FOUNDING
team

MEGHA DAVALATH

CEO

Megha Davalath has dedicated her career to bringing beautiful images to the silver screen with her technical and creative vision. At Spire, Megha was a key liaison ensuring smooth communication and collaboration. Leading the India production link, she trained the Spire India team, evaluated a Mumbai production house, and made crucial technology decisions with industry-leading vendors. Pioneering innovative character workflows as a CG Supervisor, Megha explored real-time approaches to enhance production processes.

With a decade at DreamWorks Animation, Megha led the acclaimed 2020 Academy Scientific and Technical Award nomination for the "Wig" hair motion system. She streamlined character hairstyling on projects like "Trolls" and its holiday specials. Her credits include "Kung Fu Panda 3" and "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World." As part of the Character Technology team, Megha played a key role in helping design elements for the new proprietary rigging software and a cloud-based pipeline.

In 2023, Megha founded South Asians in Visual Arts (SAVA) to elevate South Asian narratives. Since 2004, she's been an advocate to empowering women in technology and has had a presence at SIGGRAPH since 2009, organizing the "State of Hair in the Industry" Birds of a Feather for the past 5 years.

Megha grew up in San Antonio, Texas and graduated with a BS Computer Science at UT Austin and an MS in Visualization at Texas A&M University.

NIKKI TOMAINO

CCO

With nearly two decades of experience in computer graphics and filmmaking, Nikki’s journey began at Blue Sky Studios, where she specialized in procedural surfacing and advanced shading models. Collaborating closely with the R&D team, she contributed to enhancing the proprietary renderer, CGI Studio++.

Nikki’s extensive experience provided her with a profound understanding of the essential principles necessary for achieving a stylized rendering approach. This knowledge became invaluable as she transitioned to working with the Unreal Engine, a transformative move in her career.

Equipped with both knowledge and a passion for teaching filmmaking in Unreal Engine, she joined the education team at Epic Games. There, she mentored and guided filmmakers, harnessing real-time technology to fulfill diverse creative needs. During her teaching experience, she not only explored the engine's limits but also developed innovative approaches to work around and transcend those limitations through rapid iteration processes.

We're at an incredible nexus of change in how we are making and experiencing entertainment. We now have tools that liberate our creative process from pixel-by-pixel processing constraints, enabling us to witness our visions spring to life with remarkable speed. Come pave roads with us as we unveil the infinite possibilities of real-time technology in shaping the future of visual storytelling.

DAVID SMITH

COO

David is an established executive VFX supervisor in feature animation and live-action with a history of guiding innovation beyond traditional pipelines, workflows, and borders. Most recently, David was building the production arm of an independent feature animation company - Spire Animation Studios. With a next-generation approach, David was guiding the team pioneering hybrid real time production workflows for linear content with potential for extended story-living experiences in immersive media environments.

Before joining Spire, David Smith was a VFX Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, supervising Glen Keane’s Academy Award Nominated “Over The Moon” for Netflix as well as the animated features “The Emoji Movie” for Sony Pictures Animation and “Storks” for Warner Animation Group.

Smith also served as digital effects supervisor on “The Amazing Spider-man” and “The Amazing Spider-man 2,” directed by Marc Webb. Smith has worked on multiple Visual Effects Academy Award®-nominated features including: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, “Hollow Man”, “Stuart Little”, and “Starship Troopers”, among others.

Smith earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Television and Film from San Diego State University. He began his entertainment career as a runner at Boss Film Studios in 1991.

David has been a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Art and Sciences since 2013.