Breakdown: Compilation Reel

Compositing for Sony, Double Negative, and Lighting and Compositing for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Compositing Director for Nickelodeon's Monster High.

DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:06
Shot: Spaceship docks over future Earth
Role: Compositor
Full CG shot. Performed in-comp relighting of the ship and Earth to enhance depth and atmosphere. Added ship engine glow and treatment, cinematic lens effects, and a high-resolution starfield to enrich detail and visual realism.

DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:11
Shot: Bird of Prey exits warp and attacks
Role: Compositor
Full CG shot. Executed in-comp relighting of the Bird of Prey, planet, and planetary shield. Crafted the warp exit effect, enhanced blaster fire and shield impact, and integrated cinematic lens flare treatments to amplify energy and visual drama.

DNeg – Star Trek: Picard – Season 1
Timestamp: 0:17
Shot: Daytime aerial of Starfleet HQ with Golden Gate Bridge in foreground
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG Golden Gate Bridge, futuristic cityscape, and small crafts into a live-action plate. Performed relighting of the city to unify elements. Added accurate shadow casting from flying vehicles onto buildings, terrain, and shoreline. Created subtle wave interaction along the shoreline-structure intersection, with continuity carried into the sister shot.

DNeg – Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner – Best Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:18
Shot: Futuristic vehicle (Spinner) struck by crashing shoreline waves
Role: Compositor
Integrated CG Spinner into a live-action plate augmented with CG crashing waves, foam, and spray. Performed in-comp relighting, color grading, and detailed plate cleanup. Maintained a high standard of realism, texture fidelity, and seamless integration in support of the film’s Oscar-winning VFX.

DNeg – Blade Runner 2049 (Academy Award Winner – Best Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:20
Shot: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) struggles for air inside the Spinner
Role: Compositor
Replaced plate and rear windows of the Spinner to integrate CG water effects, including tracked library elements for falling water, drips, and rain. Extensive plate reconstruction supported the integration, with detailed work on subtle FX drips and moisture treatments—enhancing the scene’s tension while maintaining the film’s Oscar-winning visual standards.

Disney – Big Hero 6 (Academy Award Winner – Best Animated Feature)
Timestamp: 0:21
Shot: Hiro Hamada’s first flight test with Baymax
Role: Lighting & Compositing Artist
Full CG sequence from Disney’s first production to replace RenderMan with its groundbreaking Hyperion renderer. Composited in Nuke with integrated FX, optical flares, and glow treatments. Lighting was crafted to dramatize sunlight skimming upper building surfaces and dissolving into shadow, using a bold dynamic range to intensify the action and emotional stakes of the moment.

Disney – Big Hero 6 (Academy Award Winner – Best Animated Feature)
Timestamp: 0:24
Shot: Cityscape pan with full tilt-up tracking shot of Hiro and Baymax launching into the sky
Role: Lighting & Compositing Artist
Extended the lighting setup to maintain continuity across action beats. Integrated FX smoke trails, engine glow, and optical treatments including lens flares to heighten energy and momentum. Emphasized dynamic contrast and warm atmospheric lighting to enhance visual flow and emotional build-up into the flight sequence.

Disney – Big Hero 6 (Academy Award Winner – Best Animated Feature)
Timestamp: 0:26
Shot: Tracking shot of barrel-rolling Hiro and Baymax flying through sky turbines
Role: Lighting & Compositing Artist
Matched the lighting and visual language of surrounding turbine shots. Crafted sunrise atmosphere with raking sunlight on distant turbines and cityscape, connecting the environment to the skydome. Dialed in atmospheric depth, directional sunlight, and lens flares to amplify movement, energy, and location continuity.

Disney – Big Hero 6 (Academy Award Winner – Best Animated Feature)
Timestamp: 0:28
Shot: Plasma blade cutting through metal doors
Role: Lighting & Compositing Artist
Engineered multi-source lighting rig to support interactive plasma blade effect and molten metal response. Designed custom shaders and lighting passes for metal emissivity and FX interaction. Balanced interior/exterior exposure using dynamic key-to-fill ratios and maintained continuity across characters and set extensions. Final compositing in Nuke with layered glows, optical treatments, and defocus cues to guide viewer attention and enhance realism.

