contributed to many of our greatest CG Character projects, including "Cyberpunk 2077" and the "Overkill's The Walking Dead" trailers. Be it Agneta in Abba or Conan the Barbarian, Jonas is the man for the job.

Denys Holovyanko
Senior Compositing Artist

Denys was born in Ukraine and moved to Sweden as a teenager. Denys is a passionate film buff and has loved movies and storytelling in all its forms for as long as he can remember. He studied Digital Visualization at Jönköping University, which landed him an internship at Bläck Studios, a company that later would merge with three other studios to become Goodbye Kansas Studios.
His first project was the TV-series "The Walking Dead", which was a great learning experience thanks to the amazing team of artists working on it. Since then, he’s worked on numerous projects, including feature films like "Hellboy" and "The 355", TV-series like "The Irregulars", Game cinematics like "The Outer Worlds 2" and multiple commercials. He’s also a regular guest at the Goodbye Kansas podcast “Yellow Brick Road”.
When he’s not working he enjoys playing games, traveling, reading, taking photos and ”just learning new things."

Matilda Olsson
Executive Producer

Film & Comics buff Matilda started her VFX career as a 3D artist, but soon moved on to project management, quickly becoming a genius of planning and coordinating projects of all sizes. She joined our team in 2014 and took charge of the “Kung Fury” project, and went on as VFX producer on projects like “The Walking Dead”, “Fear the Walking Dead”, “Star Wars Battlefront”, "League of Gods" and "Outlander”. A few years later she became Executive Producer, helming most of our VFX productions for Film/TV.
Matilda has a true passion for pop culture and movies, and on the Goodbye Kansas podcast "Yellow Brick Road" you can hear her talk about everything from zombie slashing to time travelling Kung Fu cops.

Harrison Ryder
Facility Manager

Back in the days Harrison studied to become an actor back home in New Zealand, and worked as Tour Manager for a Theatre Company for many years. But he wanted to see more of the world and in 2017 he and his husband left New Zealand to move to Sweden. We’re very happy he found his way to Goodbye Kansas, where he started as Lead Office Manager in 2018. Amongst his many responsibilities at Goodbye Kansas, Harrison is in charge of our ever so helpful Front Desk Team. He is also making sure every new artist walking through our doors feel welcomed and is properly introduced to the Goodbye Kansas way of life.
On his spare time he loves to walk his Golden Labrador Marnie and watch movies – preferably scary ones.

Joe Arnold
Head of Matchmove

Joe Arnold began his VFX career after receiving a first class honours degree in Digital Arts and Technology from theThe University of Plymouth. He quickly progressed to working in 3D and specialising in Matchmove. Over the years his unique skill set has never been out of demand, his film work has taken him to Australia, London and the U.S. He currently has credits on over 35 movies. As well as matchmove he enjoys thinking about production workflows and finding better ways to get stuff done with Python scripting. Outside of work Joe enjoys getting outdoors far away from the screen. Surfing, Kayaking, Yoga and Bouldering are some of his favourite pursuits.

Karin Wintle
Chief People Officer (CPO)

Karin holds a bachelor degree in Human Resources from Karlstad University and also studied International Business in Lyon, France. After completing her studies she started her career in London working with recruitment predominantly in the investment banking sector. Since moving back to Sweden in 2014 she found her true home in HR and has held Head of HR roles mostly in the tech sector and is passionate about the people side of the business.
Karin loves to spend time cooking and has recently perfected her sourdough bread technique. Apart from cooking she spends most of her time with her family and their English cocker spaniel Flora.

Luke Smith
Head of Keyframe Animation

Luke had a rather nomadic childhood, growing up in Scotland, England, Saudi Arabia to name a few before returning to Dundee to pursue a career as an animator. He studied animation at Duncan of Jordanstone Art College and has so far worked in the Industry for 11 years, working on cinematics, trailers, TV and films..
Animation is the big love and passion of his life and he’s constantly pushing his knowledge about movement. He admits he can't walk behind someone without studying their gait, even the way they flick a finger. And he constantly devours anatomy books to always improve and get better. On top of that he’s taking acting classes, which have become invaluable to make better choices when considering performance.
Projects he’s worked on include titles such as “Love, Death and Robots”, “Scrooge, a Christmas Carol”, Netflix’ “Happy”, the “Halo” and “Destiny” franchises, to mention just a few.
Besides producing award winning animations his greatest passions are drawing, woodwork, orienteering, reading and animals. If not tending to his aquarium, you'll often find him hanging out at the local farms or zoos with pencil and paper in hand

Anneli Larsson
Facial Modeler

Anneli has always been into art, first as tattoo artist, then as art student and then – after studies at Gscept in Skellefteå – as a texturing artist. After Skellefteå she went abroad and worked on projects like “Terminator Genisys”, “Goosebumps” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. Her favourite project was “Beauty and the Beast”, partly because of the great team she worked with and partly because of the endless nights of playing "Dungeons and Dragons" together.

Calle Granström
Senior Compositor

Calle has always been into visual experiences. Inspired by his older brother’s video art he ventured into the visual field when he was still at school. Among other things he created an art film that was shown at over 40 film festivals around the globe. After graduation from Nackademin in Stockholm he joined Visual Art, and met many of his future colleagues – that later on would become Bläck, and eventually evolved into Goodbye Kansas. Calle is involved in most of our game cinematics projects. He’s especially proud of his work on Andrée Wallin’s short film “State Zero”, now being developed into a TV series.

Goran Milic
Head of Facial Animation

Goran started working as Mocap tracker in 2004 on video games, before moving to New Zealand to start working at Weta. He specialized in Facial MoCap and Animation, became Head of their Facial Motion Department and worked on numerous ground breaking VFX heavy films like “Avatar”, the “Hobbit” films, the “Planet of The Apes” films, “The BFG” and "Alita - Battle Angel". Goran joined the Goodbye Kansas family in 2018.

Marcus Melin
Art Director, Motion Designer

Marcus started doing motion graphics in his early teens, making gaming videos for his friends in the classic game Counter-Strike. First he didn't realise you actually could work doing what he loved, but when he got older he started pursuing a profession within gaming and animation. Hyper Island in Stockholm was the first step and one of his proudest moments was to meet his favourite artist McBess and work with him on a Nike project for Bläck Studios (now a part of Goodbye Kansas). He joined Goodbye Kansas full time in 2018.
Marcus loves animated movies, both 2D and 3D. His favourite movie is “Akira” from 1988, mostly for the beauty of it. In his own words: “I still don't understand it, but it has so much soul and great art”.

Christina Sidoti
Lead Animator/Supervisor

Christina studied Computer Animation at Parsons School of Design in NYC in the early 2000s, graduated at William Paterson University in 2005, and completed Animation Mentor in 2012. In 2009, she worked as Facial Animator for the Spike Jonze short film “I’m Here” and after a few years as Lead CG Artist, specializing in animation at Method Studios, she moved to Sweden in 2013. At Goodbye Kansas, she works as Lead Animator and Supervisor, and is also one of the regulars in the Goodbye Kansas podcast “Yellow Brick Road."

Calum Hart
Senior Producer

Calum's passion runs deep for his craft. He has spent several years working as a producer on an array of high-end cinematics, long format, cut-scenes, installations and short films. Calum has won awards for what he has done in the past.
Before Calum was a producer, he worked in live action for many years. Those years were fun, but not as fun as producing animation. Hence why Calum does what he does here at Goodbye Kansas.
Asides from producing, Calum does like other things, like films, concerts, cheese, skateboarding, socialising, swimming, a decent sandwich, reading, cooking, animals (but not to eat or wear), games, and even more other things. Although not as much as producing. He really likes doing that. This is why we like having him around.

Max Öberg
FX Artist

Max Öberg studied "Expression in convergent media" at the University and made his internship at Visual Art in Stockholm. His first projects there were a bunch of commercials and the trailer for the game “Mad Max”. When the cinematics team at Visual Art moved on to newly founded Bläck Studios in 2015, he joined them. In 2017 Bläck Studios merged with the sister companies to form Goodbye Kansas Studios, and Max is still a trusted member of the game cinematics team. His favourite project so far has been the “Cyberpunk 2077” E3 trailer, the short film “State Zero” and the character trailers for “Overkill’s The Walking Dead”.
When he isn’t working, you just might find him on the ski slope on a snowboard. If he’s not at home watching movies – another of his passions.

Simon Rainerson
Software Engineer

With a background in mathematics and the history of ideas, Simon continued his studies at Nackademin, where he learned everything about Digital Graphics. After graduation he went to work for several VFX studios in Stockholm before joining the gang that now is the Goodbye Kansas cinematics team. Simon has worked on numerous projects, including our award winning commercial ”Sustainability” for BMW, the “Andromeda” films, as well as “Battlefield 1” for DICE. He’s an enthusiastic member of the Goodbye Kansas Board Game Club and their once-a-month epic board game battles.

Nils Lagergren
Brand & Communications Manager

Nils has worked with film, TV and media since 1990 as Producer, Scriptwriter, Director and Creative Consultant. After 20 years in the TV business, he joined our team in 2010, to work as VFX Producer on feature films like the UK horror comedy “Attack the Block” and “Underworld Awakening 3D”. Nils has also been Executive VFX Producer for lots of commercials, as well as our projects with the legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
Since 2015, Nils is in charge of our PR & Marketing activities. He's also producing and hosting the Goodbye Kansas podcast "Yellow Brick Road".
When he’s not working, Nils shares his time between various art projects and driving his vintage Citroën DS.

