What's it like to work with me?
As a supervisor, I favor somewhat of a consultative leadership style. This has some unique strengths:
- Good for creative teams that fundamentally rely on artistic collaboration
- Welcomes input from team members, learns their unique skills and makes better use of them
- Faster results than a fully-democratic approach
- Team members look for ways to help beyond just their "piece of the puzzle"
- Strives for a deeper team bond, forged from respect and making a connection (not always easy when remote!)
I am also:
- Organized. Knows the deadlines, assembles projects intuitively, onboards new hires quickly, runs a tight ship.
- Friendly! Inspires and trains animators and artists from junior level up to senior supervisor. Takes pride in leading confident, positive teams.
- A strong communicator. Interfaces well with clients and production heads. Comfortable giving presentations. Has answers on hand, gives timely progress updates, available for impromptu live reviews and strategy sessions.
- Aware from experience that diversity is a strength in the workplace.
Previs supervisor:
- Wednesday, Season 2
- Truth Traveler VR Ride
- Karma
- Adidas x Mahomes: Las Vegas Sphere
- Back in Action
- Nope (25 person crew)
- Dick's Sporting Goods: Night at the Fulfillment Center
- Expo 2020 Dubai UAE
- Target: Toycracker Holiday
- Honda: Power of Dreams
- Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers *Emmy win
As an artist:
- Foundation of character animation, with Unreal Engine and game development knowledge, but I especially enjoy cinematic storytelling and designing complex action sequences for the best emotional impact for your story.
- Trusted & experienced, with over 20 years of world-class production experience, producing content for nearly every visual format (film, episodic, AAA games, cinematics, advertising, VR, illustration, the Las Vegas Sphere, etc.).
- Deeply knowledgeable of filmmaking, narrative story, animation, and visual art principles. Complex visual problem-solver in 3D.
- Elicits feedback and knows there's always something new to learn, and that growing is part of the process.
As a remote Visualization Supervisor and Animator in Washington State, overseeing teams large and small, for a number of different formats that include film, advertising, virtual reality, episodic, and theme park rides. I have headed projects as the Visualization Supervisor on films such as Jordan Peele's Nope and Disney's Cruella and as Animation Lead where my team and I won an Emmy for Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers. In addition to my on-set experience, I have remotely supervised many pre and post-production projects, delivering the needed quality while meeting deadlines or delivering early.
My experience over a multitude of shows has given me the expertise to know what projects need at each phase of production, and how to provide the final VFX teams what they need to finish with the strongest visuals.
Prior to the film industry, I worked as an animator in the games industry for over seven years, shipping nine titles, many at AAA level. This included my time as Senior Animator at Rockstar Games - San Diego, where during that time our Red Dead Redemption team won the industry award for "Game of the Year."
Before my professional career, I honed my skills as a fine artist and later branched out to explore computer graphics and animation as my curiosity grew for other mediums. My artist's eye always guides my work, along with over twenty years of professional animation experience and deep passion for storytelling. Working as a Visualization Supervisor allows me to combine my expertise in these areas with a love for collaborative productions. I believe that great art is achieved through teamwork, and know how to leverage my knowledge to support the visions of others to build things that have never been seen before.
My experience over a multitude of shows has given me the expertise to know what projects need at each phase of production, and how to provide the final VFX teams what they need to finish with the strongest visuals.
Prior to the film industry, I worked as an animator in the games industry for over seven years, shipping nine titles, many at AAA level. This included my time as Senior Animator at Rockstar Games - San Diego, where during that time our Red Dead Redemption team won the industry award for "Game of the Year."
Before my professional career, I honed my skills as a fine artist and later branched out to explore computer graphics and animation as my curiosity grew for other mediums. My artist's eye always guides my work, along with over twenty years of professional animation experience and deep passion for storytelling. Working as a Visualization Supervisor allows me to combine my expertise in these areas with a love for collaborative productions. I believe that great art is achieved through teamwork, and know how to leverage my knowledge to support the visions of others to build things that have never been seen before.
The visualization process:
Whether I work with you directly or as part of a larger company, the visualization process is generally the same:
For previs, we:
The results:
For previs, we:
- Start with your script
- Make a list of clarifying questions
- Confirm the shot list
- Confirm the asset list
- Begin asset work, and provide images and screenshots as each asset is completed
- Provide visual development where needed
- Break the script into boards when necessary, then make simple previs timing passes of stepped animation, and build an edit that assembles these together (adding sound effects and dialogue cards where necessary)
- Prioritize the most complicated, 3D/VFX heavy shots to establish the style, animation, lighting, FX.
- Take the stepped pass shots into full animation as much as time allows
- Work down the priority list to complete the simpler "shoe leather" shots that tell smaller beats of the story
- Make recommendations to help tell your story in its clearest and most compelling way
- Finish the edit with every required previs shot
- Small budgets get simpler versions of shots, while larger budgets get the full treatment (color, many revisions, techvis once approved)
The results:
- Edits of 1 or more sequences that are "battle-tested" for maximum story impact, proper continuity, and dynamic cinematography, complete with individual shots whose timing you can adjust however you wish.
- Techvis that explains where the film crews place their equipment (no costly "figuring it out on the day").
For postvis, we:
- Ingest all production materials
- Determine your vendor specifications
- Determine priorities
- Start with your footage
- 3D Camera tracking
- Animate elements (characters, vehicles, FX, etc.) in the 3D scenes
- Light and render the elements
- Clean and paint plates, remove bluescreen or other stand-in components
- Composite the elements into the footage
- Track shots in ShotGrid or Ftrack, turn over shots in deliveries
- Make recommendations to help tell your story in its clearest and most compelling way
- For the edit, we'll typically use the one from your VFX editor, then add our shots on the postvis side, and deliver postvis edits, updating the edit whenever the VFX editor changes the timing
- Edits of 1 or more sequences with all VFX shots complete enough for any test audience to completely understand what is happening in the shot. This allows your team to know if timing needs to change, if the shot needs to be kept or cut, etc.
