It's been over seven years since I started working at Industrial Light + Magic as a Technical Director. How about that?! :)
Years ago I came back to IL+M to work on "The Perfect Storm", a huge water movie. This year, so far, I've worked on "Poseidon" and some Kraken shots in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"... It seems I've come full circle with water...
The last of the new trilogy I have completed. "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" I have done. Sequences I worked on included interior space battle shots, a crashing Federation spaceship, General Grevious wielding his lightsabres, and Obiwan riding a lizard while being chased by General Grevious on his mono-bike.
After Episode 3, I worked on "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". For "Sharkboy", I worked on a few "eels in the water tank" shots and "Lavagirl used as a sled" shots. For "Narnia", I did a few shots leading up to the meeting of Aslan and some shots in the big battle.
2004 was a busy year! I finished work on "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", then "Van Helsing", "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", and the director's cut of "THX 1138" before embarking on the "company project" (can you guess? ;)
Was the world ready for another "Peter Pan"? Perhaps not, but the movie is beautiful to look at and was fun to work on. I worked on some Tinkerbell shots... lots and lots of pixie dust!
July 2, 2003 - the day the machines rose again or rather "Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines" was released with our new Califronia governor, Arnold Schwartzenegger. Who knew I was working in politics? ;) I worked on a few Terminatrix shots where she was shot at and tossed around, did a few liquid metal shots (that's where she melted) and did a few morphs.
Previous to T3, was "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". I worked on the Quidditch match, mainly setting up the playing field and working on some shots.
Earlier in the same year, I was working on "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones". Perhaps you've succumb to the hype and seen it? I worked on the Obiwan/Jango fight and the Yoda/Dooku fight. Hope you liked the work of our team. It was a good project and why I came to IL+M in the first place.
Just previous, I worked on "Jurassic Park 3". I was lucky enough to get to play an important role in getting the project done. I did the development of the CG canyon in the Aviary Sequence; y'know, the part where the pteranodon picks up the kid? Anyway, it was a great project since we had an awesome crew!
The first project upon my return was working on "The Perfect Storm". The work involved adding the storm outside the windows of the Andrea Gail, working with a CG helicopter and finally doing a 180 degree shot of the stormy ocean, which involved tons and tons of particles, 27 GB's worth! I'm proud to have been part of this project, which allowed me to work with a super talented team of technicians and artists!
Just before coming back to IL+M, I was employed as a Technical Director at Xaos Inc. in San Francisco, CA for four months. I was using 3D Studio Max R3 running on Intergraph workstations for a ride film project currently shown in Germany at a venue called Autostadt. I also worked on a Sci-Fi channel blip, which is a 3 second station i.d.
My first time at Industrial Light + Magic in San Rafael, CA was as a Technical Director for the feature "The Mummy". Sadly, the summer was slow, so I was laid off. :( However, I completed nine shots with the featured villain, The Mummy, himself. If you go see the film, look for me! Not only did I work on the effects, I'm in it! ( I'm the guy who pets the dog in the great courtyard in the opening scene right after the Universal logo. I'm in other places too, but hard to spot! )
Right before IL+M, I did a brief five week stint as a Technical Director at Cinesite in Hollywood, California. With such a short stay, all I did was train on software and write a few scripts.
I began my 3D career at VisionArt Design and Animation in Santa Monica, California, back in 1993. There, I had worked on features such as "Dr. DoLittle", "Godzilla", "That Old Feeling", "Jingle All the Way", "Independence Day", and "Executive Decision" and TV shows such as "Legend", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager". Unfortunately, the time demands for a small company quickly consumed my life, so I left after five years of service.
My specialty is visual effects, but I'm versed in other areas of computing and graphic design. I write software ( render queues, image processing routines, animation utilities, etc. ) and create 3D computer graphics with Houdini, Maya, etc. previously on Silicon Graphics workstations and now on GNU/Linux boxen.
Well, enough about me... If you're hip to finite element analysis or the band The Sundays, visit the homepage of my brother San and see what he is up to. He's got some lovely free finite element analysis software he's developed for your consumption.
My present disk allocation is dedicated to my favorite band 
( updated frequently! ).
Get your own Free Home Page