Crafty Apes - El Segundo, California January 2022 - Present

Global Head of CG - Los Angeles/Atlanta/New York,/Baton Rouge/Albuquerque/Vancouver/Montreal/London

   I oversee all 3D artists, supervisors, and related department heads while providing general management, project bidding, facilitating and coordinating communication, and administering technical oversight of the CG department across eight global locations of the studio. I am also responsible for cross-departmental research and development, including implementation of innovative processes and procedures, deployment and procurement of related hardware and software systems, expansion of technical capabilities and workflows, and the overall company 3D strategy and execution.   

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FuseFX - Sherman Oaks, California August 2018 - July 2022

Global Head of CG - Los Angeles/Vancouver/New York/Atlanta (2020 - 2022); Head of CG - Los Angeles (2018 - 2020); CG Supervisor (2018)

   I oversaw the daily operations and strategic vision of the 3D computer graphics pre- and post-production for all four North American FuseFX studio locations (Los Angeles, Vancouver BC, New York, and Atlanta) while also providing integration and shared pipeline implementation coordination for our international subsidiaries (FolksFX in Montreal Quebec, Toronto Ontario, Saguenay Quebec, and Bogota Colombia, along with Rising Sun Pictures in Adelaide and Brisbane Australia). My responsibilities spanned managerial, technical, artistic, and organizational planning and execution, including hiring and recruitment, internal training and development, company-wide verbal and written communication, disciplinary action, strategic vision and partnerships, vendor and client outreach, and research and development. During my tenure, I helped pioneer new motion capture-driven crowd system technology, architected and oversaw the development of a cutting-edge application agnostic database-driven pipeline, refactored the computer graphics division into a fully departmentalized specialist driven environment, and championed a team oriented multi-disciplinary workforce built around a foundation of diversity and inclusion. I transitioned the company into new software including Maya, Clarisse, Redshift, and other specialized toolsets, and was responsible for researching, recommending, and approving capital expenditures for new hardware and software, along with drawing on my considerable experience to help guide the future needs and strategic direction of the department and company as we grew and partnered with others through mergers and acquisitions. I helped manage the use of the AWS EC2 for cloud rendering on multiple shows and provided solutions for improving workflows and turnaround time to meet constantly growing demands. During my time here, I was nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy Award for my artistic and supervisory contributions to Deadwood - The Movie, and I was instrumental in the overall success of FuseFX's global industry leading role in episodic and streaming visual effects content creation.

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Brickyard VFX - Santa Monica, California September 2007 - July 2018
Head of CG / Visual Effects Supervisor / Creative Director (2009 - 2018); CG Supervisor (2007 - 2009)

   I was responsible for heading up and supervising the studio's bi-coastal computer graphics division, as well as providing on-set visual effects supervision for numerous commercial projects, overseeing the entire process through completion of delivered materials. I oversaw a team of 3D and 2D artists and designers and was involved with staffing and managing these departments. I was responsible for bidding work with clients as well as developing and designing concepts and treatments for myself to direct, as well as for outside directors and agency creatives. I was also in charge of the technical development for the CG department, which encompassed the facility pipeline (a large part of which I designed and implemented) as well as project-specific research and development for the various technical challenges posed by the multitude of productions.

   During my tenure, I completed over two hundred and fifty different projects in this role for clients large and small with a significant number of well-established advertising agencies, including Goody Silverstein and Partners, BBDO, Chiat Day, Mullen, Arnold, Hill Holiday, 72 & Sunny, Leo Burnett, Saachi & Saachi, Wieden+Kennedy, Deutsch, Young and Rubicam, and many others.

Sony Pictures Imageworks - Culver City, California April 2005 - September 2007
Character Pipeline Lead (Beowulf – 2007); Layout Technical Director (Open Season - 2006)
   As the character pipeline lead on Beowulf, my primary function was to supervise the design, development, and implementation of a completely new front-end pipeline, for which I was responsible for up to seventeen software developers and technical directors on my team. Part of the challenge involved implementing and maintaining a new system for a show which was larger in scope of work and physical size of data than had ever been done at this studio up until that time, all while training the artists on its usage while completing an entirely CG motion picture production. Of the over seventy toolsets which we created, the core items included a fully featured Maya-based file-referencing management system, a database shot lineup tracking/editing framework, a scene build and data update system, a robust C++ library-based animation/data block I/O transfer toolset and file format, a new render management system, a Maya/Mental Ray based z-depth rendering/automated compositing system, two multi-tier data publishing systems, and a new streaming vertex offset geometry data cache deformer and I/O system.

    As a layout TD on Open Season, my primary function was to develop toolsets for the layout department, including various MEL-based utilities, Perl scripts, and C-Shell scripts.
 

