About Me

I was happily born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio (1971). It was there that I became a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan, spent the majority of my childhood playing video games, watching Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, playing baseball, and filming amateur short films with my friends. I thought the films were really cool at the time. I do have to admit, however, that the Matrix is now my all-time favorite film. It is simply brilliant, fascinating, and revolutionary.

I attended college at John Carroll University (also in Cleveland) where I received my B.A. in Marketing/Business Administration (1994). I never really thought of a career in filmmaking, animation, or the entertainment industry until that last and final year of college - just a tad too late to transfer colleges and change degrees. The minute I sat down in front of an Amiga 4000, running Newtek's Video Toaster, I was hooked and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Since that day in '94 I have spent virtually all my free time studying and learning filmmaking, visual effects, and animation principles. Everything I've learned since 1994 has been self-taught.

So, I went into the workforce as a business dude. I lived life as a Cost Estimator, and then a Territory/Sales Rep. for a company that manufactured plastic tubing in Cleveland, Ohio. God bless the people of the world who make plastic tubing. But it wasn't for me. Shortly afterwards, I moved into the computer networking and systems administration world in 1995. I have always loved computers and have been tinkering with them since I was 8 years old. I have become experienced in Unix, Linux, Microsoft, Novell, and Cisco technologies. This was indeed fulfilling, but I always had my heart set on a career in visual effects, animation, and filmmaking.

In 1999, I moved to San Francisco, CA to try and break into the animation industry, while working out of Silicon Valley as a Systems Administrator. In 2001, I quit my job and moved to Los Angeles, hoping there would be more opportunity. Six months of unemployment passed before I landed the job that turned it all around. I took a systems administration job at a small video game company in Glendale called Phantagram Entertainment. It was the perfect place to apply my systems skills, and to eventually convince management to give me a shot at helping with animation production.

In 2003, an even better miracle occured. I was hired as an Assistant Technical Director at ESC Entertainment to work on the Matrix sequels - Reloaded and Revolutions. Located up in Alameda, CA, I once again found myself living in the San Francisco area. It was my first major motion picture. My first visual effects studio. Highlights included talking with Larry and Andy Wachowski, learning immense amounts of visual effects information, and getting my name at the end of a movie for the first time - it came on Matrix Revolutions. Now, when my name appears at the beginning of a movie...

I have since taken a position at DreamWorks/PDI as a lighter. I recently finished lighting shots on Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. Currently, I am working on our next animated film, Over the Hedge, as the surfacing technical director.

So there you go. 8 years of self-study, no sleep, one million cups of coffee, and moving from city to city. Nothing happens when you quit.