Looking back, this year was a step forward for me professionally, due to gaining more experience training and leading teams both on an Episodic project as well as a Feature Film, at two different companies. These experiences allowed me to learn a deeper understanding of how to work with artists and animators, who each have their own hidden ways of working and responding to direction and motivation. No matter the project, or what moment in the production, teams are always ready (in their unique way) to do their best work, and I believe it is the job of the lead or supervisor to not only answer questions when they are asked, but to also look for ways to inspire and educate on a daily basis.

2019 also featured some large movie releases on which I worked, including the finale of the Avengers saga with Endgame. While on the project, I contributed to previs on the Captain America v. Thanos fight, the third act battle by the Avengers compound, and other sections of the film. Our team at The Third Floor was full of immensely talented and motivated individuals, who were also able to fit in lots of activities that promoted fun and relaxation. It was a masterclass on how to work hard and play hard, and in many ways I consider it the gold standard of a high-functioning team, and the film would later go on to enormous box office success and an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

After Third Floor, I joined VFX company Pixomondo in West LA, where I worked as an animator, previs lead, and layout supervisor for "The Orville" TV show, as well as a previs artist on the "Star Trek: Discovery" show. Working on "The Orville" was my first time on a television series, and the unique pace of production and artistic freedom we had to make an imprint on the show was refreshing. After training many of the previs team members in the idiosyncrasies of spaceflight animation, when the show transitioned from preproduction to post, I was able to continue on as layout supervisor, training the previs members in the finals pipeline and adapting our previs scenes into finals-ready Maya files and alembic exports. The quality standard for "The Orville" was a high, and our work at Pixomondo was nominated for Best Visual Effects in a Television Series.

Once done at Pixomondo, I did final animation for a project at a commercial house, and then moved on to join the team at the Moving Picture Company (MPC) in Culver City. I came to enjoy the people and office there, and worked on several projects as a previs and postvis artist. Another leadership opportunity surfaced for a postvis film project, but I will update more on that another time.

Full 2019 projects list:
Avengers: Endgame
"The Orville" (Season Two)
Noelle
Detective Pikachu
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
"Watchmen" (HBO)
"Star Trek: Discovery"
Best Buy Fall/Winter Ad Campaign

This was a project I animated on back at Pixomondo. As a fan of Alan Moore's graphic novel, I have high hopes that the show will deliver as a follow-up.

With my time on "The Orville" and "Star Trek: Discovery" now complete at Pixomondo, I am now taking time off to regroup and refocus on pursuing my next project. I thoroughly enjoyed  helping to shape those two sci-fi franchises, and I am grateful to have met so many wonderful and talented people there. Our visualization/layout department took this team picture on my last day:

 Although I have never written a yearly write-up post on this blog, 2018 was a banner year for me in terms of projects, so I thought I would take a moment to briefly mention them here:
​
May: Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Solo mashup poster
August: The Predator
October: Venom
December: Aquaman, Season Two of "The Orville" (I began work on this show starting with the fourth episode, which airs 1/17/19)

Avengers: Infinity War was a great way to reconnect with the franchise that kicked off my film career, and the team I joined was remarkably talented. It was a humbling reminder that if you don't feel at least a little self-doubt every day at your job, you might not be trying hard enough to do great things. The mix of hard work, fun, and fitness that the team achieved on the project was possibly its most impressive aspect, and the fact that it was incredibly successful at the box office was the icing on the cake. It and Deadpool 2 remain the gold standard for me in terms of the right balance to strike for overall team harmony. 

Deadpool 2 had a very similar team spirit to Avengers: Infinity War, but with a smaller, more intimate team. Our output was enormous by the end, and I attribute the calm and light-hearded mood of our workdays to the great job our previs/postvis supervisor did with setting a low-stress tone from day one. Seeing the footage come in for our postvis made us laugh every day, and it was the first time I've animated a body ripping apart in a slow-motion explosion, so there's that.

I completed my months-long pet project of a Big Trouble in Little Corellia mashup poster a few weeks after Solo: A Star Wars Story hit theaters, and the level of support it received was very nice to experience. Due to copyright law, I am not allowed to sell copies of it, but it will forever be on the internet for people to enjoy.

The Predator was a great experience with Shane Black and his team at the Fox Studios lot, but I switched off the project early on once production left the country, and many revisions were made after that, resulting in a finished product that I nearly didn't recognize. Despite this, there's still nothing like working on a film lot to me, and I regained a new respect for the original Predator as we watched, and rewatched the original to analyze what made it the classic it remains today.

Venom and Aquaman were brief stints for me, but I enjoyed animating these comic book characters. The level of commercial success each enjoyed in theaters was a big surprise to me, but it serves as even more evidence that passionate comic fans remain a box office force to be reckoned with.

Finally, "The Orville" had its season two premiere on December 30th, and as of this writing I am still working on layout for upcoming episodes. I am very excited to hear how next week's episode is received, because that was the one where my time on the series as Previsualization and Layout Lead began. The episode airs next Thursday, January 17th, at 9PM PST on Fox. It airs the same night as the Season Two premiere of "Star Trek: Discovery," which I also did previs on, but that write-up is yet to come...

Here's to making 2019 a year filled with valuable experiences, useful skills, exciting projects, and lots of joy.

Thanks for reading.