Kris Rivel – Owner/Creative Director

Kris Rivel studied computer graphics and animation at Rutgers University in Camden New Jersey. During his time there, he focused on 3d animation and helped establish the university's computer animation curriculum and facility. Kris graduated from Rutgers University in 2000 with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art and an emphasis in 3d Computer Animation.

Kris was immediately hired for a job in New York City working for the animation studio Iomedia producing visualization media for the pharmaceutical and architectural industries. He worked there from 2000 to 2003 as a lead artist and during this time produced many award winning projects for Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb and many others.

Late in 2003, Kris joined the animation team at Quiet Man, in New York City. He soon moved up and became the studios CG Supervisor and Lead 3d Artist. There he expanded the animation department, rebuilt and modernized their 3d pipeline and led the talented team in numerous, award winning projects for clients like Pepsi, Adidas, GE, Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut, Disney and many more.

Kris not only supervised most of the projects during his time there; he was also heavily involved in many of the projects as a lead artist. Kris always wanted to be involved with the team at all times to be more in tune with the flow of the project and to better interpret the creative needs of the client to the team.

After leaving Quiet Man, Kris briefly moved around New York City as a freelance artist. He was a lead artist on many projects for places like Psyop, Mass Market and The Mill. Soon, however, he found that he was in demand by a handful of small agencies, production studios and edit houses that lacked 3d animation services.

So with that demand, Kris created Apparatus in 2008; a unique, cutting edge, 3d animation and interactive boutique. In its first year; Apparatus created several high-end corporate animation spots for Nokia and commercial spots for HBO, Estee Lauder, the New York Quit Smoking campaign and many others. Apparatus continues to grow and plans on opening a new facility in the very near future as well as expand its interactive services.