2012, my "Annus Horribilis".

I've had a crazy year. Ups and downs, good and bad etc. The biggest 'up' was getting married to my wonderful and beautiful wife Hilary Mau. My immediate family and a a lot of my relations came all the way to L.A and then up to Santa Barbara to help us celebrate. It was a perfect day. In June I flew to London to VFX supervise a movie coming out in 2013 called 'The Quiet Ones'. It was my 1st movie as a 'VFX sup' (Soup) and it was intimidating to say the least. My previous experience as 'The soup' was on a couple of commercials for Seaworld and some on-set experience with some other commercial projects. It was awesome being on-set and getting to work so closely with the director and various crew. I learned some much. To see a movie being made at this level was amazing. I got some advice from a great friend 'Ged Wright' who's a supervisor at D-neg. He said the most important thing for an on-set VFX supervisor is to be confident even if he or she is wrong. Its a characteristic of a cg artist when asked a question to 'him and haw' and try and figure the problem "I don't know, maybe, I'll try something. eh, no, what if we....I'll do a test etc etc". Time is a precious commodity on a movie set and when asked a question, I had to suppress the urge to openly ponder the variables and possibilities of what would be required to do the shot in post. I quickly learned to trust my gut and give straight fast answers and remain calm. "it is what it is" and will be dealt with in post regardless. Its a case of, can you keep a cool head when all around are losing theirs? Overall it was a great and valuable learning experience but I hadn't contemplated how hard it would be to be away from my wife and friends for so long. I was so glad to be back L.A. Unfortunately 2012 brought the break up of our company "UnitZeroVFX" while I was away in London no doubt which was such a crap experience. Its unfortunate but maybe for the best. It forced me to learn a ton of new skills and not rely on others so much. 2013 for me is 1st time I'm going properly freelance with my new corporation "End of Level Boss" for which I have just finished my new reel and am furiously working on the website for. I was really lucky this year to meet some amazing people and make new friends who I'm excited to work with in the future. My wife has been incredibly supportive of my craziness with all that happened and I consider myself a very lucky and fortunate person to have such great friends and family. 'The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" Winston Churchill. 2013 - I'm going to kick your ass!