DNeg — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:30
Shot: Gelfling flight through luminous blue cavern
Role: Compositor

Integrated blue screen Gelfling puppet into a fully CG environment with bioluminescent walls, animated water, and digital wings. Relit puppet and wings to match CG enviromental lighting. Developed a subtle slipstream mist effect, used deep compositing to embed layered cavern fog, mist, and volumetrics. Combined FX elements—rolling clouds, fireflies, waterfall mist—to create an immersive, atmospheric shot.

DNeg — Star Trek Beyond
Timestamp: 0:33
Shot: Ship chase over futuristic mega-city
Role: Compositor

Composited full CG chase through layered cityscape with atmospheric FX and water-treated camera views. Collaborated with lighting to enhance visual clarity—added rim lights and bloom to separate ships from background. Tuned environmental fog and glow to guide viewer focus through dense complexity.

DNeg — Star Trek Beyond
Timestamp: 0:38
Shot: Close-up of Bones during ship chase
Role: Compositor

Integrated plate of crew member with HUD overlays and windshield FX. Enhanced ship surface with metallic reflections, refractions, and dirt. Used multi pass rendered layers to relit and defocus CG background to reduce visual noise and direct viewer focus to performance.

DNeg — The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Emmy Winner – Outstanding Visual Effects)
Timestamp: 0:40
Shot: Scroll Keepers Carriage
Role: Compositor

Integrated CG Digital Matte Painting, 3D buildings, and crowd plates with CG carriage elements surrounding the puppet Scroll Keeper. Used ST mapping to enhance texture detail on carriage “arms.” Managed complex over-under compositing with heavy roto throughout the shot.

Disney — Tangled
Timestamp: 0:42
Shot: Rapunzel’s Opening Song – Tower Interior
Role: Lighting/Compositing

Lit and composited Rapunzel’s tower interior during her opening song. Crafted a warm, inviting daytime atmosphere using light balancing, volumetric beams, and integrated FX elements like drifting dust motes. Focused on enhancing spatial depth and mood while supporting character performance.

Disney — Tangled
Timestamp: 0:45
Shot: Close-up of Pascal – Opening Song
Role: Lighting/Compositing

Lit and composited the shot to match the warm tower interior. I pitched the idea of having the dust obscure everything except Pascal’s eyes, giving the gag a stronger visual punch—an idea approved by leadership and carried through to final. Developed a custom RenderMan shader for Pascal’s dusty look and executed a comped wipe from clean to dust-covered to heighten the comedic timing and support the character interaction.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:47
Shot: Frankie Reacts to iBall Hologram
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Delivered a render-ready lighting rig for the scene’s set location. Led look development and implementation of the IBall hologram effect, creating a scalable Nuke template used throughout Seasons One and Two by international vendor studios to ensure consistency and efficiency in execution.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:50
Shot: Werewolf Vision Treatment
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Designed and implemented the Werewolf Vision effect, including stylized transitions in and out of POV using Sapphire tools within Nuke. Developed a reusable compositing process to support narrative beats and streamline shot production across sequences.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:51
Shot: Miss O’Shriek Zapped into Pocket Dimension
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Designed the “Rez In” transition effect blending magical and tech aesthetics, as requested by creative leadership. Built a production-friendly Nuke setup praised for its optical style and fast turnaround, enabling seamless replication by international vendor studios.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:53
Shot: Rippling Ghost Distortions – Ghost Chasm Sequence
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Redesigned a static ghost concept into a dynamic, multi-layered effect using heat ripple distortion and frame-averaging techniques in Nuke. Separated and enhanced available elements to inject movement and spooky charm across a 30+ shot sequence. Led design and execution through final hero shots, aligning with stakeholder vision under tight turnaround.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:55
Shot: Medium Shot – Students Crossing the Ghost Chasm
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Applied the custom ghost ripple technique across alternate camera views, including this medium shot of students crossing the chasm. Originally developed as a last-minute solution, the multi-layered Nuke effect was adopted across the sequence and praised for enhancing the atmosphere and elevating the drama.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 0:56
Shot: Medium Close-Up – Finnegan Wake, Ghost Chasm
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Reused the ghost ripple distortion effect for continuity across the sequence. Enhanced shot integration by adding interactive lighting from the spectral forms onto surrounding students, deepening spatial cohesion and emotional impact during Finnegan’s moment.

