About
I’m a visual effects artist and teacher.
I hate writing this sort of thing. A ‘bio’, I mean, I feel like anything I write here will be scraped by bots and used to steal my credit card information. But it would be good to write something so people can get a feel for who I am and what I’m all about.
I guess my work life has been defined by a love of experimentation and sharing. When I first started working in VFX, I was horrible. I remember that I couldn’t even remember if a white alpha channel meant that it would be transparent or opaque. What saved me was teaching.
Through a series of fluke events, I found myself as a teacher (and eventually the coordinator) of a visual effects program at a local college. The thought of that at the time was ridiculous. I really didn’t deserve that position, I had worked in the industry for less than a year, and as I said, I didn’t know what I was doing.
But things changed. I read a lot. I did a ton of experimentation. Eventually I got better. It turned out that learning more about VFX made me a better teacher, and being a better teacher helped me to make better effects. Now I can’t imagine what my life would have been without teaching. What my students don’t know is that I’m sure that I have gotten more out of the experience teaching them than what they got from me.
If you have time, please check out their work, I’ve been making reels of their work since 2008. I’m so proud of what they’ve accomplished.
Other things you might want to know… I’ve been working in VFX since 2001, I started teaching in 2002. I’ve mostly worked at smaller studios, mostly as a comp artist. Later on I had to learn more 3D, getting deeper into Houdini. I can hack around most parts of the VFX pipeline, but I’ve always found modelling hard and I flunked out of animation in college.
I like sharing tips and techniques I’ve picked up. I’d rather work with great people than cool projects.
I used to be more involved with the larger community, making websites like TorontoVFXJobs, trying to organize Nuke and Houdini user groups, running training sessions for out of work artists, serving on the local board of the VES. But honestly, it was exhausting. The pandemic hit and it was nice to just step back a bit.
OK, this is getting to be way too long. If you’re interested in talking, please reach out. Otherwise take a look around the site and have a great day.