Gene Rizzardi Founder of Modelwerkes
	"Hollywood Models: Blowing Things Up"

Emmy Award-winning maverick Gene Rizzardi heads his own Hollywood special effects company, Modelwerkes and is considered a leader in the visual effects industry. Rizzardi serves on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is a founding member of the Visual Effects Society and member of the Association of Professional Model Makers where he is a mentor. He was worked extensively in film on such projects as "Gozilla," "Apollo 13," "Mission Impossible," "Toys," "Bram Stoker's Dracula," "Honey, I Blew Up the Kids," "The Grinch," "Terminator," "The Blob," "Highlander," "Rambo", "Stand by Me" and James Cameron's blockbuster "Titanic." His television credits include "Star Trek Voyager," "Star Trek the Next Generation," "Nightwatch," "seaQuest" and "Fraiser." Rizzardi is an expert craftsman and model maker (running his own production shop on location) as well as a licensed pyrotechnician working with carbon dioxide, nitrogen, steam rigging and operation, Robo Foggers, artificial snow and rain, bullet hits, breakaways and remote blasts. He believes the most believable model effects are achieved with straight model shots combined with digital atmospherics. A miniature specialist, Gene is best known for his painstakingly crafted model cityscapes of New York, Paris, etc. The irony is the creator of these vast models is also their destructor as Rizzardi is called upon to blow them up for the camera. Music in this podcast, "Hooray for Hollywood", by Johnny Mercer, performed by Sylvia Sims is used by kind permission of DRG Records.