Leading hyperreal AI company Metaphysic announced the appointment of VFX expert Jo Plaete as the company’s first product innovation director. Plaete arrives from CGI innovators and George Lucas-founded and Walt Disney Company-owned entertainment firm, Industrial Light & Magic, where he led the first of its ABBA: Voyage FX concert experience. In this role, Plaete will lead Metaphysic’s innovation and production team to pioneer the creation of the hyperreal metaverse.
Plaete brings nearly two decades of experience in VFX, innovation, and post-production in the entertainment industry to Metaphysic. Following his hire, Plaete played a critical role in Metaphysic’s recent history-making run on America’s Got Talent. Over the course of three performances, Plaete worked alongside co-founder Chris Ume and the team to debut hyperreal avatars of the show’s celebrity judges, host, and the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, to sing and dance on the stage. The company earned fourth place in a highly-competitive season, demonstrating the power of hyperreal AI to shape the future of entertainment, Hollywood, and web3.
“Since Metaphysic launched in 2021, we have grown rapidly and introduced new technology that will set the tone for the future of entertainment and immersive content. As we continue our mission to positively shape the future of hyperreal media technologies, we are thrilled to be joined by Jo Plaete. Jo brings considerable experience in this space and will be a tremendous asset to the Metaphysic team,” said Metaphysic co-founder and CEO Thomas Graham.
“I am delighted to be joining a company as innovative, enterprising, and forward-thinking as Metaphysic. Telling stories through the introduction of high-quality CGI and visual effects is a passion of mine and something that no one is doing as well as Metaphysic. This is an exciting time in developing this innovative software, and I am proud to be working with this exceptional team,” said Metaphysic product innovation director Jo Plaete.
In his new role as product innovation director, Plaete will direct the development team, creating software to produce hyperreal AI and continuously improving Metaphysic’s models to produce hyperreal avatars. Before joining Metaphysic, Plaete supervised artist and technology teams to develop high-volume facial likenesses for projects including ABBA: Voyage; Disney’s Guy Ritchie-directed Aladdin; Ready Player One; Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi; The Legend of Tarzan; Guardians of the Galaxy; and World War Z.
Metaphysic was founded in 2021 by Thomas Graham, Chris Ume, Kevin Ume, and Martin Adams and is on a mission to build the future of the hyperreal metaverse. By building AI content generation tools and infrastructure that lets users own and control their biometric data, Metaphysic is building towards an ethical web3 economy where every internet user can access the limitless potential of the hyperreal metaverse.
