As you explore this page, you will encounter a variety of projects I have created. The projects are grouped into catagories based on their predominant medium. Currently, this page only features works created before summer 2008.
In 2007, I spent six months working for The Philadelphia Inquirer producing video content for the web. I covered everything from hard breaking news to features pieces and arts & entertainment interviews.
As the Philly.com site has been updated and revised, some of the linked videos have been moved, or their players have been deleted. I will try to update this section with more current links in the future.
More: Complete video archive
Creation Date: June 2008
For my senior project in the Digital Media program at Drexel University, I led a team consisting of myself, Kevin Appel (lead character animator), Brittany Fedor (character modeling, rigging, and animation), Joy Godowski (website and Facebook backstory management), and Timothy Urian (script and projection) in creating "The Legend of Perseus," a seven minute live stage show that featured an actor (David Roy) as the classical hero Perseus. Our hero journeys to fantastic settings and interacts with mythical characters via foreground and background animations, projected on 35 feet of screens.
We created a visionary entertainment experience, in the spirit of Winsor McCay's "Gertie" by combining stage acting with new media, enhanced by a backstory driven by Facebook profiles. We developed workarounds when faced with the limitations of character rigs and projection technology, and were able to produce a successful performance that combined all of our digital media skills.
During our six month production schedule, I was responsible for managing the team's progress, and ensuring that all our assets were accounted for and completed on time. I created the environments, composited our final assets, and oversaw the final edit of picture and sound.
Tools: Autodesk Maya 8 and Vue 6 for modeling and animation, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for texture creation, The Foundry Nuke, Apple Motion, and Adobe After Effects for compositing, Apple Final Cut Pro for editing, and Digidesign ProTools for audio editing and mixing
Fuzzy Eats The Moon is a short animation I created with a team of three other students for an advanced animation and effects class. The story centers around a keychain character that comes alive and grows exponentially each time he eats something. The simple story served as a way for the team to exhibit our modeling and animation skills by fleshing out a variety of environments.
I was personally responsible for completely creating the two outdoor shots featuring the "house" set. I modeled, textured, and rendered everything in these two shots, except the "Fuzzy" character, and completed all animation and effects in the two sequences.
Tools: Autodesk Maya 7 for all modeling and animation, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for texture creation, and The Foundry Nuke for compositing
This animation was created to fulfill an Animation II assignment for the Digital Media curriculum at Drexel University.
I worked with classmate Matthew Grinspan to portray a disastrous chase in a completely fantastic cellular world. We worked hard to create a fantastical environment within the limitations of our knowledge base at the time, and the time constraints levied by our instructor.
Tools: Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro
I created this short animation as a project for Animation I class at Drexel University.
The assignment required combining an artist's work with a Rube Goldberg style device. I worked hard to faithfully recreate and combine the worlds of Edward Hopper's famous "Early Sunday Morning" and "Nighthawks" paintings, and utilized objects within each to power my device.
Tools: Autodesk 3DS Max, Apple Final Cut Pro
An "Academy Leader" is a ten second countdown that is used to time the start of a reel of film. Traditional countdowns usually appear as descending static numbers and feature an audible tone on the two second mark.
This sequence is the fruit of my first student 3D animation project at Drexel University. I chose to imbue each number with a unique personality and character, in order to best utilize a variety of features of the animation software.
Tools: Autodesk 3DS Max, Apple Final Cut Pro
Creation Date: 2007
This reel is an amalgamation of my compositing work from 2007. For a more current look at my compositing abilities, watch The Legend of Perseus.
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, The Foundry Nuke, Autodesk Maya, Apple Final Cut Pro
I designed and coded this difficult arcade shooting game as my first expedition into the world of Actionscript. The game is a standard point and shoot shooter, but it features some cool environmental visuals that, although a bit archaic, transform as the sun sets, creating lots of mood and atmosphere! I also wrote and performed all of the in-game music (my excuse for the low quality is that I did not have access to profressional tools at the time), which I think helps to flesh out the world and audience experience.
Tools: Adobe Flash, ActionScript 2, Adobe Illustrator, Audacity