Disney — Wreck-It Ralph
Timestamp: 0:59
Shot: Ralph Teaching Vanellope to Drive the Candy Kart
Role: Lighting/Compositing

Crafted lighting to create pools of ambient light across the sugar-coated environment, focusing visual attention on Ralph and Vanellope as emotional anchors. Refined materials and lighting across all elements to enhance the edible, glossy appeal of the candy world. Several of these shots were used as visual benchmarks for the kart’s signature candy-coated look.

Disney — Wreck-It Ralph
Timestamp: 1:00
Shot: Wide Shot – Vanellope Swerves into Candy Pillar
Role: Lighting/Compositing

Designed lost-and-found lighting across the candy environment to guide the eye while maintaining focus on the action. Carefully composed lighting to spotlight Vanellope’s movement and impact, integrating FX dust for enhanced realism and momentum. Balanced environmental readability with stylized highlights to support the shot’s humor and visual rhythm.

Disney — Wreck-It Ralph
Timestamp: 1:03
Shot: Medium Close-Up – Vanellope with Missing Tooth
Role: Lighting/Compositing

Focused lighting to highlight Vanellope’s expression and ensure clear readability of the visual gag—the tooth ejection and resulting gap. This shot also served as a reference for dialing in the candy kart’s look, showcasing a range of candy materials including subsurface gummy tires, cookie rims, and a chocolate-covered body with rainbow sprinkles. Balanced stylization with clarity to support both humor and product design.

Sony Imageworks — The Polar Express
Timestamp: 1:06
Shot: Pullback – Hobo and Boy Riding Atop the Train
Role: Lead Lighting/Compositing

Designed and executed a dynamic lighting rig to simulate the warm, flickering light of the Hobo’s campfire, adapting it across story beats. As Lighting Lead, I lit and composited my own shots while guiding a team of eight artists, providing both technical and creative direction. This sequence balanced subtlety and storytelling—drawing the viewer’s eye to the nuanced motion capture performances.

Nickelodeon — Monster High (Gen 3)
Timestamp: 1:07
Shot: Students Open a Mysterious Portal – Season 1
Role: Lighting, Compositing, and FX Director

Created an ambient underground lighting setup to support the reveal, allowing the portal itself to emerge as the dominant light source. Designed the portal with multiple layered FX elements to enhance integration and deliver a sense of epic scale. Lighting and compositing were crafted to ground the students in the scene while amplifying the supernatural moment.

Sony Imageworks —The Polar Express
Timestamp: 1:08
Shot: Toy Train Reflections – Christmas Morning Sequence
Role: Lead Lighting/Compositing

As lead lighter for the finale, I supervised a team of eight while lighting and compositing the opening shot of the “Christmas Morning” sequence. With no production-ready ray tracing available in RenderMan at the time, I developed a custom reflection technique using six cameras parented to the moving train, simulating realistic environmental reflections as it traveled from tunnel to under the Christmas tree.

Disney — Frozen (Oscar Winner – Best Animated Feature)
Timestamp: 1:11
Shot: Hans Reveals His True Intentions to Anna
Role: Senior Lighting Artist

Lit this dramatic turning point where Hans unexpectedly reveals his true motives to a weakened Anna. Warm firelight was used to rim-light the characters, creating a glow of apparent closeness, while the surrounding room remained in cool shadows. This contrast heightened the emotional tension and helped draw focus to the shift in character dynamics at the heart of the moment.

Disney — Tangled
Timestamp: 1
Shot: Rapunzel’s Opening Song – Multi-Sequence Dissolve
Role: Lighting/Compositing

This technically complex shot required coordinating multiple dissolving sequences within a single shot—something the pipeline wasn’t originally built to handle. I collaborated with the pipeline team to ensure proper ingestion and continuity. Given RenderMan’s per-light shadow data, lighting needed to account for adjacent shots as well. Artistically, I used depth, rim lighting, and contrast to keep Rapunzel and Pascal clearly readable against a moderately complex background.