Missing Link

I delivered hundreds assets and variants, including creatures, sets, and props, for Laika's Missing Link. Creatures included the Nessie, yetis, yaks, and birds. Sets included the Manchuria (freighter), SS Pulteney, stagecoach, and hansom cab. Props included the tables, chairs, shot glasses, liquor bottles, playing cards, cigars, ashtrays and coins of McVitie's Saloon.

Many CG assets had previously been built practically for the stop motion production. In such cases I labored to make my CG materials indistinguishable from their practical counterparts. I developed a pipeline for processing color-matched set lighting and reference photography to facilitate my work. When practical assets were unavailable I worked closely with the Art Director and Production Designer to translate their designs and drawings directly into 3D assets, which adhered to the design style of the show.

Recognition:

• Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film, February 2020.
  

• Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, January 2020.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature, January 2020.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award nominee for Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project. Todd Alan Harvey, Dan Casey, Katy Hughes for "The Manchuria”, January 2020.

Charlotte’s Web

I scene lit and rendered shots of Charlotte at Rising Sun Pictures in Adelaide, AU. The following is representative of my work.

Recognition:

• Visual Effects Society Award nomination for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture, 2007.
  

Superman Returns

I scene lit and rendered shots of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude at Rhythm & Hues Studios. The following sequence contains all my contributions, though not every shot in the sequence is mine.

Recognition:

• Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2006.
  

King Kong

Under the direction of Joe Letteri I co-developed the look of King Kong’s hair based on a implementation of Marschner 2003 (doi:10.1145/882262.882345) by Martin Hill. We parametrically adapted our hair shader to approximate the multiple scattering events of Ann Darrow’s blonde hair (see shot 195_132). I established King Kong’s appearance and stage lighting atop the Empire State Building, which was later used throughout the NYC sequence. Below are a number of shots of King Kong in New York City which I lit and rendered.

Recognition:

• Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2005.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture, 2005.
  

Spider-Man 2

I scene lit, rendered, and composited shots of Dr. Octavius “Doc Ock” at Sony Pictures Imageworks under the direct supervision of Peter Nofz. Additionally I honed my compositing skills on green screen extraction and integration with a shot of Mary Jane Watson. At the conclusion of Spider-Man 2, I delivered shots for a Cheez-It commercial featuring “Doc Ock".

Recognition:

• Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2004.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award nomination for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture, 2004.
  

Madagascar

I scene lit, rendered, and composited nighttime shots of Alex and Marty at the Central Park Zoo. These zoo shots were the first shots of the movie to be interpreted under the direction of the art department. At a later point animation was modified (e.g. more extreme squash and stretch added to Alex’s motion) and the shots re-rendered with what appears to be our established scene lighting. My shots as I completed them are not shown. The following clip from the published DVD includes some of my shots within the sequence and is indicative of my work. This work was performed at Dreamworks in Glendale, CA

Recognition:

• Annie Award nominee for Best Animated Feature, 2006.
  

Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King

Digital cinematography (except where specified). Shot lighting included experimentation to harness optimizations in subsurface light scattering and occlusion (subsurface scattering calculated using depth map shadows; screen space projected, hybrid ray-traced occlusion maps). Additional experiments in material appearance included parametric modification of Gollum’s skin surface shader to generate sweaty skin and wet lips. Hair simulations. Shot sculpting. All shots delivered using a relighting pipeline based on Pixar IRMA developed with support from Pixar during a break in production between TTT and ROTK. This work was performed at Weta Digital in Wellington, NZ, under the direction of Greg Butler, Joe Letteri and Jim Rygiel.

Recognition:

• Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2003.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture, 2003.
  

Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers

Digital cinematography. Shot lighting included experimentation to harness optimizations in subsurface light scattering and occlusion (subsurface scattering calculated using depth map shadows and screen space projected occlusion maps). Additional experiments in material appearance included parametric modification of Gollum’s skin surface shader to generate wet skin and lips. Hair simulations. Shot sculpting. This work was performed at Weta Digital in Wellington, NZ, under the direction of Eric Saindon, Joe Letteri and Jim Rygiel.