Fredrik Höglin
Senior Compositor

Fredrik got hooked at doing VFX at the tender age of 15, starting to explore visual effects on S-VHS and 8mm. After graduating at Capital School of Multimedia (Stockholm) and The Art Institute of Vancouver, he ventured into a career as compositor. He has worked at many large studios around the world, including ILM Vancouver, Framestore UK and Fuel Sydney. Projects include “Where the Wild Things are” and “Prometheus”. After having freelanced with us on a couple of projects – including "Attack the Block" – he joined our core team and has since been Lead Compositor on projects like “The Walking Dead” and “Fear the Walking Dead”.

Martin Borell
Senior Compositor

Martin is a man of many talents. He has studied 3D Animation, Composition, Art and Comics Drawing and did his first job with us nearly ten years ago. In 2010 he helped us create the VFX wizardry for the British Cult classic “Attack The Block”, and that project remains one of his personal favorites. When he wasn’t working for us he freelanced for other studios, for example working on Terry Gilliam’s “The Zero Theorem”, the Swedish cult classic “Dyke Hard” and projects for Swedish TV as well as numerous Super 8 projects. Today he’s a trusted key member of our permanent staff.
Martin loves everything that’s out of the ordinary, strange movies, obscure comics and experimental music. And once upon a time he was featured as Street Art Artist of the week in Sweden’s largest newspaper DN.

Peter Levin
Chief Strategy Officer and Founder of Goodbye Kansas

Peter - ”one of the ancestors of Swedish Game Industry" - has been active in the game industry for more than 25 years. Already in 1996, he invested in DICE, with fan favorites such as “Battlefield” and “Bad Company”. He has an impressive track record: co-founder of the Swedish Games Industry trade body, CEO of Electronic Arts Nordic, CEO of Pan Vision and Board member of numerous public and non-public game studios. In 2011 he ventured into the VFX business, and as CEO of the VFX studio Fido he continued to build his dream of a Scandinavian powerhouse for VFX, Animation, CG and Games. He co-founded Bläck Studios, acquired Imagination Studios and Pixel Grinder, and in 2017 these four studios merged into Goodbye Kansas Studios. By then he had also founded two sister companies: Goodbye Kansas Game Invest and Infinite Entertainment.

Ivor da Silva
Senior Lighting Artist

Ivor was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Brazil. Back in Europe again, he studied animation at the St. Joost School of Arts in the Netherlands and worked as CG Supervisor and Lighting Artist at the studio Ambassadors in Amsterdam, mostly focusing on commercials. In 2020 he moved to Stockholm and joined Goodbye Kansas Studios.
One of Ivor’s favourite hobbies is training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and he’s been training and competing for over five years. He also loves photography and ever since he moved to Stockholm he’s been doing a lot of street photography.

Cecilia Ohlsson
People Partner

Cecilia studied HR at Stockholm University and combined her studies with an internship at Bonnier Education. Next step was a position as HR/Community Coordinator at the Swedish start-up Tech Troopers, a company devoted to tech support. And in 2020 she joined the Goodbye Kansas family, where passion for tech goes hand in hand with creativity and constant development. It was in many ways a perfect match!
Cecilia grew up with a pet tortoise called Leo, named after a certain pizza loving mutant turtle. These days he’s in his late teens and lives with Cecilia’s parents, but has still not developed any specific ninja skills.

Dylan O’Rourke
Senior Facial Animator

Dylan is a Lead Facial Animator at Goodbye Kansas, having previously worked for Cubic Motion and Epic Games. From Dublin, Ireland, Dylan studied in the UK and is now living in Sweden. He holds an honours degree in Performance Studies and has a solid background in motion tracking/capture. Through the years, he’s worked on numerous AAA games including ”God of War”, ”Spiderman”, ”Hellblade”, and ”Horizon: Zero Dawn” - to name but a few he's allowed to talk about!
Digital humans, performance capture, and bringing interactive stories to life through world class animation are his work passions. An avid gamer, he also has a keen interest in game development, from concept to completion, and for the challenges and opportunities new technologies present for games moving into the 21st century. All of which has him loving the culture and environment at Goodbye Kansas.

Hanna Nordersnö
Senior Producer

Hanna started her film business career over 17 years ago, initially as Location Manager and Production Manager on both film and TV productions. Soon she was hooked by the world of VFX. She joined our team in 2008, working on VFX projects like “Yoko”, “Kon-Tiki” and “Känn Ingen Sorg”/”Shed No Tears”. In 2015 she briefly left us to work at the feature film "The Circle" and was nominated for a VFX “Guldbagge” at the Swedish Film Awards for her work.
After her return to Goodbye Kansas, she has helmed all sorts of VFX productions, including films like ‘Hellboy’, TV-series like ‘Cowboy Bebop’ & ‘Carnival Row’ and game cinematics like ‘Contraband’.
One of her favourite things about Goodbye Kansas is the team spirit and all the colleagues. “All the folks working here at Goodbye Kansas is what makes me tick! I'm so fortunate to have all these amazing people around me all day long, making me love this job every day!”

La-Râ Hinckeldeyn
Senior Producer

La-Râ began her film career in Production Design before moving into VFX and has worked at many great studios around the world.
She joined us from The Mill NYC’s Experiential team where she worked to launch AR + VR platforms, integrating game engine workflows into VFX, and building immersive experiences. At Weta Digital in New Zealand, she worked on films like "War of The Planet of The Apes”, “The BFG”, the “Hobbit" films, and was Production Manager at High Wire Films in Melbourne.
In 2020 she moved to Stockholm and joined Goodbye Kansas as Senior Producer. La-Râ describes herself as “forever curious and passionate about innovation in art and technology, and cannot wait to see what is next”.

Aleksandra Czenczek
Executive Producer / Business Development, UK

Aleksandra has worked in the film and TV industry since 2004, both in VFX and as a writer/director. In 2011 she and her team at Zoo VFX received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction for their work on 'First Life with David Attenborough’. She worked on scores of high-end TV series and films as an VFX Compositor and On-set Supervisor. Since joining Goodbye Kansas in 2016, she has been involved in many major productions, such as ‘Suburbicon’, 'Outlander’, ‘Behind Her Eyes’, '355', ‘Vigil’. In 2021, she became Executive Producer (Business Development) responsible for client relations and new business.
As writer/director, her debut feature together with her short films have been screened at over 100 film festivals worldwide and have won dozens of awards. Her practical knowledge of VFX combined with years of experience on both the creative side and in project development means that Aleksandra is really in tune with the needs of the clients. Her contacts extend throughout the globe and she loves connecting people and creating new project opportunities.
She’s an active member of Cinesisters and Directors UK.

Tom Waldton
Assistant Director & Motion Graphic Artist

Tom har always been into creating stuff and has gradually moved into the creative industry through various projects and explorations. In the mid 2010s he worked with large scale projection mapping and stage shows, with clients ranging from the Pope(!) and the Swedish contemporary Circus phenomena Cirkus Cirkör to local hiphop artists.
He joined Goodbye Kansas Studios in 2016 and quickly became an invaluable member of the Creative team. Through the years he has worked on projects with clients like EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red.
When he’s not creating at work, he’s creating at home, usually doing electronic improvisations or building on his very own miniature Sci-Fi city.

Alexis Andersson
Senior Lighting Artist

Alexis has always been into art. He started out as a graffiti artist but soon realized he wanted to marry that passion with the technical possibilities of digital graphics and VFX. Whilst living in Portugal, he started studying Graphic Design and soon developed a passion for working with 3D.  After a shorter stint at Swiss and ILP VFX in Stockholm, he joined the Goodbye Kansas family in 2016.

Erika Johansson
Head of Lookdev

Erika studied Digital Graphics at Nackademin in Stockholm, and started out at Goodbye Kansas as an intern. We instantly realized her huge talent, and after her graduation she joined our core team of digital artists. Erika has been involved in many of our most successful projects, and has a special talent for lookdev and lighting. On her free time, she enjoys painting and travelling.

Rafael Morant
Head of Art Department, UK

Raf has always had a passion for Art and Film, and went on to study these at "Central Saint Martin’s University Of The Arts London". Since graduating, he has gained many years of industry experience, refining his skill-sets in VFX Art Direction and Concept Art on numerous high profile TV and feature film projects. He was a key creative on the first season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" conceptualising and realising the look of the newly born dragons; "Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion", as well as the “Castle Winterfell”, “Castle Black” and “Red Keep”.
Raf's many other outstanding projects include; Tim Burton’s "Sweeney Todd", Danny Boyle’s "Sunshine", "Harry Potter", "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Prince of Persia", "Clash of the Titans", The Imitation Game", "Snow White and the Huntsman","Sherlock Holmes", "Macbeth": "Peaky Blinders" and George Clooney's "Monuments Men" and "Suburbicon". His recent projects include Netflix’s supernatural drama; ‘Locke and Key’ and Frank Miller's "Cursed", for which Raf designed and conceptualised the iconic "Pendragon Castle".
When he’s not designing and visualising creatures, machines and environments at Goodbye Kansas using tools such as Zbrush and Unreal Engine you will probably find him at home with his young children, creating them in Lego!

