WORK EXPERIENCE |
2002-present [2 yrs +] | PDI / Dreamworks Redwood City, CA | Character Technical Director | I have worked on Shrek2 and Madagascar, and am currently working on Shrek 3. | |
2001-2002 [freelance] | Sesame Workshop and SMA Realtime New York, NY | Consultant / Technical Director | Created and supervised performance animation characters on Sesame Street's "Elmo's World." Programmed custom plugins, capture UI, and take management system. | |
1995-2000 [~5.5 years] | Protozoa San Francisco, CA | Animator, Technical Director, Director |
Character set-up and technical direction ("wiring".) Skinning, morph targets, building skeletons, attaching articulators, writing expressions, connecting input devices, and creating high level controls. Developed creative ways to alter motion capture data for non-human characters. Devised new methods for puppeteering characters, and a face-tracking methodology.
Character puppeteering. Performed facial and body animation, and directed other puppeteers.
Programming. Wrote many plugins to Alive (C++), including dynamic simulation, body proportion remapping (making non-human skeletons from human data), simple IK, behavioral simulation, motion cycling, etc.
Animated shorts and web series. Created and directed numerous short animations and web series, often with Lev Yilmaz.
Modeling and Character Design. Extensive polygonal modeling. Deep familiarity with real time issues. Consulted with outside designers on what worked well in our system. Designed several characters.
Project management. Directed projects, character builds, and/or animation for CTW, MTV, BBC, SGI, UPN, CBS, Music Republic/Planet Hollywood, CGCG, Weathernews, and others.
Live shows. Ran many real-time co-productions (i.e., BBC, CBC) and trade show demos (i.e., NAB, IBC, Siggraph, and the 1996 Presidential Inauguration.)
Handled technology setup, and performed facial animation.
Presentations. Gave talks at Siggraph, CGIX, MIT Media Lab, and other venues on behalf of Protozoa. | |
1984-1994 [on+off] | Independent Work Boston, MA | Director, Puppeteer, Video Editor | Muppet-style puppet videos. Puppet making, writing, and video editing. Work shown on cable access and in museum shows.
Puppet building for stage plays. Sometimes to my own designs, and sometimes to spec.
Experimental. Performed experimental puppet acts myself and with friends in alternative performance spaces, coffeehouses, and galleries. | |
1994 [2 mos.] | Bread and Puppet Theater Glover, Vermont | Performer and Builder | Built, sewed, painted, and repaired papier-mache masks, puppets, dummies, costumes, and props. Figured out how to make a flying six-foot but three-pound businessman out of 50 cents worth of materials. Developed and performed new acts. | |
1990-1994 [~5 yrs.] | Brown and Harvard Universities Providence RI and Cambridge MA | Research Asst./Programmer | While finishing college, worked as a computer graphics programmer and research assistant on visual perception and motor control. This was in the Psychology and Cognitive Science departments. At Brown, used optical motion capture (BTS-Elite) to study peoples' postural reactions as they walked down virtual-reality funhouse hallways. I designed and programmed the virtual-reality scenes people walked through (C/OpenGL, on SGI.) My own research (continued as a graduate student at Harvard University and at Nissan-Cambridge Research Center) was on perception and driving, mainly in braking, and later and in attention. Wrote a series of driving simulation video games and data analysis programs for this. Also studied perspective, how we see shape from shading, and the perception of film editing.
Worked as a teaching assistant in perception classes.
Published a scientific paper based on my thesis. | |
ANIMATION AWARDS |
Aug. 1999 Bad Night | Prix Ars Electronica Honorable Mention in Computer Animation | Co-director, Animator, TD | |
Mar. 2000 Noggin ID | 3D Design "Big Kahuna Awards" Finalist, Corporate ID / Logo | Co-director, Animator, TD | |
Feb. 1998 We Should Go | World Anim. Celebration Best Performance Animation | Co-director, Animator, TD | |
Feb. 1998 Floops, Spider | World Anim. Celebration Best Animation for the Internet | Anim. Director, Animator, TD | |
Feb. 1997 Squeezils | World Anim. Celebration Best Animation for CD-ROM | Squeezil Animator | |
Jan. 1997 Floops, Spider | VRML Excellence Awards Best of Show; Best in Entertainment | Anim. Director, Animator, TD | |
Apr. 1995 Blue Man Group | Bit.Movie, Riccione, Italy Honorable Mention, CG animation | Animator, TD | |
EDUCATION |
May 1995 | M.A., Harvard University Major: Cognitive Psychology (Vision & Perception) Honors: National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship |
May 1991 | Sc.B., Brown University, Magna Cum Laude Major: Psychology (Perception & Action); Pre-Med Honors: Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Schlosberg Prize. |
1986-1990 [on+off] | Additional art study at Rhode Island School of Design, Boston Museum School, and other classes. |
SKILLS AND INTERESTS |
3D Animation | Character setup: skeletons, skinning, deformations.
Motion capture, joysticks, other motion input.
Scripting, programming, custom UI's, plugins.
Polygonal modeling and texturing.
Puppeteering and animation. |
Software | Maya, Alive*, AfterEffects, Nichimen/Mirai, Premiere, and Photoshop.
Also familiar with Softimage, and script-based image processing.
(*Alive is Protozoa's in house software.
It is comparable to Houdini and Kaydara,
in that it is procedurally oriented and expression intensive.)
|
Languages | MEL, C, C++, OpenGL, Inventor, C-shell, Unix, Expressions, Scheme, HTML, and French. |
Puppetry | Construction and performance, in materials ranging from latex, foam rubber and fake fur, to garbage bags and duct tape. |
Illustration | Drawing, cartooning, watercolor, pen and ink; published in Quimby, Synapse, and others. |
REFERENCES |
| Available on request |