Marc Miance

Marc Miance was born in Meulan, in the suburbs of Paris. He developed an interest in computer-generated imagery (CGI) and video games at an early age. He studied at the ESRA school of cinema where he specialized in computer graphics, but dropped out after 2 years. He started to develop new techniques to create black and white CGI movies (Project BW).^[1][2]

In 2000, Miance co-founded Attitude Studio, a production company specialized in film animations. Attitude Studio created Eve Solal, an entirely computer-generated realistic character who was intended to star in films, TV shows, and video-games.^[3] Attitude Studio innovated by developing an "emotion mapper" for the Eve Solal character, i.e. sets of body movements for each emotion triggered to make the animation less stiff, more human-like.^[4] He sold Eve Solal to the telecom company Orange for 1 billion francs the same year that it launched, in 2000.^[5] The following year, he showcased Eve Solal to ACM's Siggraph.^[3]

From 2003 to 2005, he worked on several video game animations including Eidos' Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and Atari's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.^[2] In 2004, inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City, he created the visual concept of the black-and-white sci-fi animation film Renaissance, directed by Christian Volckman, and was in charge of the animation.^[6][7] Still in 2005, he co-founded the production company Let'So Ya with Isabelle Miance (spouse) and Sandrine de Sacy.^[2] Attitude Studio, now equipped with a 3,500m² motion capture studio near Paris, led a 4-million euro round of investment in 2008,^[8] and closed its operations in April 2009.^[2]

In 2010, Miance became the executive producer of Animal Kingdom: Let's Go Ape released in 2015 and starring Jamel Debbouze, the first European picture to be entirely filmed using motion capture.^[9] In 2010, Miance also created the company Alkymia specialized in computer graphics and motion-animated technologies,^[2] a company which was instrumental to develop the technology for the movie Animal Kingdom: Let's Go Ape,^[10] including a 500-gram headset to capture the facial expressions of the actors.^[2][11]

In 2019, Miance and Indian producer Anish Mulani launched the mobile browser Popshot.^[12][1] In 2020, they focused the application on user privacy and renamed it Wave.^[13]