Josefine Jakobsson
Production Coordinator

Josefine has always loved movies and after dipping her toes into the field of 3D during her film studied at Örebro University, she decided to go to Campus i12 to study. She did her internship as a 3D Generalist at Copenhagen Visuals, but when the pandemic hit in 2020 she moved back to Sweden, to join Goodbye Kansas Studios as Production Assistant. Since then she's worked on projects as Cowboy Bebop, Contraband, PUBG Battlegrounds and Halo just to mention a few. 2022 she moved on to become one of our Coordinators, working on more of our cool projects.
When she isn't working you can usually find her cuddled up under a blanket on her sofa with a cup of tea in her hand and a cat in her lap, watching a movie or two, preferably horror or fantasy.

Chris Jestico
Head of Capture

Chris achieved a 1st class degree in Film Production and Music Technology then went on to work at a number of the major VFX vendors over the following 15 years in London and Singapore contributing to over 50+ productions at MPC, DNEG, Framestore, Passion Pictures & ILM. He has also worked on the client side of production, most notably alongside Steven Spielberg in managing the virtual cinematography process on-set for "Ready Player One" in 2016.
The last 4½ years Chris has been managing a Motion Capture studio at ILM and spearheading their Medusa & Anyma facial capture services. He has produced numerous Virtual Production projects ranging from VR scouting on "Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker" to Realtime LED environment shoots on films such as "The Midnight Sky" and "The Batman".
An avid bassist and Acid Jazz enthusiast Chris enjoys all things sci-fi, film noir, fantasy and anime. A keen online gamer and IPA guzzler he's always up for a badminton match or game of football and is a die hard Spurs fan.

Peter Jemstedt
Head of Rigging TD

It was computer games with full 3D environments that drew Peter into the VFX business. Early on, he realized what his role would be in the industry; the technical challenge of rigging was his passion. It took him an odd three years of study and two years of off-and-on 3D jobs, mostly as a modeler, to find such a position. In 2014, we contacted Peter for a job offer. He thought it was a modeling task – but luckily, for him and us – it was a rigging project right up his alley; production of a “Dragon Age: Inquisition” game trailer, a project with both dragons and magic. Finally, the devoted fantasy nerd Peter was at home ...

Jonas Ekman
Animation Director

When Jonas began to study at Nackademin in 2007, he not only started his digital career, but also met three persons that would become friends for life. After graduation, they worked together at Visual Art, Bläck Studios – and eventually at Goodbye Kansas, where they now are key members of the core team. Through the years Jonas has injected his unique skills for character animation, advanced Motion Capture and pre-visualisation into several full CG productions – both international commercials and large games and trailers for AAA studios, including “Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide”, “Battlefield 4”, “Star Wars Battlefront”, "Overkill's The Walking Dead" and "Cyberpunk 2077". And he was of course onboard for the production of his old classmate Andrée Wallin’s short “State Zero”.

Henrik Melsom
Realtime Technical Artist

Henrik comes from the Great North of Sweden: Norrland. He studied at Luleå University and after his graduation he started working at Tarvalley as Technical Artist. In 2021 he joined the Goodbye Kansas Realtime team in Stockholm.
When he’s not working he loves to play – and create - computer games, and admits he has an especially soft spot for Doom 1 & 2 and Rust.

Peter Blomstrand
Senior Compositor

Peter studied at GTV Television School before joining the Visual Art gang that went on to become Bläck Studios – today a vital part of the Goodbye Kansas core team of artists. Peter is especially proud of his work on “Battlefield 3 – Man of Fire", "Warhammer: End Times", "God of War: Ascension" and "Raid: World War II". In his free time he’s working on his Spitfire airplane model. He’s been building this wood and plastic model for four years – but soon it’s ready to fly! Let’s hope it won’t end up like so many planes in the explosive game trailers he has worked on...

Roger Sundberg
3D-Scanning, Technical R&D

Roger has always loved to create stuff. As a child he loved to draw, paint and work with his hands. As a teenager he got his first computer. It was unfortunately broken, but such minor obstacles have never stopped Roger. He just repaired it and started programming. Not before long he was deep into the world of programming, digital art, web design and photography.
Roger was recruited to help the Goodbye Kansas team build the advanced 3D scanning rig that now has evolved into one of the best in the world, and Roger is deeply involved in every 3D scanning project that is carried out at Gooddye Kansas Studios. He loves to push the technical borders further and will never rest until he’s satisfied with the result.
Roger’s technical wizardy has also been put to use when he has built control systems for universities and numerous companies. One of his climate control systems earned him them Astra Zeneca Energy Saving prize in a world wide competition.

Andreas Cronström
Compositing Artist

Over ten years ago, Andreas started his compositing journey, when he studied at Campus i12 in Eksjö, Sweden. In 2007, he did his very first projects with us, and worked as freelancer on films like “Let The Right One In” and “Attack the Block”. Then he went abroad to participate in projects like “Game of Thrones”, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “In The Heart of the Sea”. Now he has returned to Sweden and joined the Goodbye Kansas core team. As Compositing Supervisor he has had great impact on our successful - and Emmy nominated - VFX work on “The Walking Dead”.

Fredrik Löfberg
Director

Fredrik (or "Fred" as we call him) started his directing career in 2002, working with music videos. In 2004 he directed the international hit “In The Shadows” by The Rasmus, followed by a couple of MTV Gala Awards.
For the past six years at Goodbye Kansas he’s evolved together with our VFX artists creating some of our biggest game cinematics such as the "Cyberpunk 2077" franchise. He’s heavily involved in script development working closely with our clients, focused on strong compelling characters and dynamic narratives. Fred thinks of his work to be more in line with creating short films or a clip from a feature film, as his goal is to focus on the layers of the characters through emotions and complex narratives.
CD Projekt Red, Rocksteady, Guerrilla Games, Dice, BioWare, Sony Computer Entertainment, 2K Games are amongst his roster of clients. He has been part of many AAA titles, such as “Dragon Age: Inquisition” (Game of the Year 2014), the “Battlefield” franchise, “Mirror’s Edge”, “Conan Exiles”, “Raid: World War II”, "Overkill's The Walking Dead”, “Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League” and "Cyberpunk 2077". Working many years with both live action on set and full CG/virtual productions with heavy use of Motion Capture has given him a unique set of skills , and makes him the ideal game cinematic director. He is also one of the regulars of the Goodbye Kansas podcast “Yellow Brick Road”.

Jesper Bardhamre
Senior Environment Artist

Jesper studied graphic design at Örebro University and was one of the first 3D students to graduate from Campus i12 in 2006. In 2008 he co-founded the production company Upper First in Malmö and the following seven years he produced numerous commercials for clients like Georg Jensen, Brio and Sony.
He joined Goodbye Kansas in 2016 and has worked with many of our game trailer projects, including “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” and “Cyberpunk 2077”. One fun thing about the work is to occasionally hide easter eggs in his work, and through the years he’s designed various artworks that are dedicated to his talented co-workers.
On his free time, he builds and sculpts miniatures and models. In 2019 he won Gold in the figurine category at the Swedish National Championships for miniatures. He also enjoys cooking and claims he can make a “pretty awesome” Sauce Béarnaise.

Ed Reeler
Motion Capture Operator

Inspired by the work of icons like Phil Tippett, H. R. Giger and Ray Harryhausen, Ed always knew he wanted to work in the animation industry. With a degree in Information Technology (with a focus on film & animation) and a diploma in Interactive Media Design, he ventured into the animation world and is now a member of our Motion Capture team.
Ed is also a skilled musician with a knack for guitar and electronic music production – and enjoys performing at music festivals around the world.

Jacob Moilanen
3D Artist

When Jacob graduated from high school he knew that film was his vocation. He started to study film music at Stockholm University, and then spent three years in Trollhättan – where he eventually graduated as Film Producer. He combined studies with work on different productions such as music videos, short films and features like Ruben Östlund’s “Force Majeure”/”Turist”. By then, Jacob realized that he’d rather work with visuals than numbers, so he joined the VFX school Campus i12 in Eksjö. Like many of our core team artists, Jacob first joined us as an intern. When he finished school, we were happy to hire him right away. Jacob has a burning passion for all things spaceships, so not surprisingly his absolute favorite project so far at Goodbye Kansas is “Mass Effect: Andromeda”.

Axel Gärkman
Shoot Production Manager

Axel has long had a strong passion for film. Born in Finland, he went on to study filmmaking at London South Bank University in London and later worked freelance in film and TV as Coordinator and Assistant Director. During that time he also wrote and directed several shorts and music videos, many of which screened at film festivals around the world. In 2020, Axel moved to Stockholm to join Goodbye Kansas Studios.

Samuel Tyskling
Head of Motion Capture

Samuel has worked with Motion Capture for over ten years, but deep down he’s a musician. After studying jazz, blues & rock at high school he went on to work with the sound department at Starbreeze and Northern Light Studios – that later on would evolve into Imagination Studios, today a part of Goodbye Kansas. During the following years, he shared his time between audio studies at SAE in Stockholm and work at Imagination Studios and other companies. Samuel is a man of many talents, and has worked not only with Motion Capture but also as a Sound Designer, Cinematographer, Editor, Director, Compositor and 3D Artist. Since 2014 he’s working full time at our Motion Capture studio in Uppsala on AAA titles like “Battlefield”, “Mirror’s Edge”, “Star Wars Battlefront”, “Mad Max” and “Assassin’s Creed”. However, creating music remains a big part of his life. Samuel has a fully equipped sound studio at home and is the proud owner of no less than eight guitars.

Richard Vosper-Carey
3D Artist

A former Graphic Designer and CG Arts & Animation graduate, Richard began his career in visual effects as a Runner where he met some of the London team. As an early member of the team he has seen Goodbye Kansas grow and go from strength to strength. Within his first year in VFX he’s worked on a varied range of shows including “Suburbicon” and “Robin Hood”.  A huge movie and motorcycle enthusiast you will catch him riding in and out of work on his bike.

