Gerard Mulvany is a 15 years old student in year 10 at Billanook College, Victoria Australia. He is currently completing accelerated studies to achieve certificate II in Multimedia. He is passionate about designing, movie making, and computers and already has an impressive list of film and ICT awards going back to primary school days. His achievements in the last two years for example include: Team member of the Victorian State Tournament of Minds Technology Secondary Team who received honours in the Australasian Pacific Final in 2011. Finalist in 2011 Trop Jr film festivalWinner of the 2011 Yarra Ranges Young Filmmaker Award Winner of the 2011 Victorian Model Solar Challenge Film competition. Winner of the Australian International Solar Challenge- Advanced Model Solar Boat Poster Competition in Hobart 2011 and Perth 20102nd place recipient in the Advanced Model Solar boat at the Australian International Solar Challenge in 2011.Recipient of the Billanook College Year 9 Engineering Award. Winner the 2010 International Youth Film Festival U.k .- Environment and Ecology section, 2nd Place in the 42 nd Melbourne International Movie festival - Animation section Highly Commended Award at the 2010 Shout Out for Climate Change 60 second film competition for secondary students.Finalist in the 2010 Chicago International Reel Short Film Festival - Student categoryWith a proven track record Gerard stands out as someone who is pushing the technical boundaries and is “one to watch”. He is the first student at Billanook to be timetabled for personalised online learning .for 3Danimation using Autodesk Maya.
Gerard was given access to a computer via timetabling and the school bought the Autodesk 2012 Animation Academy licence and the rest has been up to Gerard and his passion to master 3D animation. In less than a semester without adult assistance using only his intuition, and online tutorials and articles, Gerard has created and animated his own superhero named Vaktar.Given the recent mining accidents and natural disasters such as bushfires, flood and cyclones Gerard decided his character’s role would be to rescue others. Inspired by movies of the past such as Iron Man, Batman and even Thunderbirds, Gerard devised a suit which includes special inventions necessary in specific disaster situations. For example the forearms have snap out plates that form a shield in the event of falling rock. Gerard has begun animating his figure and this has led to a lot of problem solving. For example he found he needed more joints in his feet so that the foot appeared to move realistically. He has also started creating different scenarios for his character: his first being a mine shaft. Gerard has a list of scenes and inventions he wants to trial for his character before starting a short film. It seems that time is the only factor limiting Gerard from making his imagination into realty using Autodesk Maya. Attached are still images of Vaktar and a small running sequence of Vaktar through a mine shaft- an awesome effort for a 15 year old in less than a semester. Full permission to display the images is given.