When I was growing up I really wanted to be a Disney animator even though I had no idea how to go about that. I was also always interested in computers. My family had Atari computers, but one summer I bought an Amiga with money I earned washing dishes, because it had more colors and better games. Eventually my dad bought me a program called the Disney Animation Studio which let you make your own animations. The pencil test examples were from real Disney films and looked beautiful, however, drawing with a mouse at 320x200 was pretty much impossible and scanners back in those days were not cheap. It did give me an insight into the whole process though. The next year I got Turbo Silver for Christmas which gave me my first taste of 3d. Of course the first thing I made a Star Wars animation of the Millenium Falcon with no textures - I still have it on a vhs tape somehwere. Learning 3d was fun and I thought this was my best shot at animation. However I was always very academic in school, and never really got the chance to take many art classes. 3d and animation was more like a dream or hobby. My senior year in high school I gave up Calculus to take "any" art class that was available much to the dismey of the assistant principle. It ended up being commercial art and I loved it, though I was still on course to attend a more liberal arts style college. My guidance counceler told me to do what I was interested in, I should pursue Computer Science as a degree. So, that's what I did. My first semster in college I discoved that was a huge mistake and switched to architecture for the next semester. This was much better, and during one of our projects, I started using a shareware program called POV-Ray to realize some of my designs in 3d with true 24-bit color, something I didn't have the horsepower to do on my Amiga. At this point, I knew architecture was not for me either because I was having much more fun with the 3d aspect of it. My friend Jesse Newman was in the Art program and after seeing what he was up to I transfered yet again to Art and Design because there was no real cg or animation department at my university. I wasn't quite sure if this was right, but it seemed ok for now. During my first summer in college, I remember going to a movie and afterwards checking out the computer animation books at Barnes and Noble like I always did. In those days, there weren't many and I didn't have money to buy them anyway, but would still check. Believe it or not, I actually found one called How to Become a Computer Animator. I was shocked. I couldn't buy it, but I did get one nugget of knowledge out of it that gave me some peace of mind. It said, if you can't go to a school specifically geared to computer animation(and there weren't many at the time) then get a degree in a related field such as art. At this point, I felt like I was at least on the right path. While there was no 3d or animation program at my school, I tried to learn as much 3d as a could and always applied it to my projects any chance I got. I was very lucky to have an industrial design professor named Paul Down who let me do many independent studies and even directed my BFA thesis. I remember wondering if it would be possible to create a full length feature film using cg animation since by this time there had been many cool cg shorts and it seemed like an eventual extension. Well, it wasn't long before Toy Story came out and I pretty much knew that was exactly what I wanted to do...me and a bazillion other people apparently. Using The Art of Toy Story book as inspiration, and several student thesis projects from Ringling School of Art and Design as examples, I tried to make my own BFA senior thesis project along similar lines. While I had no real animation training, it was one of the best experiences of my life creating that thesis project. By today's standards, and even some back then, it's very primative, but I am quite happy with what I was able to accomplish given limited resources and knowledge. The summer after my senior year, I put together my first demo reel and set out to try and find a job in the vfx / cg animation industry. I made a trip to LA to visit friends and pass out reels to as many places that would take them. I only had a few nibbles but nothing concrete. I wasn't totally surprised given my reel was mostly design print work and I was looking to be an animator. My best lead was Computer Cafe where my friend Jesse worked as an editor and compositor for local tv spots. They used Lightwave, and I knew that software. The owner, Jeff Barnes, seemed to like my reel but said they really didn't have an opening for me. I actually returned home with one possible offer from a company called Available Light. They wanted to hire me to do compositing, but said someone with more experience came in right after me and lived in LA so it was a better fit. Again, I wasn't totally disappointed because it wasn't cg animation. After all this, I ended up working part time at a local military visualization studio called Dynamic Animation Systems - DAS. They wanted me to help them make a demo reel for them like mine and see where things went. While they specialized in military contracts, they wanted to get into games. They seemed to have potential, and for a while, I found myself content living at home with my parents, working part-time, and trying to learn a bit more on my own. Perhaps too content. Shortly after the superbowl that year, I got a call from Computer Cafe - around five months after I had visited there. They wanted me to come work for them as a 3d artist. I was scared but excited. I told my current part-time employers and they promptly offered me a full time job which, on paper, looked way better then Computer Cafe's offer, something I wasn't really prepared for. Believe it or not, I turned Computer Cafe down. That could have been the worst decision of my life. Fortunately, my friend Jesse changed my mind shortly after and I called Jeff Barnes back to ask if I could still accept the job. Luckily he said yes...