BORDERLANDS 3 E3 Trailer

Client: 2K & Gearbox Studios

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Director, E3 trailer, Borderlands 3. Starting with a script from Gearbox, Halon broke down available assets and started previs. I directed two days of motion capture, shot all virtual camera and worked with Supervisor Andre Mercier through to final. The final product was assembled and rendered out of Unreal Engine, in 4k, using all in-game assets and effects.

The Division, Survival E3 Trailer

Client: Ubisoft & Massive Entertainment

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Director, Ubisoft’s E3 trailer for Tom Clancy’s The Division Survival DLC. This included early input with the stakeholders, a single day motion capture shoot in Montreal, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of Ubisofts proprietary engine, Snowdrop, in 4k using all in-engine game assets.

Evolve: Game Intro

Client: 2K & Turtlerock Studios

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

One of a series of trailers I wrote & directed for 2K and Turtlerock Studios for their hit game, Evolve. My responsibilities included writing the script with stakeholders, directing a single day motion capture shoot per trailer, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of Cryengine in 4k using all in-engine Evolve assets.

Evolve: Game Intro Trailer

Client: 2K & Turtlerock Studios

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

One of a series of trailers I directed for 2K and Turtlerock Studios for their hit game, Evolve. My responsibilities included creative brainstorming with stakeholders, directing a single day motion capture shoot for each trailer, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of Cryengine in 4k using all in-engine Evolve assets.

Evolve: Muti-Player Intro Trailer

Client: 2K & Turtlerock Studios

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

One of a series of trailers I directed for 2K and Turtlerock Studios for their hit game, Evolve. My responsibilities included early brainstorming with stakeholders, directing a single day motion capture shoot per trailer, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of Cryengine in 4k using all in-engine Evolve assets.

XCOM 2: Retaliation In-Game Trailer

Client: 2K & Firaxis Games

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Director of 2K’s in-game cinematic for XCOM 2. This included a single day motion capture shoot, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of a branched version of Unreal Engine 3 in 4k using all in-engine game assets.

XCOM 2: Retaliation In-Game Cinematic

Client: 2K & Firaxis Games

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Director of 2K’s in-game cinematic for XCOM 2. This included a single day motion capture shoot, animation direction, virtual camera, editorial and final grading. The final product was assembled and rendered out of a branched version of Unreal Engine 3 in 4k using all in-engine game assets.

PRODUCER & DIRECTOR

CLIENT: The Previsualization Society

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

As one of the original founders of The Previsualization Society, who’s main goal is education on the subject of visualization, I produced and directed a series of documentaries covering the three main facets of visualization. Previs, Postvis and Pitchvis. In this roll I conducted interviews of luminaries around the industry to gain their thoughts and perspective on the use of visualization in storytelling.

AMD GARDEN

Design and supervision of a high resolution scene to be used in store endcaps to demonstrate AMD’s Freesync technology. This project was built primarily using Quixel Mega Scans in Unreal Engine 4 and includes custom code allowing a customer to turn features of the demo on and off in order to show how AMD’s technology works in practace.

AMD VEGA

Using CAD files we produced an introduction video for the launch of AMD’s Vega GPU line of products. Assembled in Maya, rendered in Arnold this was produced in 1 week.

FIRST

FIRST, or the Wright Brothers first flight, was my first Virtual Reality project. We were asked to build a re-creation of Orville and Wilburs faithful first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC as a demonstration of AMD’s GPU technology. Produced for Oculus Rift, running in Unreal Engine, the scene runs for 3.5 minutes, is historically accurate and was curated by The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

GOLDEN LOFT

Product designer, supervision and artist on the Gear VR educational application Golden Loft, a primer on Fibonacci numbers and the Gold Ratio. Available on the Oculus Gear VR store now.

ICBM TRAINER

Product Manager. The Minuteman ICBM VR Demo is a capabilities demonstrator for the DOD training space. This particular piece was used by Boeing to demonstrate Space and Missile Defense (SMD) Training simulations to soldiers at trade shows. Based on the Minuteman Museum in Green Valley, AZ, it takes the user through a fictionalized hostile missile launch and response scenario.

