I lead teams of CG artists on high-profile, award-winning projects in entertainment. I bring the perspectives of my experience in diverse disciplines over my career (mocap direction, production design, onset video graphics, screenwriting, editorial) into every task I am given. In recent years I branched into VR/AR and virtual production, innovating techniques and solutions to address the evolving needs and exploding potential of these technologies . In the spring of 2020, I completed a 6-week intensive Unreal Engine training fellowship with Epic Games resulting in a short film I created entirely in UE4, viewable here: https://vimeo.com/500964774.
My early career in Los Angeles presented me with many challenging and highly creative opportunities on ultra-low budget feature films, from gun wrangling to production design to, yes, screenwriting. In 1990 I was privileged to join the IATSE Local 790, creating period movie posters on the film "Guilty by Suspicion." I worked in the 4-ward Productions model shop, then in the Apogee Productions art department until its demise in 1992. At Apogee, I learned the Video Toaster from Joe Conti, who soon after, hired me to head the Video Playback unit for seaQuest, DSV, designing and delivering computer display graphics for the futuristic sets. In the third season of seaQuest, I transitioned over to concept illustrator for the show. Some of my submarine designs can be viewed on my ArtStation page.
After seaQuest, I spent the next few years illustrating for films and TV--projects ("Dante's Peak," "George of the Jungle," "Sphere" and Hercules/Xena). In 1997 I worked a stint at Flat Earth Productions, shifting from storyboards to video graphics, and later towards straight digital effects. In 1998 Digital Domain hired me to head the Holographic Display CG team for "Supernova," and until November, 2018, I led teams at DD on mostly commercial and VR projects, but also a few features, such as "Tron: Legacy" and "Ender's Game."
In December, 2018 I left DD for CoSA VFX in North Hollywood, where I supervised CG on episodic television projects. From there, I went to Method Studios to do lighting and lookdev for a game cinematic and assorted NDA projects. Moving to Scanline VFX in 2021, I supervised CG on several sequences for the Netflix action feature, "The Gray Man," including a tentpole skydiving sequence featuring a disintegrating C-130 plane and a digital Ryan Gosling. In 2022, I went to FuseFX where I supervised several episodic shows, such as Special Ops: Lioness and the upcoming Netflix series, The Brothers Sun.
Specialties: Supervision; VR, Stereo and unorthodox formats; Lighting, Look Development and Modeling in Maya/VRay and Maya/Redshift; UE4 lighting and cinematic creation; Nuke compositing; complex problem solving.
I was fortunate to be one of 15 industry veterans selected to participate in an inaugural training/mentorship program in UE4 and virtual production called the Unreal Fellowship.
This six-week intensive blended learning experience is designed to help experienced industry professionals in film, animation, and VFX learn Unreal Engine, understand the state of the art in virtual production, and be able to build teams using leading technologies and techniques in the emerging field of real-time production.
Pillars of the Fellowship include Unreal Online Learning courses, live training, guest lectures, and mentorship that focuses on Unreal Engine fundamentals, model ingestion, animation and mocap integration, look dev, lighting setups, and cinematic storytelling.
With newly acquired knowledge and expertise, Fellowship members have created animated short films using Sequencer with assets and animation data from Epic and the Unreal Engine Marketplace.
lighting artist
Method Studios
October 2019 - April 2020
Santa Monica, California, US
Sequence lead, look development, lighting for 12 minutes of game cinematic material.
CG supervisor
CoSA VFX
December 2018 - October 2019
North Hollywood, CA
Bidding, staffing and supervising teams of 3D artists on episodic television projects. Crews were a mix of in-house and remote, with a small percentage of outsource contractors as well. I supervised every stage of 3D from asset creation, rigging, look development, match-move, layout, to animation and lighting, to delivery of lighting renders.
CG Supervisor
Digital Domain
September 2011 - December 2018
Bidding, staffing and supervising teams of 3D and occasionally 2D artists on dozens of VR, game cinematic and commercial projects for high-end clients such as Google, Nike, Adidas, P&G, EA, Ubisoft, Sprint and nearly every car manufacturer, US and international. Was actively involved in the adoption, testing and refinement of new tools and technologies with the goals of improving pipeline and artist efficiency, opening up project opportunities in burgeoning new fields, and all-in-all helping keep Digital Domain at the cutting edge of VFX and VR. In between projects I would do backfill look development, lighting and compositing work for commercial, feature film and episodic projects.
Lead Digital Artist
Digital Domain
May 1998 - September 2011
Leading teams of 3D artists on commercial projects and the occasional feature film small sequence. CG Supervisor on approx. 3/4 of projects.
cg generalist
Flat Earth Productions
January 1997 - August 1999
Burbank, CA
CG Direction, Graphic Displays, Compositing, Match-Moving, Lighting, Storyboarding. I created display graphics for the short-lived "Timecop" ABC series, and also did effects storyboards and some compositing work on the feature film, "Blade," and two Rennaissance shows, "Hercules" and "Xena."
Lead Digital Artist
Flat Earth Productions
March 1999 - August 1999
Director of CG on one 30-minunte episode of "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles," which included directing motion capture, animation asset creation and lighting.
Video Playback Supervisor
Amblin Imaging
January 1993 - December 1995
Los Angeles, CA
Video Playback Supervisor, Display Graphics, Lighting, Animation, Concept Illustration, Storyboarding
Concept Illustrator
The Walt Disney Company
1996 - November 1995
Prop and Set Concept Illustrations for the feature film, "George of the Jungle"
Conceptual Artist/Illustrator
Apogee
November 1990 - May 1992
Number 2 in a usually two-person art department. I drew concept art, storyboards and presentation materials for feature film effects, ride films and commercial projects.