Gustaf Holmsten
Creative Director - Cinematics

With two creative parents, one art teacher and one artist, Gustaf felt he had no other choice than to follow in their creative footsteps.
Starting from illustrating dungeons and dragons characters and painting abstract pieces in art school, Gustaf eventually found 3D and animation when he studied design at the University of Gothenburg. This became the start of a career doing 3D and motion design for commercials and tv-show like “Nip/Tuck” and “The Shield”.
The first game related project Gustaf Directed was the intro sequence for Battlefield 3. This led into more and more cinematics where he moved on to art directing and designing some of the first marketing trailer pieces together with the team that eventually became Goodbye Kansas. Today, Gustaf is a key member of Goodbye Kansas as Creative Director and has managed the creative process for a wide span of projects including some of our most successful trailers, with clients such as CD Project Red, Microsoft, EA, Massive, Ubisoft, BioWare, Dice, Sony Computer Entertainment and Avalanche.

Sini Lindberg
Senior Producer

Our Finnish power producer Sini describes herself as a pioneer – or a dinosaur – depending on who’s asking. She’s been in the industry for over 20 years and has worked on several animated feature films and over 300 episodes of animated TV-series in different roles including animator, Lighting TD and Producer. Doing her first 15 years in the animation industry in Finland, she went on to work at Trixter in Munich as Animation Producer in 2016 before finding a great home at Goodbye Kansas Studios in Stockholm in 2020.
Sini is the proud mother of two tiny chihuahuas and besides producing animation or consuming fantasy movies and books, her great passion in life is sewing – including both designing and making her own clothes.

Dave Connely
Head of Scanning

Dave studied at Game Design at Huddersfield University and did his Masters in Game Development at Abertay Dundee in Scotland. After his studies he started to work as freelancing Character artist before he was approached by Plowman Caven, a company working with Lidar, Cyber scanning and Prop scanning specialising in on-set capture. He was soon working with onset capture for films like “The Great Wall”, ”Dr Strange”, ”Alien Covenant”, ”Fast and Furious 8” and VFX Oscar winner “Blade Runner 2049”.
He continued to Dneg, where he revamped their inhouse pipe for scan data ingestion, before being offered to start and set up a lidar department for Clear Angle Studios. This turned into the largest dedicated VFX Scanning department for Lidar in Europe and the list of projects he worked on includes productions like “Black Panther”, ”Ready Player One”, ”Game of Thrones”, “Avengers: Infinity Wars”, “Avengers Endgame” and the VFX Oscar winners “First Man” and “1917”. He also worked on “Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald” and on the new upcoming Fantastic Beast film, before joining Goodbye Kansas in 2020.
His favourite scanning project was the acclaimed drama series “Chernobyl”. They didn’t get to scan the real Chernobyl but they did scan its sister site and that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
When he isn’t working, he’s quite handy with a spanner and likes to tinker with race cars and build custom electronics packages for them.

James Prosser
Managing Director, UK

James began his VFX career at The Moving Picture Company (MPC) working on “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. Other MPC credits include many of the most complex VFX projects of the time, including “Kingdom of Heaven”, “10,000 BC” and “Prince Caspian: Chronicles of Narnia”. After leaving MPC, James was VFX Supervisor at ZOO where he oversaw all VFX production. He also worked together with Sir David Attenborough on the BAFTA winning “Natural History Museum Alive” and “Flying Monsters 3D”. James was awarded an Emmy for his work on “First Life”, also with Sir David Attenborough, from which he later produced an award winning large audience VR experience. Having collaborated with the Goodbye Kansas team for many years, discussions led to the launch of Goodbye Kansas UK in 2016 where he now is Studio Director.

Adam Vadi Dris
Line Producer

Adam's creative career started out with photography in 2009 and after studying at Stockholm School of Photography he freelanced as a photographer for a few years before he found VFX and decided to change his path. He studied compositing at Campus i12 in Eksjö and after graduation he freelanced for The Chimney Pot, Tint Post and Pixomondo before joining Goodbye Kansas as VFX Coordinator in 2019. Adam feels that his job is perfect for him since he gets to work with several different aspects of a VFX production and work closely with many different kinds of artists, learning new things every day.
Besides VFX, Adam is also passionate about music, games, brewing his own beer and playing airsoft, a less messy version of paintball.

Gianni Aliotti
VFX Supervisor

Gianni has been in the Animation, VFX and Games industry for 22 years. He studied Computer Arts and Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco before joining PDI/Dreamworks in 2000 and through the years he has worked at many great studios – both in the game and film industry.
A large portion of Gianni's career has been spent in animation at companies such as Lucasfilm Animation, DreamWorks Animation, and PDI/Dreamworks, on projects like “Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi”, ”Puss in Boots”, ”How to Train Your Dragon”, ”Monsters vs Aliens”, “Madagascar2”, ”Megamind”, “Shrek the Third”, ”Over the Hedge” and ”Bee Movie”, to name a few.
In VFX, working for ILM with J.J. Abrams on "Star Trek" was also a real highlight for Gianni and other memorable projects include ”Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”, Spielberg's ”A.I ”, and S5 of “Game of Thrones”.
Some games he worked on include “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” (Sledgehammer Games) and ”Battlefield: Hardline” (EA-Visceral Games).
Before joining Goodbye Kansas Studios, Gianni supervised multiple Emmy winning series’ within the Star Wars franchise including ”Star Wars : The Bad Batch” and S7 of “The Clone Wars”.
Gianni can often be seen toting his Fuji cameras for “Photo Fridays.” He also claims to know a thing or two about the culinary arts and mixology.

Jonathan Skifs
Animator

Jonathan is always up for a challenge. At high school he once signed up for performing on stage in front of the entire school, without even having tried to play the instrument he was supposed to master. Of course it all went well. And when he decided he wanted to work with Visual Effects, he was just as stubborn to make it happen. He started with homemade practical and makeup effects. But with a shoestring budget he soon turned to CG, especially Blender software that helps create and build anything without budget limitations. Then, Jonathan went on to Nackademin and realized that he wanted to focus on animation. Consequently, his next step was the U.S. online school Animation Mentor. And not before long Jonathan was a member of our core animation team.

Souvik Mitra
Lead Layout Artist

Souvik studied VFX at MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics) in Kolkata, India, and has over 10 years of experience from working with VFX. He’s worked in many different disciplines in the VFX industry, like Roto, Prep MM, Layout and Lighting. When he worked as Head of camera tracking at Dneg/Prime Focus in Mumbai he supervised 150 employees in him team. Souvik has worked as Layout Sup/ MM HOD on a bunch of Marvel & DC comic movies, including ”Avenger Age of Ultron”, ”Antman”, “Antman and the Wasp”, ”Captain America: Civil War”, ”Justice Leauge” and ”Batman vs Superman”. Other movies in his impressing resume include ”First Man”, ”Dunkirk”, “Star Trek Beyond”, ”Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, “Transformer: Dark of the Moon”, the upcoming James Bond film ”No time to Die” and no less than three “Fast & Furious” flicks. He joined the Goodbye Kansas family in 2020.
Working with visuals, it’s no surprise that his hobbies also evolve around images. He enjoys painting, Macro, and Wildlife Photography. And he loves hiking, especially traveling in remote areas to get a rare photographs of the landscape or wild animals.

Rob Andrews
VFX Supervisor

Rob is an industry veteran with 24 years of experience with the last 15 in VFX working in a range of companies of different sizes, capabilities and facing different situations in each of them. His background is in 3D, but he has always had a wider range of interests covering production, pipeline and IT - as they are all part of creating VFX. He’s been a member of VES (Visual Effects Society) since 2012 and is currently on the London board as well as Siggraph since 1998.
Rob loves his work and is proud to admit that "even after 24 years I still get nerdy and excited about VFX”.

Mathew Curran
Facial Animator

Mathew was born in Middlesbrough (UK) but grew up in the Irish countryside of Cork before returning to Middlesbrough to study Computer Games Animation at Teesside University. Even before graduating in 2016 he started working as a facial animator at Cubic Motion in Manchester and stayed there for 2.5 years working on many big projects – of which “God of War” is the one he’s most proud of.
But after 2.5 years at Cubic Motion and over 6 years in the UK, he was ready for a change of scenery and new challenges. For some reason, he had always had an attraction to the idea of working in Sweden, so when the phone call came with the opportunity to work at Goodbye Kansas, he decided to go for it and made the move in December 2018 - just in time for the Swedish winter!
Apart from animation, Mathew is crazy about Formula 1 and try to watch at least one race live every year. But he’s also into other kinds of horse powers: he did horse riding for 10 years, competed in show jumping and has owned over 20 horses through the years!

Joel Lindman
VFX Supervisor

Joel studied for civil engineer in Materials Science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in the 90s, when he accidentally caught a classmate using 3D Studio Max in the computer class. Joel was instantly hooked.
In the late 90s he started freelancing in the VFX industry - mainly with lighting - and in 2004 he joined Swiss VFX where he eventually went on to supervise commercials and music videos - and fulfilled his childhood dream of being on-set with Jean Claude Van Damme. Joel then went on to ILP as VFX Supervisor, for both commercials and award winning TV series.
Joel is very passionate about his work. He loves to dig into the nuts and bolts of things, working hands on with programming, lighting or technical animation. On his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family, go biking or fishing. He’s also into weight lifting, nursing a dream of one day being able to call himself the strongest man in the Northern Europe VFX Industry.

