Growing up in the damp and rainy Pacific Northwest, there was plenty of time to stay inside and draw. Starting at age 2, this was mostly what I did. I discovered my love of animation when I was about 10, specifically when "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" came out. After seeing that film, I knew whatever that was, I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. I started making flip books and devoured any book about animation I could get my hands on. At 17, after receiving a stinging rejection letter from CalArts, I got my first job at a small studio in Portland making educational CD-ROMs.

 

Over the next 15 years, commercial animation took me to exotic, far away places like Canada, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but try as I might, I struggled to get a response from the big studios. It soon dawned on me that by not going to animation school, I had skipped an important step towards getting into features: directing a short film of my own. In 2006 I partnered with Titmouse to make ‘Pinched’, a nearly 3 year endeavor.

 

Soon after, I joined Laika, where I worked for the next 7 years doing storyboards and character exploration, contributing to Oscar nominated films such as 'Paranorman', 'The Boxtrolls',  'Kubo and the Two Strings' and 'Missing Link'. I was due for yet another disappointment however, as they refused to give me the title representing the work I was doing, that of Character Art Director. By 2017 I had had enough of working for a money-laundering personality cult and I finally quit. I relocated to Spain for a year to work as a senior animator on the Netflix film 'Klaus', fulfilling a lifelong dream to animate on a 2D feature. 

 

Upon returning to the states in 2018 I joined the production of 'Wendell and Wild', another huge disappointment. COVID hit and so began a 7 year period of working from home for Netflix Animation Studios, contributing to films such as 'The Monkey King', 'The Prince of Port-Au-Prince' (canceled), and 'Just My Imagination'. Working on a film for 3 years just to see it canceled along with so many others was, to say the least, disappointing. It soon dawned on me that being remote, I was largely unknown to the creative leads pulling the strings at Netflix. That familiar sound of my head hitting a ceiling was this time loud and clear.

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I made the jump yet again from a steady job to pursue a new more meaningful path. This time I was extremely lucky to find a passionate group of skateboarding musicians and filmmakers calling themselves Swaybox Studios, based out of New Orleans, who were forging an entirely new kind of animation centered on live puppetry, and who offered me the leadership position I had been denied at LAIKA. Not to mention, the project was 'Dynamic Duo', a bold reboot of the Robin character from the DCU, led by Matt Reeves, James Gunn, and with a script by Mathew Aldrich. It was immediately clear I had finally found my path, and not a moment too soon. I continue to work for Swaybox to this day.