Avengers: Infinity War, Rampage, and Tomb Raider

Over this past month, three more features that I have highly enjoyed working on at The Third Floor, Inc. have been released. Those three are Avengers: Infinity War, Rampage, and Tomb Raider.

With Infinity War, my work was focused on post-visualization with shots primarily near the end of the film containing a variety of lead characters. The film is really well written with very action-packed characters and stunning visual effect shots. Working on a project of this magnitude was a fun, challenging, and rewarding experience. Yesterday I attended the crew screening of the film and am thankful to be credited among so many talented artists on such a great film! Check it out when you can, stay for the credits, and like most Marvel movies, something post-credits!

Rampage brings with it some excellent creature animations and has a unique way of integrating the nostalgic video game, originally released in 1986. On this project, I did previsualization in the film's early stages, working on the cargo airplane sequence with the lead gorilla character, George.

In Tomb Raider, my main focus was working on previsualization of one of the puzzle room sequences near the end of the film. I really enjoyed the story and was impressed with the film's adaptation from the video game series and Alicia Vikander's performance.

I went to the Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV ‪movie screening in LA this past week with the rest of the Third Floor crew. We all had a fun night of catching up and I got to see how my previsualization work and all of the work from the rest of the crew turned out. Great work everyone! Check out some shots and the trailer for Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV below.

General Mills Cereal and Activision - Skylanders Battlecast

General Mills Cereal and Activision have teamed up and are placing augmented reality cards for the game series, "Skylanders Battlecast", in marked boxes of cereal. Through my company, Sageous Studios, LLC, I had the opportunity to work with a great team of artists, Foran Films, LLC, General Mills and Activision to help create these two commercial spots. Along with other artists, I was responsible for creating new and/or cleaning up some of the existing animations, asset cleanup and preparation, 3D camera setup, creating a 3D CG workflow, and was a consultant.

The two spots, "Transporter" and "Mobile Madness", are airing on TV and online at the links below. 

TRANSPORTER

MOBILE MADNESS

The Martian VR

The Martian, the movie, has a really cool Virtual Reality experience/game coming out very soon and it is the project that I did previsualization on at The Third Floor, Inc. Directed by Robert Stromberg, The Martian VR is receiving a lot of positive press. Here are some of the latest mentions and the movie's trailer below!

• USA Today
• LA Times
• Fast Company
• ReCode
• Hollywood Reporter
• Twitter Unreal Engine

Hell & Back

Back in 2012, I had the pleasure of working in the visual effects, previsualization, and sets and props departments for a stop motion animated comedy, Hell & Back. The film was produced by the animation studio, ShadowMachine, famous for their Adult Swim stop motion animated series Robot Chicken. Directed by Tom Gianas and Ross Shuman, Hell & Back boasts a great lineup of comedic vocal talent, alongside intricate sets, visual art, and solid animation. Some of the vocal talent includes Mila Kunis, Nick Swardson, Bob Odenkirk, T.J. Miller, Rob Riggle, Susan Sarandon, Danny McBride, Maria Bamford, Jennifer Coolidge, and H. Jon Benjamin.

Hell & Back will be in theaters this Friday, October 2nd, so be sure to check out some of my work along with that of the many great artists at ShadowMachine.

Red Band Trailer:

Green Band Trailer:

New VFX Reel

After five months of working at GOMA Productions as a VFX Producer, Animator, VFX Artist, and partner of the company, I have put together a new demo reel for the company's website. I edited the video and the music was composed by our talented in-house composer, Michael Elliot. Please see the new reel below that showcases the hard work of the talented artists at this studio, which includes some of my animation and vfx work. Thanks!

 GOMA Reel 09-23-2014 from GOMA on Vimeo.

HEROES

The new Loot Crate video that I helped VFX Produce at GOMA is now online! Check out our work in this month's "HEROES" video below!

VFX Producer/Artist and Owner at GOMA Pro

After working with GOMA Productions (http://www.goma.pro) for the last few months, I am happy to say that I have become the studio's VFX Producer/Artist and am now an owner. Like most at the studio, I wear many hats--working directly with clients, coordinating and keeping the production pipeline organized, working as an animator, vfx artist, etc. Everyone at the studio has been working hard and cranking out many quality projects. Here are just a couple of pieces that we have done for our client, Loot Crate--each completed with a quick turnaround of 2-4 days. More to come!

A.S.T.A.R.

After two years, the short film--A.S.T.A.R--that I have been Animation Directing and VFX Supervising on is now completed. This short film has been a side project for me and my involvement in its early stages two years ago when I was contacted by the director, Zac Stoltz, was limited to creating a few basic graphic overlays that would simulate traditional rotoscope. Over time, the film evolved and demanded more visual effects shots, on set vfx supervision, development of interface graphics, a computer generated character that plays an integral part of the film, crew and rig removal, and even a small team of artists to aid in the completion of over 100 shots of vfx and animation. This journey has brought a great deal of experience from working with a wonderful film crew (on and off set), to creating original artwork and leading a small team of artists comprised of students and professionals.

What makes this film particularly unique is that it was shot on the ARRI Alexa camera and is a student produced film from California State University, Northridge (CSUN)--my alma mater. The film's completion was not required in order for students to graduate, yet despite those circumstances, the crew remained dedicated and completed the film two years after the majority of the students had graduated and were already working in the industry. The hard work of the entire crew is evident and it is safe to say that A.S.T.A.R. is one of the better shorts to be produced by students at CSUN.

The film will be premiering on May 7th at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood, CA, and will continue onto various festivals. For more updates and information on A.S.T.A.R., you can "Like" and follow the film's official Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/astarfilm.

IMDb for A.S.T.A.R.

Plot Outline:

A.S.T.A.R. - Anthropomorphic Satellite Tracking Area Response.

Matthew Midas, a successful micro-chip inventor, arrives in Los Angeles to unveil the latest upgrade for the Star navigation system. He finds that his car is host to a faulty STAR system, Mega Star, who realizes Matthew is planning to upgrade her. Matthew engages in an escalating struggle with Mega Star, as it attempts to first make Matthew miss his meeting, and then attempts to sabotage him entirely. It's a fresh and funny case of man versus machine - creator and the creation battle to find out who is truly the most advanced.

Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy

*A.S.T.A.R. formerly known as A Star is Scorned.

Ariel's Musical Surprise

Hey everyone, check out this cool new Disney application that I had the privilege of doing animation for--"Ariel's Musical Surprise"! I animated several characters, including Flounder, for the augmented reality application/game. You can download it free off of the Apple store here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id646577715.