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American

Paul Allen Newell studied film at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (B.A., 1976) and UCLA (MFA, 1980), where he learned experimental video from Shirley Clarke and computer animation from John Whitney Sr. and made an early version of Symmetry Test 11A as his thesis film. He went on to program Atari 2600 and Vectrex games and Simutrek's arcade game Cube Quest (1983), then from 1985 wrote animation and visual-effects software at Abel Image Research, Rhythm & Hues (Babe, 1995), Walt Disney Feature Animation, and DreamWorks Animation, and served on the SIGGRAPH 1986 Art Show committee.

Full Bio

Paul Allen Newell earned a B.A. in Art and Communication Arts, concentrating in film and video, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976. That following autumn he entered the graduate film program at UCLA, where he studied experimental video with Shirley Clarke and computer animation with John Whitney Sr.. He received his MFA in 1980 and his thesis film was an early version of Symmetry Test 11A.

In June 1981 Newell began programming video games, writing Towering Inferno and co-authoring Entombed for the Atari 2600 and Scramble for the Vectrex, and being was an original employee of Simutrek, whose arcade game Cube Quest (1983) combined laser-disc backgrounds with real-time 3D line graphics. He also worked with Dona Bailey of Centipede fame on an unpublished project for Activision in 1984.

From 1985 he worked in computer graphics and visual effects at Abel Image Research, Electric Image (London), Rhythm & Hues (animation software screen credit for Babe (1995)), Walt Disney Feature Animation, and DreamWorks Animation, writing layout, animation, and stereoscopic software. He served on the SIGGRAPH 1986 Art Show committee, for which he compiled a retrospective 6 hour video program for 1961-1986.