Digital Domain - Venice, California November 2002 - April 2005
Lead Character & Pipeline Technical Director / Interim Animation Supervisor (Stealth – 2005); Character Technical Director (The Day After Tomorrow – 2004, Looney Tunes: Back In Action – 2003, Nike Speed Chain – 2003, Jaguar XJ8 Pool – 2003, American Express Blue [Lottery, Molting, Lava] - 2003)
    As lead character and pipeline technical director on Stealth, my primary function was to supervise the development and implementation of a unified system for the front end Maya pipeline, named CoPilot. This tool encompassed five core functions: 1. A relative-path enabled file referencing system with various levels of load, update, and swap control. 2. A model and rig version release system. 3. An animation rendering and data publishing mechanism. 4. A graphical rig-control animation interface. 5. An embedded suite of utilities, tools, and scripts for previz, modeling, rigging, integration, animation, color and lighting, and rendering. In addition to this main system, I was responsible for supervising the development of all the animation rigs, including airplanes, vehicles, human pilots, weapons, cameras, and props. In addition to leading three technical directors, a modeler, and a character setup artist in this process, I was also the interim animation supervisor for the beginning portion of the show. I was responsible for training eleven animators on the techniques to be used in the film as well as supervising seven while approving animation for production and director review.

   As a character TD on The Day After Tomorrow, I was responsible for co-developing the crowd system and creation kit for the character department of the project. This included setup work on a level-of-detail rig that could accept retargeted motion capture data as well as keyframed offset animation which was applied to various shapes and sizes of human character meshes. These meshes could be published from a character construction interface that allowed the animator to interactively adjust attributes to spawn different human characters with multiple outfits and colors. I developed advanced systems for populating scenes with upwards of 100,000 crowd characters in addition to dynamically assigning selective and random clips to characters based on particular events in the scene (such as impact/collision from walls of water and tornadoes). I worked on a system for generating and reading delayed-read rib archives along with intelligent material assignment to enable arbitrary output value rendering directly from an animation scene.

   On all other projects, I was responsible for rigging, software tool development, animation, dynamics and particle effects, lighting, and rendering for other film and commercial projects.

The Art Institute Of California, Los Angeles - Santa Monica, California July 2002 - July 2005
Instructor
    I taught two upper division courses:
  Advanced Rigging and Animation - This course was broken down into two major components. The first portion was devoted to teaching the major set of tools that Maya has for deforming, constructing, and animating models in order to replicate a wide range of motions and behaviors. The second portion of the class was devoted to the animation process, including timing, framing, story development, color and lighting, and effective use of dialogue and sound.
  MEL Scripting - This course was tailored to provide Maya users with the knowledge and tools necessary to create MEL tools, ranging from simple shelf buttons and scripts to complicated, full-featured embedded programs complete with graphical user interfaces. Students learned basic programming architecture and workflow, but more importantly, spent a great deal of time actually producing scripts and shortcuts inside Maya for their own use.

Walt Disney Feature Animation/The Secret Lab - Burbank, California June 2000 - September 2002
Character Technical Director (Kangaroo Jack – 2003); Character Technical Director/Assistant Technical Director (Mickey's Philharmagic – 2003); Scene Setup Administrator (Treasure Planet – 2002, Home On The Range/Sweating Bullets – 2004, The Little Matchgirl - Fantasia Music Project, One By One - Fantasia Music Project, Wildlife – Unreleased, Dinosaur DVD - 2000)
    On Kangaroo Jack, I was part of the team responsible for the development of the fur, muscle, and skin systems for the kangaroo characters and cloth simulations for the jacket. I assisted in the clean-up animation of shots in the dream sequence and wrote tools to assist in shot cleanup and character finaling.

    On Mickey's Philharmagic, I was responsible for the development of various pipeline tools, including format conversion, rendering, automated scene setup, element release, rigging utilities, and file optimization. I also performed cleanup animation for layout and character finaling. I was promoted to a Character Technical Director from assistant level during this project.

   On all other projects, I was responsible for the setup of Maya scenes for animators, file conversion, utility development, allocation and management of disk space, troubleshooting of rigging and animation issues, and general artist support.

TriCoast Studios, Inc. - Playa Vista, California August 1999 - February 2000
Lead Animator/Compositor (UFC Fighting Championship – Video Series, Gravity Games – Video Series, Total Chaos – Television Series, The Story Of O:Untold Pleasures – 2002, The Mangler 2 – 2001, The Chunnel – Unreleased, Backyard Dogs – 2000, Dead Of Night/Lighthouse – 2000, Killing Mr. Griffin – 2000, Blue Ridge Fall – 1999)
   I was responsible for developing the concept, design, and execution of animated CG sequences and elements for feature film trailers, television broadcasts, video sales reels, and other related projects.

 

Triangle Advertising – Woodland Hills, California March 1999 – August 1999

Graphic Designer

    I was responsible for creating specialized layouts incorporating artwork and typography within Illustrator, Photoshop,

and QuarkXPress for coupon book mailers with distribution of over 200,000 copies.

 

Alfred Publishing – Van Nuys, California June 1998 – March 1999

Graphic Designer

     I was responsible for photo retouching, creation of graphical elements, and page layout for various music training

publications utilizing Illustrator, Photoshop, and QuarkXPress. I also assisted with typesetting duties and general design and copy-

proofing work including pre-flight checking.

 

Image In Motion – Van Nuys, California July 1995 – June 1998

Owner; 3D & Motion Graphics Artist

   I owned and operated a small visual effects post production company, where our primary work involved music video titling and graphics, trailer editing, compositing, and television/commercial graphics.