Filip Orrby
FX Artist, Head of FX

Filip’s first claim to fame came about in 2002, when he and a friend designed aim_map, one of the biggest and most well known “Counter Strike” custom maps. Filip went on to study Computer Science at Gävle University. After graduation he worked at several VFX studios, including A Film, Swiss and Filmic Art – as well as Fido, now part of Goodbye Kansas, where he worked on the UK indie hit “Attack the Block”. At Ghost in Denmark he worked on “Cowboys and Aliens” and at Dneg in the UK he worked on “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. As a member of the Goodbye Kansas core team, he puts his talent to work in projects like the Chinese blockbuster “League of Gods”, the NBC TV series “Midnight Texas” and the successful TV series "Outlander". In January 2018 he was nominated for a VES Award for his work on "Outlander".

Josefine Klintberg
Software Engineer, R&D

Josefine grew up in Eksjö, Sweden, and started her studies at KTH (Engineering Physics) in Stockholm where she received a BSc. Soon she realized she wanted to work with programming and computer graphics and that she could use coding as a way to combine this passion with her interest for movies and moviemaking. So she switched to LiU (Media Technology and Engineering) in Norrköping where she received another BSc and a MSc. In 2020 she did her internship at King and in spring 2021 she performed her MSc thesis at Goodbye Kansas Studios.
Josefine is a former elite athlete within orienteering, has been a member of the Swedish junior national team and have 10+ medals from the Swedish Championships. She’s still very active within her club and compete in orienteering as well as other sport events. Other interests include video games, photography, drawing, knitting, sewing and other creative activities. And movies, of course. Preferably from Marvel or Disney.

Pontus Garmvild
VFX Supervisor

Pontus started doodling Marvel characters as a kid, while dreaming of becoming a comic book artist. Later he tried to “grow up” and got a formal education in economy and law before he discovered 3D Graphics and realized that he rather wanted to work with something fun and creative. That’s ten years ago, and since then he has worked for us as 3D Artist, VFX Supervisor and Producer on large and small projects for commercials, games and films. And he has never looked back once. As Production Director at Goodbye Kansas Studios in Stockholm, he has a lot on his table. But when he’s not at work he juggles his kids, tries to find time to drink a nice Malbec with his wife and discuss the latest episode of “American Gods”.

Daniel Norlund
Senior Compositor, VFX Supervisor, Head of Compositing

It all started with Peter Jackson’s “Bad Taste” behind-the-scenes film. Daniel watched it on VHS and got hooked on film making and visual effects. After studies at GScept in Skellefteå he joined our team as compositor in 2005. Daniel’s technical and creative skills has been put to great use in numerous projects through the years, both with our teams in Stockholm and in Vancouver – working at Image Engine (“Elysium”) and ILM (“Captain America: Civil War”, “Valerian” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”).
Daniel loves photography and cameras. And during the winter season he spends lots of time in the ski slopes, preferably off-piste.

Hedda Peterson
Mid Level Facial Modeler

Before Hedda got hooked on digital arts she was more into the traditional kind, creating oil paintings and also working on her very own comic about female pirates. After 3D graphics studies at Futuregames she devoted her life to digital art, starting with an internship at ILP and working with lookdev for Disney’s “Aladdin”.
In 2019 she joined the Goodbye Kansas family as Junior Facial Modeler.
When she isn’t working she loves to travel the world, preferably visiting techno festivals.

Junyi Wu
Junior 3D Artist

Junyi is originally from China and got a bachelor’s degree in film production in 2018. After exploring the film world, she decided to go further into visual effects, because she loves the feeling that she can create virtually anything in the world of VFX. She went on to study at the National Film and Television School where she completed a master’s degree in digital effects and graduated in 2021. Now she’s starting her new journey in the industry as a Junior 3D Artist at Goodbye Kansas Studios in London. She loves to work as part of the team and enjoys all aspects of visual effects. In her free time, she loves watching the Chinese reality boy group survival show "Idol Producer.

Anna Thenberg
Global Central Production Manager

Anna started her journey in the VFX business in 2011, with studies at Campus i12 as her starting point. With 3D as her main focus, she went on to work in Denmark where she worked as an artist, but as time went, segued into production. Working for Duckling A/S and WilFilm ApS during her time in Denmark, LEGO was the client that developed her knowledge in commercial, short-format and long-format workflows.  Later on she moved to Germany to work as Jr VFX Coordinator, on projects such as “Thor: Ragnarok”, “Captain Marvel” and “Lost In Space”.
In 2018 she joined Goodbye Kansas Studios in Stockholm as a VFX Coordinator and has since worked on plenty of projects, including the multi-awarded “Overkill’s The Walking Dead” character trailers.
When she’s not at work she enjoys doing yoga, struggling with learning how to draw and cuddling with her cat whenever time is given. She claims to be a “terrible cook”, but so far no one has run away whenever she does offer to cook, so she's probably not too bad. 

Frans Åkerman
3D Artist

Frans studied at Digital Graphics at Nackademin in Stockholm before starting to freelance as 3D artist. Not before long he joined the Goodbye Kansas family and since then he has worked on projects of all sizes. He especially enjoyed working on the big AAA trailers for “Overkill’s The Walking Dead” and the gruesome grinder sequence in episode 810 of “The Walking Dead”.
When he’s not working he likes to spend time with his family, paint and spend time in the garden at his summer house. And take care of his vintage motorbike.

Axel Flovin
Lookdev & Lighting Artist

Axel has studied film production at Dalarna Högskola and Digital Visualisation at Campus i12 in Eksjö. He has always loved film making and freestyle skiing, and ironically it was an accident in the ski slope that lead him to pursue a career within visual effects. One day a ski somersault went all wrong, resulting in a fractured backbone and a very long recovery process. Axel spent most of that time in front of his computer, learning everything about 3D and Visual Effects. After graduating from Campus i12 he worked at ILP before joining the Goodbye Kansas team in Stockholm in 2018.
Today he is fully recovered from his accident. His back is all good again, and his talent for creating great visual effects is better than ever.

Ludvig Eliasson
Lead Character FX TD

Ludvig started out as a computer engineering student, but soon realized he wanted to work with digital arts instead. He studied at GScept in Skellefteå and did his second year internship at MPC where he helped with sail and clothes simulations for certain Caribbean pirates. This convinced him that a career in VFX was a perfect fit for him. After graduating he joined Fido – now a part of Goodbye Kansas – and since then he has been responsible for simulating mostly clothes and hair for countless game cinematics, as well as plenty of projects.
Ludvig loves spectacle movies and blockbusters, but his true passion is video games and game culture. He’s been watching E3 live events every year since he was a kid and loves to now finally be smack in the middle of the wonderful game cinematics industry.

James Sutton
Head of 3D

Trips to the London Design museum as a nipper and spending hours there making flip book animations undoubtedly sowed an early seed. A graduate from Bournemouth university with a BA in computer visualisation and animation led to his first gig at Framestore. During 4 years spent at Framestore as a CG Generalist his most memorable titles include "Avatar", "Where the Wild Things Are" and “The holy grail”, a Christmas Coca Cola ad. He joined Bluebolt VFX to work on a then 'unknown' TV series where a year later he would be nominated for a VES Award owing to his work on the baby dragons "Game of Thrones" season one. 
Joining Goodbye Kansas in January 2017 his eye detail and creative intuition has made him a core member of the London team. We're delighted he's earned his first CG Supervisor credit with us for his work on "Robin Hood". Spends his spare time mostly wearing neoprene or lycra!! 

André Sartori Valck
Modeling and Lookdev artist

André started his career in VFX with studies at Campusi12 in Eksjö, Sweden. Back then he had barely any knowledge of 3D but he quickly got hooked and VFX became a true passion of his. He made his internship at Goodbye Kansas Studios and felt immediately right at home, so he joined the company directly after doing his exams.
Of the Goodbye Kansas projects he’s worked on so far, “Cyberpunk 2077”, “Suicide Squad” and “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla” are his favorites.
When he isn’t working you’ll usually find him watching movies, but he’s also a keen traveler. André loves to travel to all corners of the world and has already been on all continents – including Antarctica.

Sakarias Johansson
Senior Software Engineer

Sakarias grew up in the deep dark forests of Småland and started programming during his early teenage years, making mods for games and did his first freelance gigs. He studied computer science at Blekinge institute of technology in 2009 and worked at Troax as a software engineer during 2012.
In 2014 he joined the Frostbite team in Stockholm as software engineer and after six years at Frostbite he joined Pipeline team at Goodbye Kansas, also as software engineer.
His favorite movie is “Aliens” and over the years he’s been credited in over 20 different triple A game titles. On his freetime he enjoys cooking, fishing and playing games.

Andrew Van der Walt
Head of Layout

Andrew studied at The Animation School in Cape Town and graduated in 2009. He immediately started working at Sunrise Studios where he helped to create fun little shorts for children called Jungle Beat as well as animations for commercials. During his time at Sunrise he also worked and lived in China for 6 months supervising some short films. After Sunrise he moved to Scotland and joined Axis Studios as Layout Supervisor/Lead, working on feature films and TV series for Channel 4 and Netflix as well as some award winning Game Trailers and Game Cinematics for Destiny, Halo, Gears Of War 5, Diablo Resurrected, Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Magic the Gathering - just to name a few.
Andrew loves problem solving and is a true team player who feels it's vital to always inspire others to bring out their passion and creativity in a harmonious way.
He loves playing board- and card games, but also physical activities like tennis, cycling, swimming and going hiking with his family. And in his spare time, he’s developing a few short films in Unreal Engine and is also creating his very own RPG Game.

