Below the busy streets of New York City's Times Square was once an unusual tourist attraction called National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey. It featured interactive virtual underwater environments created by VFX studio Pixomondo, where I was part of the design and animation team in 2016–2017. One of my favorite parts of the project was a pre-show event that visitors experienced while riding an escalator from street level down to an underground lobby. They would pass through a wall of mist onto which was projected an underwater scene starring playful sea lions and a menacing great white shark.

In 2016, VFX company Digital Domain in Playa Vista, California, contacted me about animating cinematic sequences for the science fiction game Gears of War 4. The project involved a mix of key-frame and motion capture techniques. As an animation purist, I usually avoided jobs involving motion capture because the process isn't artistically satisfying; however, this project was different. Rather than being motion-captured, the characters' faces required an animator’s touch, and the opportunity to create emotional facial performances caught my interest. Additionally, the job was scheduled for only six weeks, so I figured, "Why not?"

In 1986, visual effects company Introvision International was developing a movie project - an outer space version of the classic novel Treasure Island entitled Treasure Planet. The company filmed a test sequence, most of which took place in a spaceship junkyard, to help attract financial backing for the project. The sequence utilized the "Introvision" process, a unique variation of the front-projection technique that allowed actors to be composited in-camera; accordingly, they were seamlessly integrated into an imaginary background without the need for post-processing.

Since the invention of motion pictures, many filmmakers have aimed to combine animation with live action. One successful method for achieving this is the chroma key technique. This process removes a color background, typically blue or green, by electronically cutting out the foreground subject, which is then composited over a different image. Chroma keying works particularly well with stop-motion animation. Chiodo Bros. Productions in Burbank, California, are experts in this technique. In the 1990s, I worked as an animator on several Chiodo Brothers projects, including a Cup-O-Noodles commercial featuring a saber-toothed tiger.

My first special effects job for a feature film was in 1986 at Image Engineering, a mechanical effects company owned by Peter Chesney. The movie was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and Image Engineering was responsible for many of the creative ways the maniacal Freddy Krueger disposed of his victims in the dream world. Unlike today's computer-generated visual effects, which are completed in post-production, this was a pre-production project that required performance with the actors during live-action shooting. Let's take a look at how we made a bathroom sink and a television come to life as the personification of evil Freddy.

Introducing The Umblebums, who could have been one of television's weirdest families. I created this series of pictures to illustrate a potential stop-motion show for the now-defunct Limelight Productions in 1991. Limelight then pitched the idea around Hollywood in an effort to find backing for the project. For me, it was "spec work," as I received no payment under the agreement that I would direct the show if it were greenlit. The project never materialized, leaving me to seriously consider whether it was worth the trouble. At least I have some cool pictures to show, which haven't been seen for 20 years!