Below are some of my favorite projects over the years. Many I did from start to finish myself but, as you grow a studio, that becomes impossible. Whether I did the work or not it was my job to make sure that all work coming out of the studio was up to snuff. Most of the projects below I did do most of the work but I didn't have to do things like cut out crowds, build 3d models or prep data. That was the beauty of the studio. Like a fine restaurant I would mix up recipes of look, feel, and process, and then the power of the studio would allow us to apply that to a lot of work.
My leadership team Gary Book, Sergey Poltavskiy, Tony Hocevar, Gary Cooley, Casey Curtis and many more were instrumental in the success of the studio. Look these people up and check out their work. They are all very successful and many have their own studios now.
Each of these pieces below has a story and I wish I had the room to tell you each one. If you're ever curious just ask me and I'd be happy to tell you about it.
Here are some of my favorite projects over the years that involved people. We would do elaborate photo shoots and lots of post production to create these images. I got to meet some really great people and I had ALOT of fun working on these projects! If you look close, my team and I are in a lot of these images.
We did lots of work with the Toy industry. Below are lots of examples of that. Lot's of CGI work mixed with photography and then taken to an illustrative look and feel. I would do the first iterations and set the tone. Then we could do lots of toys and characters that had the same quality, look and feel.
Here's some fun Entertainment work. I shot the Ocean of Fear photography from a lift that was over a large pool in Hollywood CA. We had 2 mechanical sharks that were driven by divers below the surface. I even threw in a couple of our own self promo pieces that showcased our team. Always fun to do things like that with the team.
I love to work in Zbrush. I sculpted the animals and objects below and then rendered and did the post. I was always looking forward to projects that involved digital sculpting. The Armored Chicken was one of my favorites. Sergey Poltavskiy and I worked together to create that. He modeled everything and I got to detail in zbrush. He did the lighting and rendering and I got to do the finishing. My greatest joy of the studio was working together with talented people. We would feed off of one another and make each other better.
Here's a few other random projects I enjoyed, especially the tiger one. I got to shoot a real tiger in Myrtle Beach. I had a team of "protectors" around me as we shot photos. We would have to move together and if the tiger decided to get us it was the protectors job to jump in front of me and in his words "Be more of a tiger than the tiger itself" He looked like a guy out of Conan the barbarian but I was glad he was there!
This was a really fun campaign that involved everyone on our team. We had to build CGI sets, shoot photography, and then pull it all together. Everyone came together to make this a really successful program.
Lot's and lots of transportation and industrial work. I'm really proud of the work we did with these companies. We actually changed the way they did marketing. We showed companies how they could use their CAD data to support their marketing needs. We created pipelines and processes that changed them forever and are still in use today. We were a little different that while many studios were focusing on the automotive industry we were working with the industrial, agriculture and consumer product industries.
Lot's of product work over the years. High speed photography on liquids and CGI sets. It was always fun to find ways to pull off the effects we were trying to create. I always compared us to NASA. While the CGI team was working on a solution the photo/practical team was also. Many times the final result was a combination of both.
Thanks for having a look at some work I am very proud of. I pride myself on the fact that I was never an owner that sat in his office and barked orders. I got in the mix with my team and we fought our creative battles together. I never considered myself a "savvy" businessman. The credo that I followed and still follow today is:
Great Work + Great Experience = Success