Joakim Eriksson
CG Supervisor

A decade ago Joakim came to stay after doing his internship with us in Stockholm as an 3D artist. Through the years he worked on numerous shows, including “Attack The Block”, “Kung Fury”, “League of Gods” and plenty of commercials on which he also took the role as an On-Set Supervisor. In 2016 he spent 1,5 years in Vancouver, working at Digital Domain on films like “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Avengers: Infinity War” helping them with Creating Characters which was one of his dreams since his grandfather introduced him to comics. When he returned to us he spent a year as Head of VFX at Goodbye Kansas UK, being busy with large projects like “Outlander”, and in 2020 he returned to Stockholm.
Joakim’s interest in creating beautiful images and workflow upgrades can be described in one word – passion – and when he’s not working, Joakim loves to spend time in the great outdoors just as much as staying inside trapped in his arty bubble.

Erik Johansson
Pipeline TD, Head of Pipeline / Development

Erik has been the beating heart of our technical pipeline ever since he joined our team in 2012. With a degree in “Master of Science in Media Technology and Engineering” from the University of Linköping, he has an amazing ability to improve and evolve the pipeline, constantly pushing the borders to make us even more efficient and reliable.
He is probably Sweden’s biggest fan of the US sketch comedy series “Whitest Kids U’ Know”, having watched all five seasons three times.

Zane Cihanovska
VFX Coordinator

Zane grew up in Riga, Latvia and moved with her family to London at age of 15. First she dreamt of becoming a journalist, but her love for film and moving images led to studies in Creative Media Production at Harrow College (finishing with an all-star diploma) followed by a degree in Film Production at the University of West London. Her first film production experience was as Assistant Producer on the production of the indie film ”Cain”, after which she was offered to work as Producer on another project: the slasher horror film “The Bear”. The film won the Best Film nomination in the 2020 Lonely Wolf: London International Film Festival and Best Horror of the year in 2021.
After university Zane worked on a travel show with AIAraby TV Network before discovering her passion for VFX at Striking Back Pictures. She joined Goodbye Kansas Studios in London as VFX Coordinator in 2021.
Zane loves the fast pace of the VFX world and the challenges of VFX coordination. She looks forward to growing with this dynamic industry and work on big production sets before she retires.

Daniel Evans
VFX Producer

Daniel began his VFX career in 2008 during the Iraqi-UK independent co-production of "Son of Babylon" where he gathered a team of talented artists in Leeds to complete work on the 2010 BIFA winning feature film. Daniel continued his journey into independent feature film visual effects producing work for the 2012 "Dead End" starring Jamie Foreman and 2012 "Piggy". After working in Leeds in visual effects for 4 years, Daniel followed his passion for visual effects to London where he joined Framestore working as Line Producer on Warner Bros "Geostorm", Marvel's "Dr Strange" and "Avengers: Infinity War". In 2017 Daniel joined DNEG as a VFX Production Manager working on "Red Sparrow", "Mission Impossible Fallout" and "Fast and Furious - Hobbs and Shaw". Daniel joined the Goodbye Kansas family in the summer of 2019 as VFX Producer

Jan Cafourek
Executive Producer

Jan grew up in the USA and Sweden, being exposed to the best of both cultures. After graduating from a Swedish high school he lived in France under the pretext of studying French, dabbled in archeology in Israel, travelled around and worked as a runner. This led to him attending a series of art schools across the globe and finally graduating from ArtCenter in Pasadena. Since then he’s worked in many capacities with design, motion graphics, animation, visual effects, directing, supervising and most recently as a producer at ILPVFX, before joining the Goodbye Kansas family in 2018.
He loves playing board games, video games, golf, running, reading, watching movies, making music, travelling and being with his family.

Irena Šmitáková
Lead Environment Artist

Born and bred in the Czech Republic, Irena studied Visual Effects and Motion Graphics at the University of South Wales in Cardiff and in 2015 she embraced the world of VFX. She’s worked at MPC, Framestore, Milk VFX and Scanline VFX on many great projects and is especially proud of having worked on ‘The Lion King’, ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Star Wars: Andor’.
In 2018 she started her own project ‘Alpha Brush’ where she mentored matte painting students and in 2019 she was one of 10 nominees for the Kitbash 3D contest, happily sharing her passion for the craft in interviews and podcasts.
When she isn’t working, she loves outdoors activities like hiking, BT biking and traveling in general. She’s also somewhat of a science nerd and has a keen interest for art, design, photography and cinematography.

Alex Balmer
Compositor

Alex started in commercials at Prime Focus in London back in 2013 after a random stint studying Criminology and Sociology at university. Wanting to move into film and television, Alex got the chance to work on two of her favourite shows - “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock” at Milk VFX for three years. In between the “Doctor Who” series she freelanced around London working on various projects including “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” and British indie “The Girl with all the Gifts”, before finding a home with the team at Goodbye Kansas in early 2017.
When she's not comping away at work or playing with the office French Bulldog Mylo, Alex likes cycling, drinking rosé at the pubs of Soho, exploring the world, “Coronation Street”, and experimenting with various concoctions (some nice, some disastrous, mainly too spicy for normal human consumption) in the kitchen.

Rasmus Haapaoja
R&D Software Engineer

Rasmus was born in a small town outside the Swedish version of Westeros: Västerås. He studied Media Technology and Engineering at Linköping University (Master of Science degree) and worked for 3.5 years at MPC in London, working on their inhouse fur and feather tools. He’s especially proud of his work with the live action remake of ”The Lion King” and ”The One and Only Ivan”, where he worked on the fur and feathers for many of the characters. A passionate team player, he loves to share his fur and feather expertise, and in 2019 he held a presentation at Siggraph about MPC's feather system. In 2020 he joined the Goodbye Kansas family.
Before his career in digital arts, Rasmus played ice hockey for 13 years and he still enjoys various sports when he’s not working, especially off-piste skiing.

Tomas Näslund
Senior Compositor

Tomas Näslund has been a member of our team for over 15 years, being heavily involved in VFX productions for feature films and TV-series. His life-long love for puppets led to a one-year session as VFX supervisor and puppeteer at the production of the Swedish feature film “Upp i det blå”. A gig for which he was nominated for a VFX Guldbagge at the Swedish Film Awards in 2017.
After returning to Goodbye Kansas he has worked on projects like “The Walking Dead”, "Carnival Row" and the Palme d’Or winner “The Square”, while continuing to develop his very own puppet projects.
Tomas is a keen RPG player and also creates amazing miniature landscapes where epic battles are fought during Goodbye Kansas Boardgame nights.

Mikael Widegren
Art Director

Mikael graduated from the gsCEPT school of Computer Graphics in Skellefteå in 2007 and has since worked on many international feature films, including “Pacific Rim” and "Cowboys and Aliens", as well numerous Scandinavian productions including the Academy Award nominated Danish feature "A Royal Affair". Additionally, he has contributed to the TV-series “Colony”, "The Killing", as well as worldwide advertising- and video game projects. He joined our core team in 2016, and has since worked as Art Director on the cinematic trailer for Starbreeze and Lion Game Lion’s “Raid: World War II”, as well as creating stunning Concept Art and Digital Matte paintings for numerous other projects.

Martin Johansson
Head of VFX

Martin has worked in the business for almost 20 years. After studying at Jönköping School of Engineering and Örebro University, Martin worked as Art Director, Programmer and Development Manager with various Swedish companies before moving on to VFX. He moved to London and started as Lighting TD at Smoke & Mirrors. He joined Double Negative in 2011, first as Lighting TD in London, then as Supervisor and CG Sequence Lead in Singapore and finally as CG Sequence Supervisor in Vancouver. In 2017 he joined Digital Domain in Vancouver. Here he worked as Co-Head of Lighting and as CG Supervisor on the two latest Avengers films. In 2019 he joined Goodbye Kansas Studios in Stockholm.
His favourite Project is "Avengers Endgame", where he had the unique opportunity to take his team's experience working on "Avengers Infinity" back to back and make the work even better. 
Back in the day Martin used to operate a tank and do competition shooting. These days he likes to spend time with his family or by a river fishing.

Staffan Linder
Lead Keyframe Animator

Staffan, horror connoisseur and film buff, entered the VFX business in the late 1990’s. Since 2002, he has been a cherished member of our core team. In 2005 he spent a full year in Wellington, working on Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”, which gave him the opportunity to animate the creatures he loves the most: dinosaurs and other gnarly beasts.
Staffan has worked as VFX Supervisor on feature films like the Swedish hit movie ”Känn ingen sorg” and BAFTA-nominated productions with Sir David Attenborough and his skills as animator has been been invaluable in productions like “Fear the Walking Dead”, “The Walking Dead” and "Carnival Row S2", just to name a few.
In 2016, Staffan received a Primetime Emmy nomination for “The Walking Dead”. In addition to his career in digital media, he is also known for his film and fantasy sculptures. Throughout the nineties he produced collectible sculptures of classic horror characters, both for his own company and other brands.

