I worked on these films and music videos (among others) at PDI, Cinesite, and Hammerhead.

True Lies (1994) Working with director James Cameron and Visual Effects Supervisor Jamie Dixon at PDI, I art directed and developed the look of a four shot digital matte painting sequence. We shot the chateau plates using a mansion in Newport, RI. The mountains and snowy elements are from my vacation photos from the Southern Alps in New Zealand and the Canadian Rockies. I assembled up to three live-action plates per shot with over 30 photographic elements, all treated day-for-night with extensive painting to blend images. This sequence was written up in Cinefex 59.

Romeo+Juliet (1996) Working with Rebecca Marie at Hammerhead, I created two digital matte paintings. This shows before and after versions. The plates were shot in Mexico city. Local signage was removed and new billboards/building signs were added. I extended the Capulet and Montague buildings so they would tower over the others and added the signage to their roofs. The Jesus statue was created as a miniature by Illusion Arts and composited in. Some versions of the shots included CG helicopters and smoke elements depicting burning buildings.

Heart and Souls (1993) I worked as Lead Animator on this PDI production. Four of the characters and the bus in this movie are depicted as ghosts which can pass through real objects. Also, the ghosts can step into a living person's body. I helped design these effects and animated many shots.

Michael Jackson's Black or White (1991) In this now classic video, I created the first half of the morph sequence.

Double Dragon (1994) I worked as Technical Supervisor and acting Visual Effects Supervisor on this martial arts kids' film. The bad guys in this movie turn into shadows and enter the bodies of the good guys. I designed the main effect, animated many shots, and supervised the rest of the shots. Andrew Adamson supervised the plate shoots.

Toys (1992) In this Barry Levinson/Robin Williams film, I created a CG beach ball that bounces down a long hallway and opens up like a flower to reveal a hula doll playing a ukulele. The "petals" of the ball fold under to reveal the doll's skirt before she opens fire with her ukulele on LL Cool J. The challenge here was to make the lighting match the live action plates perfectly.

Devil's Advocate (1997) Working with Carlos Arguello at Cinesite, I art directed a morphing sequence at the end of this movie.

Disney's Circlevision (1992) This film, From Time to Time, is showing at Eurodisney in the Circlevision Theatre which consists of 9 screens displayed in a 360 degree circle. Most of the film is live action but it involves time travel so I created several shots of CG time tunnel complete with lightning and photon torpedo effects. This was my first job at PDI.

Michael Jackson's Remember the Time (1992) In this music video, Michael Jackson uses a small bag of magic sand to create enchanting performances and effects. In this shot a small pile of the sand whips up into a tornado, turns into gold sparkly stuff and blows away.

Bushwacked (Tenderfoots) (1995) This was my last project at PDI. The movie is about a bankrobber who meets up with some scouts and leads them into all kinds of trouble while trying to escape the law. In this scene, the kids are forced to cross a rickety swing bridge over a huge canyon. The shot begins looking across the bridge and ends looking down into the canyon. The actual plate was shot over a shallow dry stream bed. I created the deep canyon and roaring whitewater river as a 2.5D matte painting.

Kazaam (1996) In my first production with Hammerhead, we created lots of magical glowing, shimmering, growing, exploding effects on Shaquille O'Neal.

Michael Jackson's Is This Scary? In this short film, MJ dances a bunch and then peels off his face and dangles it in front of the camera, revealing his skull beneath, all the while asking "Is this scary?" My answer: yes. The rubber face was integrated with the CG skull which had to be lit perfectly and match-moved to the live action plates.

Batman Returns (1992) Wire removal mania from several explosion scenes.

Paulie: A Parrot's Tale (1998) In this Hammerhead work, we replaced Paulie's real beak with a CG one that talked.

Children of the Corn II (1993) Complete with dripping slime, the bad guy in this horror B-flick morphs into this horned thing. This shot was deemed necessary after most of the film was in the can since the film was being released at the height of morph-o-mania.

David Byrne's She's Mad (1992) All of PDI got into the action on this music video in which David Byrne morphs in various stretchy ways and his motion-captured dancing persona gyrates as a bunch of glowing orbs.

Sphere (1998) I created messed up staticcy images that appeared on mission control type monitors. After creating the static and snow effect, our images had to be match-moved to the moving camera in the shot.

Shadowbuilder (1997) I worked on a couple of the many FX shots in this Jamie Dixon-directed Hammerhead production

Speechless (1994) CG confetti rains down on Michael Keaton and Geena Davis.

Cliffhanger (1993) Wire removals galore as Sly Stallone climbs the plaster ice fall in a sweaty t-shirt.

Star Trek VI (1991) More wire removals so that Klingons can appear weightless.