About Me

Taken from my linkedin.. yes, this is corny as hell, but that’s me in a nutshell.

The year is 1999, a tall, gangly 15 year old boy is sitting in a tiny dark theatre in a small town.

As the film projector whirred and bright lights filled the room his eyes lit up even brighter, bedazzled by the spectacle before him.

When he emerged from that theatre, he new exactly what wanted. He wanted to be a part of that. He was hooked on Movie Magic.

That boy was me, and the film? Star Wars: Phantom Menace. Am I ashamed to admit that? Hell no. Pod Racers are totally rad.

Since then, I’ve worked on productions big and small, from the billion dollar juggernaut to the indie music video and many in between. I’ve also co-supervised and mentored students in numerous award winning student films.

I’m currently at Weta Digital in Wellington New Zealand, where I work as a Lead Technical Director in the Motion Research and Development Department.

Our department is responsible for the Motion Pipeline and we provide artist tooling and support for the Motion Realm (Motion Edit, Animation, Facial Motion, Previs and Crowds).

I’m a skilled problem solver, and pride myself in being able to spot and mitigate risks; and tackle large problems strategically.

I’m a pretty good people person, I find I’m able to work well with most; although I do find it hard to work with big egos but hey, this is show business baby!

I enjoy mentoring and fostering talent in others. This is something which came to light during my teaching years and again recently in my current Lead position.

If I was able to choose my own title, it would probably be something corny like “Chief Problem Solver” or perhaps something more appropriate like “Digital Janitor”.

If there is one thing I know, it’s that you can never stop learning. Even those at the top of their field are often only at the tip of the iceberg.

I’m also quite passionate about Video Games and the Video Game industry, I like keeping up with current trends and see many Film VFX and Video Game workflows converging. I see this continuing as digital story telling and the technology that helps facilitate it continues to evolve.

Although currently I’m in a more technical / development heavy role, I consider myself a 3D Generalist / Technical Artist. I really enjoy creating things from the ground up and watching things come to life. I also get great satisfaction creating tools that people enjoy using. It’s what has kept me hooked on this industry for so long.