Kristian Zarins
VFX Supervisor

Kristian studied at Nackademin in Stockholm and joined the VFX company Milford after graduating in 2002. He continued to study design at night school at Berghs School of Communication and after five years he joined the company Thelma & Louise where he worked with Motion Graphics and 3D for channel IDs, commercials and vignettes.
But Kristian wanted to see the world and moved to Shanghai where he worked for two years before returning to Stockholm and a job at Bläck Studios – one of the studios that merged to become Goodbye Kansas.
His first project was the multi-awarded commercials project “Nike: your year, directed by Nike+”. He went on to work at “Kung Fury”, “League of Gods” and “Biomutant”, but his proudest moments (so far) was to be Light Lead on the “Overkill’s The Walking Dead” trailers “Grant” and “Heather”, as well as “Mutant Year Zero” and “Cyberpunk 2077”. He loves to use lighting to create a mood and style while bringing the characters and environments to life, and the success of these trailers is a true testament to his great skills as Lighting artist.
When he’s not working, he loves to spend time with his family. He’s also a great fan of trekking and spending time in the great outdoors. The favorite adventure so far was when he hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, with peaks 5400 meters above sea level - and thus higher up than the famous Mount Everest basecamp.

Fabian Zackrisson
LookDev Artist

Fabian grew up on the West coast of Sweden and fell in love with VFX at an early age, watching “Lord of the Rings”, “Harry Potter” and “Transformers” films on repeat. He studied games and visual effects at Luleå Technical University in Skellefteå and made his internship at Goodbye Kansas Studios. It was a perfect match, and immediately after graduation he joined Goodbye Kansas in Stockholm to work with environments and asset build.
His first big project was the award-winning cinematic trailer for Ubisoft’s “Skull & Bones”, where he was part of a small pirate ship crew that built all the different kinds of ships you see in the trailer. Since then, he has worked on many projects, but “Skull & Bones” still holds a special place in his heart, for obvious reasons.
Even though he gets to work on a wide variety of fun 3D projects at work, he likes to continue playing around with 3D after office hours, on his own projects where he can focus on learning new things and being creative. Other hobbies include playing video games, snowboarding, cooking and watching fantasy/scifi adventure movies. He never gets tired watching his favorite films!

Linus Fredriksson
Software Engineer

Linus started studying Computer Science in Gävle, and then moved on to Linköping University where he graduated from the Advanced Computer Graphics Master´s Programme. His focus was on graphics and programming for games and VFX. After school he worked on plugins for Unreal Engine 4 at a company called MuchDifferent. In 2016 he joined the Pixel Grinder wizards of Uppsala – now a vital part of Goodbye Kansas.

David Grice
Motion Capture Lead & Stage Manager

Working in the games industry was, for many years, but a dream for Yorkshire lad David and felt beyond his reach. In 2010, this changed, when he obtained a first class honours in Graphic Design: Animation which encompassed various styles of art & design, including: stop-motion, motion-graphics and 2D & 3D animation. That same year, his final major project was nominated for Best Animation Debut at the International Animation Film Festival (IAFF) in Sofia, Bulgaria. The nomination helped him obtain an internship as a Face Animator at Imagination Studios in Uppsala, the MoCap studio that later would merge into Goodbye Kansas Studios. Motion Capture opened David's mind to new creative aspirations, and he’s been with us ever since working on projects like: Mad Max, Battlefield 3 & 1, Wolfenstein, Blood and Truth, and many, many more.

Magdalena Berglind
Head of Talent

Magdalena – or “Mabe” as we call her – is Polish by blood but Australian at heart. She describes herself as a bird of passage, having lived in Sydney, Warsaw, Berlin, London, Palma, and now Stockholm.
She has a background in creative arts having graduated from the National Insititute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) and Sydney College of the Arts and started her career working with sets and costumes for theatre and film. But it wasn't long before she was smitten by the world of VFX, landing a job at Framestore London back in 2007. After an adventurous 4-year stint working in Production across various projects for commercials, music videos, film and digital she moved to Stockholm to work at at ILPVFX. Her responsibilities over the years there included producing, planning, managing, recruiting and crewing. She joined Goodbye Kansas in 2018.
A big enthusiast of contemporary dance, theatre, circus, and indie films. If she's not sitting in a dark auditorium you'll find her at a yoga studio, running, cycling or dancing otherwise wrangling her two energetic boys.

Johan Vikström
Lead Lighter

Johan has been drawing and painting ever since he was a small kid up in Luleå in Northern Sweden. In the late 90s he ventured into 3D Graphics, studied at Gcept in Skellefteå and joined the VFX studio Swiss in 2004 as 3D Generalist focusing on commercials. He stayed with Swiss for the next 17 years, except for a stint in London with MPC as compositing artist on the last Harry Potter film. He joined Goodbye Kansas in 2021.
On his freetime he loves to indulge in gaming, car racing, free climbing or weight lifting. His latest passion is Digital Humans, reading and learning everything about how to create them.

Dean Estcourt
IT & Systems Manager

After more than 10 years in various IT roles with one of the worlds largest and most delicious food companies, Dean decided to move to the UK to work in the VFX industry. Dean started his VFX industry experience at MPC alongside some of the industry's best, where he worked in their core infrastructure team. During his time at MPC, Dean helped support both the Film and Advertising teams through projects such as "The Jungle Book" and "The Lion King".

Martin Widö
Senior FX Artist

At first, 3D was just a hobby for Martin. But soon he realized he wanted to make a career out of his hobby and after studying Digital Graphics at Nackademin in Stockholm he joined Milford in 2008, working as coordinator, project manager and 3D Artist. In 2017 he joined Goodbye Kansas where he was immediately thrown into projects like the South Korean hit film “Along With The Gods – The Two Worlds” and TV-series like “The Walking Dead” and “Outlander”.
Martin loves the family like feeling at Goodbye Kansas and the wide range of projects we work on. One of his favorite projects these last years was the explosive final season of “See”, filled with great FX.

Magnus Eriksson
Senior Character Artist

Magnus has been a trusted member of our family for over ten years. Magnus grew up on a farm outside Uppsala and has a keen eye for all kinds of creatures and critters, making him the ideal artist to supervise and execute the creation of any CG animal imaginable. Most of the animals in our digital zoo has been created – or at least touched by – his artistic hand.

Karl Rydhe
Compositing TD

Karl studied Compositing in Eksjö and after graduation he worked at Redloop in Malmö, focusing on Motion Graphics and compositing. In 2010 he worked with us for the first time, with the German family adventure ”Yoko”. He continued to work as a freelancer for several studios in Sweden before going to Australia and Rising Sun Pictures in 2015. There, he worked on projects like “Tarzan”, “Pan” and “Gods of Egypt”.
Karl is a great compositor, but also a quite good guitar player. Whenever he needs to relax, Karl sneaks away with his guitar; an analog safe haven in a digital world.

Jörgen Lilja
Executive Producer

Jörgen started out in the entertainment business over 15 years ago, working with live shoots, commercials and music videos. As Producer at Visual Art he supervised numerous projects of all sizes, constantly building his network of creatives and agencies, getting more and more hooked by the wonders of the digital world. In 2014 he and his team formed Bläck Studios – today a vital part of the Goodbye Kansas operations. Over the years, Jörgen has helmed plenty of large projects, including commercial projects like the multi-awarded web campaign “Nike – Your Year. Directed by Nike+” - in close collaboration with AKQA - and many AAA game trailers and cinematics, including all of the multi awarded character trailers for "Overkill's The Walking Dead" and the hugely successful "Cyberpunk 2077" trailers.

Andrea Sorset
Global Head of Operations

Andrea started out as Production- and Project Manager in the Events industry. In 2007 she dived into the VFX industry, first as Production Coordinator on the animated feature film “The Tale of Desperaux” at Framestore in London and then as Assistant Production Manager on “Gnomeo & Julie” at Starz Animation in Toronto. In 2010 she joined ILM/Lucas Film in Singapore to work on projects like ”Strange Magc”, “Lone Survivor" and “Transformers 4”.
Shanghai became her new base in 2014, working as Production Supervisor on “Kung Fu Panda 3” at Oriental DreamWorks and in 2016 she moved to Vancouver to work as Line Producer at Double Negative on “Fast & The Furious”. She soon stepped up as Department Production Manager and in 2018 she moved back to Sweden to join Important Looking Pirates. A few months later she joined the Goodbye Kansas family.

Katie Brown
VFX Producer

Katie studied History and American Studies at Nottingham University and spent one year as student in Ontario, Canada. She still wasn't 100% sure what she wanted to do after university and initially she worked at the Campaign for Real Ale and got to learn lots about ale and work at loads of beer festivals throughout the country.
But soon she got interested in working in TV and Film, and after a stint as Runner at an editing house she became Receptionist and Front of House Manager there. They had a small VFX studio and it sparked her interest in VFX and she decided to pursue a career in VFX Production. She worked for over a year at MPC as Production Coordinator on "The Lion King" and "Ad Astra" and joined Goodbye Kansas in 2019.
Katie is passionate about dance and has done ballet classes since she was 4 and tries to keep it up still and attend contemporary, commercial or ballet classes as often as she can. She also loves baking, going to the cinema and walking in the countryside with a pub at the end.

Tim Hermes
Technical Artist, Real-Time

Tim started his first company in 1999 and has since then dedicated most of his work to creative media in fields such as games, film, TV, advertisements, web, illustration, motion graphics and branding. He claims to have at long last found the perfect formula to his corporate wellbeing by working in real-time with games and film. Besides tweaking shaders, creating tools and blowing things up in real-time, Tim loves to hang out with friends. Preferably in company of a board game from his ever growing collection - which according to reliable eye witnesses threatens to take over his apartment any day now.

