Click above to play the quicktime video.

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My demo reel above demonstrates some of the work I've done over the years at various studios. I worked on lighting, compositing, and some look development for these shots, primarily rendered with renderman, arnold, and nuke software packages.

The job of lighting

Digital lighting is both technical and artistic, and requires knowledge of traditional cinematography plus knowledge of the behavior of light and materials. In the reel above, I placed digital lights very deliberately in the scenes to create an emotional mood, even before the viewer has understood the story point. With the correct lighting, I can direct the viewer's eye, shape the objects, create depth in the scenes, and acheive special effects (like sparks).

One technical aspect of digital lighting is balancing artistic quality with rendering time and the director's vision. This requires great communication and people skills to understand and achieve what the director wants. But it also requires the understanding of how to translate that direction into quantifiable light properties and surface characteristics for objects used in the rendering software.

Each scene is synthesized into a series of image files by a rendering software simulation. As a Lighting Technical Director, I adjust all the parameters of the scene to control the software and generate images with the desired level of quality and realism in a reasonable amount of time. These images are then printed onto film and/or assembled into a digital movie.

Reel Breakdown

Kung Fu Panda 2 fireballs

Simulated interactive lighting, fake sky reflections, animated color shift in elements, and composited.

Surf's Up beach & penguins

Developed a wet surfboard, penguin, and animated wet/dry sand look; carefully balanced sunset ratio; and composited the many reflection, refraction, splash, and foam elements.

Christmas Carol Scrooge closeup

A very successful challenge in sculpting the characters as they move around the light sources, edited from a much longer shot.

Puss in Boots carriage ride

Exposed for outdoors, composited, and created lens flare as a bonus element.

Beowulf Grendel's cave

One of the longest shots of the movie, but edited here, it showcases intricate lighting details like bioluminescent glow, reflections, caustics, and additional light rigs for the splash through the water, all composited together.

Christmas Carol dance 360°

Managed & key lit this editted sequence, which had a continuous camera move around the whole set, and a gradual lighting change.