Recognition:

• Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2002.
  

• Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture, 2002.
  

• Cinefex cover illustration, Gollum in the Dead Marshes, December 2002.
  

Willard

Character look and hair development: Geometric hair on a single rat. Fake hair on multiple distant rats. Additional work on the lighting and rendering pipeline for the rats. This work was performed at Centropolis Effects (CFX) in Culver City, CA, under the direction of Paolo Moscatelli and Stuart Robertson.

Eight Legged Freaks

The first set of images represent the look of the spiders. My primary contribution to the look was the development of the hair groom and material appearance. I worked with a software engineer, Robert Minsk, to impletement a custom Maya to Renderman lighting and rendering pipeline for our show. The images are followed by a few of the shots I lit and rendered for the production. This work was performed at Centropolis Effects (CFX) in Culver City, CA, under the direction of Paolo Moscatelli, Thomas Dadras and Karen Goulekas.

The Patriot

Select shots of battlefields and town of Charleston from The Patriot. For this show I primarily choreographed, lit and rendered soldiers in the battlefield. This work was performed at Centropolis Effects (CFX) in Culver City, CA, under the direction of Paolo Moscatelli and Thomas Dadras.

Stuart Little

Shots of talking cats from Stuart Little. Not all shots delivered under my responsibility as Sequence Supervisor are shown. Listed are shots to which I made significant artistic contributions in the texturing, lighting and rendering the head replacements. This work was performed at Centropolis Effects (CFX) in Culver City, CA.

Recognition:

• Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, 2000.
  

Babe2:
Pig in the City

Selected shots of talking animals. I tetured, lit, rendered, and composited matchmoved head replacements. This work was performed at Rhythm & Hues in Los Angeles, CA, under the direction of Lighting Supervisor, Eileen Jensen.

Note: I seek a high quality digital copy of shot s57p02a (Babe climbing a stack of suitcases). It was my most challenging shot, beautifully executed, but cut from the film.

Goldies

The complete commercial spot transferred from 3/4” U-matic videotape. I lit and rendered the goldfish and composited it over live action backgrounds. I was responsible for delivering approximately 1/4 of the shots at Rhythm & Hues under the direction of Head TD, Robert Lurye.

Note: I am currently searching for a higher quality digital copy.

Eggs of Steel

I lit, rendered, and composited steel mill cut scenes for a Sony Playstation video game, Eggs of Steel, developed at Rhythm & Hues under the direction of Art Director, Dan Quarnstrom.

Included is a compilation reel transferred from 3/4” U-matic videotape of cut scenes I delivered for the game. Below that are selected scenes encoded from digital source frames.

Recognition:

• Annie Award nominee for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Interactive Production, 1998.
  

Race for Atlantis

The theme park ride, Race for Atlantis, was developed for Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV.

I worked on the final and 6th scene of Race for Atlantis at Rhythm & Hues under the direction of fellow technical directors, Karl Maples and Nicholas Titmarsh. I texture mapped geometry in a proprietary modeler, And; configured stage lighting in a proprietary choreographer, Rhythm; rendered 3D geometry in a proprietary renderer, Wren; composited rendered elements with live action bubbles and a blue screen extraction of Neptune in a proprietary compositor, Rcomp. After the right eye received approval, I spent a month rendering the left eye.

Note: The clip was transferred from 3/4” U-matic videotape, but I am currently searching for a higher quality digital copy of either the whole OMNIMAX image frame or the cropped rectangular center region.

Recognition:

• Screened in the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater, Orlando, July 1998.
  

• Awarded first prize in the theme park category at the World Animation Celebration, March 1998.
  

• Awarded second place in the theme park category at Imagina, March 1998.
  

• Featured in The Walt Disney Company's “Best of Electronic Theater,” September 1998.
  

Colgate

The complete commercial spot transferred from analog videotape, 3/4” U-matic.

My contribution:
This was my first job for a paying client at Rhythm & Hues. I painted the texture map, scripted the materials assignments and rendered the foil Colgate box using a proprietary renderer, Wren.