Elsa Stjernström
Resource Manager

Elsa has always loved films and movie storytelling, and after university studies and a degree in Film history she started working at production companies, with productions of all sizes – from web series to feature films. After a years she had advanced from PA to producer, at a VFX oriented production company, working mostly with advertisement projects. After a short stint as talent agent she joined Goodbye Kansas in 2020.
Elsa still loves film, but her guilty pleasure is reality series, and she takes great pride in keeping up with the latest gossip about the celebs and Hollywood. She loves to travel and is especially fond of road trips.

Paula Pope
Global Head of Production

Paula began her career over twenty years ago at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios, working on the set of “Lost In Space” where she spent time on the main, model and motion control units. Afterwards, she moved into VFX with the Magic Camera Company and Mill Film working on projects such as “The Avengers”, “The World is not Enough”, “Pitch Black”, “Enigma”, “Lara Croft Tomb Raider” and “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”. Five years later, Paula joined Cinesite to manage a large support department and decided production was definitely the way to go. Shortly after, she moved to The Jim Henson Creature Shop to work as a Line Producer on two animatronic and CG feature films. In 2006, Paula joined The Senate where she spent the next 12 years as part of the senior management team producing many projects ranging from TV series such as “Rome II”, “Troy Fall of a City” and “Black Mirror”, to larger features like “Kick Ass”, “Angels and Demons”, “Total Recall”, “The Martian” and “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”. After leaving there, she joined Escape Studios to develop a producing course, before moving to Goodbye Kansas where she is enjoying being part of the team in London. 

Dan Englesson
Pipeline TD

Dan got hooked on VFX as a teenager, creating his own 3D characters in his coastal hometown Öregrund in Sweden. One of his pics won a prize for ”Best Idea” at Blender World Cup 2010 and from that moment on he knew what he wanted to work with.
He studied Master of Science in Media Technology and Engineering in Norrköping and loved how he could combine his creativity with his passion for the technical aspect of the craft. Dan has worked at MPC in London as software Engineer developing tools for the films "World War Z" and "The Jungle Book". Dan also worked at Pixar helping them develop and optimize their pipeline and renders for films like “The Good Dinosaur”, “Finding Dory” and “Coco” . In 2018 he decided it was time to come home, and so he joined The Goodbye Kansas team in Stockholm.
Dan is not only a technical wizard, but also one of the fastest talents at Goodbye Kansas. As a teen he was a very successful athlete and in 2010 he was ranked the 20th fastest runner 200m in Sweden.

Olov Samuelsson
Lead Compositor

Olov grew up on a farm in rural Sweden, but wanted to experience more of the world and moved to California to study Animation and Visual Effects. After graduating with a degree in Animation at De Anza College in Cupertino, and a degree in VFX at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, he ended up working for Rhythm & Hues in LA until it was time to return to Europe.
He spent 6 years at Double Negative in London, where he worked on shows such as ”Scott Pilgrim”, ”Harry Potter 7”, ”The Dark Knight Rises”, ”Fast and Furious 6” and many more. After deciding it was time for something new, he moved to Vancouver where he worked for companies such as Sony, MPC and ILM on shows such as ”Suicide Squad”, ”The Mummy”, ”Star Wars: Solo”, and ”Bumblebee”.
After a total of 17 years living abroad, he felt it was time to return home to Sweden, and after a short stint at ILP he ended up here at Goodbye Kansas Studios.
In his free time, he tries to juggle between numerous hobbies, such as photography, retro gaming, cars/motorbikes and playing/watching ice hockey.

Friedl Jooste
Head of Animation

Friedl finished his studies at the aptly named 'The Animation School’ in Cape Town back in 2004 and after working for a few years in the local media industry he moved between Canada and South Africa, working on various VFX projects, fully CG animated films and short films. He became Animation Supervisor and later Head of Animation at Axis Studios in Scotland, overseeing multiple game cinematics and other shows including episodes from three seasons of ‘Love, Death & Robots’ and joined Goodbye Kansas Studios as Head of Animation in 2022.
Friedl feels fortunate to work in the VFX & Animation industry and comments “The thing I'm most proud of in my career is that I have been privileged enough to work with, and learn from, people from all over the world who had worked at so many of the companies whose work inspired me to pursue an animation career.”
We’re pretty sure his former colleagues feel the same about him, knowing what a passionate and inspiring team leader he is.

Markus Manninen
Managing Director

Markus Manninen has been in the VFX business since the 1990s, working in Sweden, Europe, Asia and North America . He holds a Master of Science from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where he also was engaged in building a Media Laboratory. Later he joined the Swedish animation studio Filmtecknarna and built a computer graphics team, before joining Framestore in London where he ran the 3D Commercials team.
For many tears, Markus worked at DreamWorks in Los Angeles, where he built a successful production process. He was instrumental in growing Oriental Dreamworks with offices in Shanghai and Los Angeles and in 2016 - as Partner and Creative Director - he built the international production company HB Wink Animation for Huayi Brothers with offices in Shanghai and Los Angeles. Markus has worked on numerous productions over the years, including films like the Academy Award nominated "Kung Fu Panda" (2008) and "The Croods” (2013).
In 2021 he moved back to Stockholm, joining Goodbye Kansas Studios as Managing Director.

Jamie Buckingham
Junior Compositor

Jamie studied Visual Effects and Motion Graphics at the University of South Wales after which he joined the industry working with Goodbye Kansas London as a VFX runner. Jamie has a true passion for film and always finds it inspiring to see new ways to tell your story. Additionally a games lover, he enjoys to play but also discover new ideas and how they can be applied to film. The retro fighting game SSB Melee is what he currently enjoys playing the most. Now working as a junior within the compositing team he looks forward to facing and overcoming new challenges on the exciting projects coming up.

Jonas Törnqvist
Head of Facial Modeling

Jonas started his career in the late 90s at the game studio Korkeken/Oblivion. He has since worked as Character Artist on numerous game projects for Lionhead Studios, Avalanche Studios, MachineGames and DICE. The Film Industry has also seen a lot of Jonas. He’s been at Weta Digital, Framestore and Blur, working on productions like Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit”, Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus”, Spielberg/Jackson’s “Tintin” and “The Avengers”. In 2014 he co-founded Pixel Grinder, and is now a member of our core team.

Alexander Darell
Producer

Being an avid film buff, captivated by monster movies, Alexander decided to study film in high school. He later left Borås for Eksjö, where he studied Compositing. He was assigned as a Coordinator in his final school project, and that’s when he knew were he was heading. He joined Goodbye Kansas in early 2018 as an intern and swiftly grew out of his Coordinator shoes into a Line Producer position. He continues to build on his experience in the world of VFX and has his heart set on the next Monster flick that comes his way.

Guillermo Algora
Compositor

After graduating from Audiovisual Communication in 2015, Guillermo continued his studies in Compositing at Escape Studios in London. He began working with us on the film "Suburbicon", soon after the opening of the Goodbye Kansas studio in London. Some of his credits with the company include "Victoria", "Outlander", "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan", "A Discovery of Witches" and "Robin Hood (2018)". He is passionate about film, and has a multidisciplinary background that includes video, motion graphics and photography (of the latest, what he enjoys most is shooting on analog).

Emnet Mulugeta
Director

Eritrean-born Emnet has been a part of the design and VFX community in Sweden since the early 2000s. After a short stint in Australia, he returned to Stockholm to focus on animation, compositing and on-air design. He quickly rose to the role of Creative Director leading design work on TV-rebrands and promos across Europe, gaining numerous Swedish and international awards. This success lead to recognition and work in the US, where he wrote and directed live action commercials and promos for FX, Showtime, HBO, TNT to name a few. As a jack of all trades he writes, directs, designs, animates and edits on most of his projects. Having returned to Stockholm after living in LA for the past seven years, Emnet joined the team at Goodbye Kansas as a Director. 
He’s passionate about cinematic storytelling and handles epic visuals and intense action with the same ease as complex emotions of performance. Apart from being a film buff and a multi-linguist, Emnet is passionate about capoeira, sci-fi and has an encyclopedic knowledge of 80s and 90s hiphop. 

Henrik Eklundh
VFX Supervisor

Being a passionate and competitive gamer, Henrik knew early on that he wanted to work with CGI and VFX. Seeing those old cinematics for classics like “Final Fantasy” sparked an interest in creating CG artwork and movies with AAA quality, and now he has been working with digital wonders since 2006. With a keen eye for technical perfection and visual flair, he started working with lookdev and lighting and not before long he stepped up as VFX Supervisor, first at Visual Art, then at Bläck and now at Goodbye Kansas - helming the team efforts involved in all our successful cinematic productions including “Assassin's Creed Valhalla”, “Redfall”, "Cyberpunk 2077" and the award-winning character trailers for “Overkill’s The Walking Dead”. Henrik loves to lead his teams to success and is a firm believer that passion and joy must be involved in any successful creative project.

David Enbom
Department Manager

David has always been into creating digital wonders, ever since he was a toddler and spent way too much time in front of TV games. Soon he started to create his own visual wonders, learning to code, experimenting with photography and photoshop and designing and building webpages. After Digital Graphics studies at Nackademin he went on to work on animated feature films, commercials and big scale façade projection projects – including projections for Karlsruhe Schloss, The City Museum of Stockholm and Gothenburg Museum of Art. He worked five years as teacher at Campus i12 in Eksjö and joined the Goodbye Kansas family in 2016, first as artist but soon stepping up as producer, helming large projects for Candy Crush giant King.com and The Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm.
In his free time David loves to build his own computers or enjoy the great outdoors of Northern Sweden. He also claims he can sing with his mouth shut, always a popular party trick!