Wonders of the World

Product designer, director, artist and outsource manager for Wonders of the World. Available on the Oculus Gear VR store, Wonders is a learning application focused on teaching viewers about 3 ancient wonders of the world by making them a citizen of the time period. Navigating around we allow them to explore and interact with people in that time and learn about history. It was produced in Unreal Engine.

BiRDMAN

Credited as:PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

I played a small roll on the award winning film, Birdman, by working to tie two places together by the dream flight Michael Keaton takes through the city of New York. While the sequence connected two known landmark locations in New York the cinematic camera path needed to be more efficient and seemingly in one shot. We provided creative and technical breakdowns to allow production and VFX to create a seamless shot.

blackhat

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR/VFX SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Working with Director Michael Mann, I was tasked with reworking the opening of the film in which the camera follows the path of hacker data throughout a computer, going down to the electron level within the inner workings of a CPU. I later transitioned to VFX, supervising several outside vendors to complete the work through to final and color grade.

WORLD WAR Z

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

World War Z employed every trick and tool in our arsenal for director Mark Forester. Starting with a software rendered pitchvis to get the studio excited, to previs, on-set visualiztion and postvis. We employed a 100% front to back motion capture and vcam pipeline. which traveled with the production on all locations during shooting in the UK, Malta and Budapest. Working with a remote team in Los Angeles, I collaborated with director Forester, DP Bob Richardson and producer Collin Wilson to bring a frenetic nature to each shot and sequence.

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

For Star Trek: Into Darkness I lead a second team in concert with Halon show supervisor Brad Alexander. I was responsible for the opening of the film when Kirk and McCoy escape from an alien planet through a jungle of red vines. We took our previs through techvis stages so an efficient set could be built that accommodated all prescribed shots without having to build a full jungle. This was my first time working with JJ Abrams and Bad Robot.

JOHN CARTER

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION DIRECTOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

John Carter, based on the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, required a move to San Francisco for 1 year. In that time I worked with PIXAR’s Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and producer Collin Wilson to do highly polished sequences that spanned from the start of the film to the end. This film was the first time we used motion capture and virtual cameras, or vCam, to create performances for the White Ape characters and block out shots. We also worked closely with the art department to battle test designs and do 3D virtual walk-throughs for concept approvals.

COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Cowboys and Aliens, a western sci-fi, was my first experience working with Jon Favreau. Our team worked on several sequences including the initial attack on the western town, speeder chase and the box canyon final showdown. Because we couldn’t build a faithful model of the box canyon in the 3rd act we bypassed our normal Maya workflow and instead opted to shoot a stand-in for key characters on my Canon 5DmkII over the course of 1.5 months in New Mexico. We employed a postvis process to incorporate the digital aliens on top of the video plates to work out the beats.

INDIANA JONES: KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Bringing together my old boss George Lucas with Steven Spielberg on an iconic franchise, India Jones was a once in a lifetime experience. The Indy previs team worked on sequences throughout the film with myself continuing on set with Ryan McCoy throughout the shoot and postvisualization phases.

THE SPIDERWICK

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Filming in Montreal, Spiderwick Chronicles was a 6 month remote assignment. Working with director Mark waters and producer Tom Peitzman I managed a remote Los Angeles team while also building a small local team in Montreal. We completed work on sequences that involved the integration of digital characters with live action sets and actors. We also provided technical breakdowns for crane and camera placement, known at techvis.

THE LAST AIRBENDER

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION DIRECTOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

Over 45 minutes of contiguous previsualization, complete with score, was completed working with Director M. Night Shyamalan, DP Andrew Lesney and producer Sam Mercer in preparation for filming. While I had done some editing on previous projects this marked a change in my responsibilities as a supervisor as I was responsible for all visualization editing and temp score selection. I also spent weeks on site managing a remote team in Los Angeles.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

I was the supervisor for several key sequences including the third act of the film.

