El Cerrito, California, United States
PLEASE CONTACT ME DIRECTLY for password access to my current portfolio! (See email in Contact Info). I am a veteran animation professional with experience in all facets of the medium, including layout, timing, design, voice acting, scriptwriting, storyboarding, animating, directing, and executive producing. The core of my career was spent at Pixar Animation Studios, where I honed my skills as a storyboard artist and storyteller on nine features, shorts, and specials. My storytelling philosophy is "Yes, and..."—accepting and building on ideas, inspired by the improvisation training recommended by legendary Pixar story artist Joe Ranft. Improv games offer practical, visceral storytelling experience, fostering creativity, collaboration, adaptability, risk-taking, and confidence. I have also contributed to projects for studios including Film Roman (no relation), Disney Television Animation, Starz, 20th Century, WB Animation, Olive Jar, Aardman Animation, DreamWorks, and WildBrain. I thrive in collaborative, creative environments, bringing excitement and enthusiasm to story development and always striving for cinematic visual storytelling. I am eager to contribute to your next project. Feel free to contact me with any questions. Specialties include visual storytelling, improvisational comedy, and changing light bulbs at great heights.
Teaching Advanced Visual Storytelling Workshop to Senior Animation undergraduates, guiding the students in their last year at school to create professional level animation storyboards.
Teaching Visual Narrative to the MDes Animation Masters students, and cover advanced ideas regarding telling stories with images and cinematography.
Over the decades have worked on multiple projects in a freelance capacity, including most recently: Aardman Animation - Shaun the Sheep Movie: The Beast of Mossy Bottom DreamWorks Animation - Shrek 5 20th Century Animation - Diary of a Wimpy Kid 4 and 5 The D.A.R.E. Project King of the Hill HBO's Happily Ever After Superman: The Animated Series Lilo and Stitch: The Series Emperor's New Groove 2 Title animation for the documentary "A Friend Comes to Visit" Development on Various Pixar and Disney TV Animation projects
Work within a collaborative team to execute animatic reels for feature and short animated films, which includes doing cinematic drawings for sequences, brainstorming gags, finessing story points, dialog and story structure, doing scratch voice recording and improvising. Additionally created an educational series for the story department called "Story 4 Story" and was instrumental in creating and managing departmental events that elevated the story culture, including weekly drop-in Improv to help story artists exercise their creative storytelling skills and an annual event called the Story Progressive. PIXAR FEATURE CREDITS INCLUDE: Toy Story 3 Newt (unreleased) Cars 3 Blade (unreleased) Toy Story 4 Onward Luca Elemental BeFri (unreleased) PIXAR SHORTS CREDITS INCLUDE: Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation Toy Story shorts (Small Fry, Partysaurus Rex) Toy Story of Terror The Toy Story that Time Forgot CarsToons (Time Travel Mater, Radiator Springs 500 1/2, Protect and Serve) Dug Days
Taught improvisational skills to the Story Department at Pixar, such as improvisational story structure, genre exploration, and impromptu iterative story development.