KUNG FU PANDA

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR & ARTIST

EMPLOYER : DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

Kung Fu Panda was an idea that had spent 5 years in development when I joined as a consultant previs specialist. I was asked to work outside the Dreamworks management structure and pipeline with Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson to create a sequence that would excite Jeffy Katzemberg in a bid to move the film forward. Working by myself for one month I developed an animated previs template for the Tai Lung escape sequence that was complimented by ex JAK Films colleague Gary Lee. We were successful in our bid as the film was green lit shortly after

WAR OF THE WORLDS

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

By: HALON Entertainment LLC

In August of 2004 I was asked to join Steven Spielberg to visualize key sequences in his upcoming film, War of the Worlds. WoW, as we called it, was a unique challenge as we only had 9 months from start to in theaters to complete a major tent pole film. Visualization played a key roll allowing Spielberg to plan, direct and communicate his film visually before filming began, as filming proceeded and after filming was completed. Due to the time constraints this plan was considered locked, allowing filming to complete on time and ILM to complete the VFX in less than three months, a tremendous feat even by today’s standards.

STAR WARS: EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

EMPLOYER : JAK FILMS

As the previs supervisor on Star Wars: Episode III I was responsible for overseeing a team of 12 artists who created over 6000 shots in the course of two years. I worked on a regular basis with editor Ben Burtt and with Director George Lucas to facilitate communication between them and the team. I also served in an artist capacity working one on one with Steven Spielberg who contributed design ideas to several of the key sequences in the film. During this time I also negotiated and closed several ‘equipment for PR’ deals with Apple, AMD, Sigma and Boxx.

THX 1138

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION SUPERVISOR

EMPLOYER : JAK FILMS

Between Star Wars films Lucas was kind enough to find a project to keep myself and the team busy. A DVD Directors cut of THX1138 was in the works when we were asked to previs, then take to final, 250 new or modified shots for the film. I supervised this effort, broke everything down technically, planned a pick-up shoot, then VFX Supervised with John Andrew Berton Jr. from ILM. Our team included 12 Skywalker Ranch artists and a special crew of ILM artists. We completed a 56 setup shoot on ILM’s stages with two days of planning and one day of shooting. All the actors were artists from my team who agreed to shave their heads for the roll. A violent storm took out the power to the stage 10 seconds after we wrapped the last shot.

STAR WARS: EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION ARTIST &  SUPERVISOR

EMPLOYER : JAK FILMS

In January of 2000 I happily accepted a job working for JAK Films on Star Wars: Episode II. I started as a previsualization artist working for department supervisor, David Dozoretz, on shots and sequences across the breadth of the entire film. I was promoted to supervisor near the end of the project with the Clone Wars and The Droid Manufacturing facility being my first supervisory experience. This work led to a speaking engagement on stage with Steve Jobs at Macworld 2001.

MOULIN ROUGE

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION ARTIST

EMPLOYER : POVDE

In my first previsualization job in 1999, I was invited on set to Sidney Australia to work through creative ideas for large, complicated VFX shots which were hard to communicate to the studio. I contributed to several shots including Satine’s death pull back, traveling all the way to Christian’s apartment. This shot combined sets on 4 individual stages and was over 3 minutes long.

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Credited as: PREVISUALIZATION ARTIST

EMPLOYER : POVDE

I helped complete a short sequence to explore digital F-18 work for Behind Enemy Lines.

TITAN A.E.

Credited as: VFX ARTIST

EMPLOYER : POVDE

My first, and only, VFX artist job. I was asked to join a small team of artists run by Skywalker Ranch Supervisor, David Dozoretz to complete two sequences in the film Tital AE. The ice crystal sequence and the wake angle sequence. I spent roughly two months on each sequence with teams in San Francisco and Los Angeles. This was my first application of Electricimage to VFX work.

LEGACY OF TIME

Credited as: GAME ARTIST & TD

EMPLOYER : PRESTO STUDIOS

My first big job came in August of 1996 when I joined Presto Studios at the start of production for The Journeyman Project 3, Legacy of Time. I was responsible for using Electricimage to assemble all resources into a cohesive scene, lighting and rendering to exact technical specifications for the in-house game engine. I was also responsible for cinematics, in-game animation and cubic 360 sphere rendering of the El Dorado environment.