From BEMIDJI to BOZEMAN:
How Cartoons and a Bank Loan Launched a Career
With four much older siblings, I basically grew up as an only child in Bemidji, Minnesota, the first city on the Mississippi. Entertaining myself in the wilds and waterways of the north woods meant my imagination was my most important toy.
Lucky for me, the 80s happened—cue an explosion of cartoons, cereals, toys, and movies—and my fate as a pop culture-loving, monster-making fanatic was sealed. As the “kid who can draw” I turned Ducktales and Rescue Rangers into my inspiration to become a future Disney animator. But the minute I saw Willow in 1988, I traded in my childhood aspirations for a career dream focused on special effects and movie magic.
At 17, I financed an exorbitant $2500 computer (with a sweet <1GB hard drive!) to edit my own videos. The very first thing I ever cut was a Pulp Fiction trailer using a VHS tape. I've been hooked on crafting sizzle reels and trailers ever since.
After film school in Montana, I cut my teeth directing live news and winning awards for creating some awesomely cheesy local commercials (babies flying in pots and fish puppets taught me more about shooting, editing and motion graphics than four years of college!). It was also my first chance to fulfill my dream of animation.
These days, I enjoy the creative freedom of remote freelance work and founded an artistic collective, The Jackalope Guild, where I feed my passion for analog vibes, retro style and pop culture to create imaginative TV art. Looking back on the last 20 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with icons like Kevin Costner and Dick Van Dyke, got arrested (for the sake of a killer sizzle reel), created a children’s cartoon and collaborated with dozens of amazing, talented, like-minded TV artists.
In the future, I want to continue to seek out fun, unique projects, revive my drawing passion to illustrate children’s books and inspire others through creativity and imagination.
Soon thereafter, I had the amazing opportunity to join a startup production company, where, over the course of a decade, I went from motion graphics artist to becoming the Creative Director. Through my work in development, I helped launch multiple shows with sizzle reels that went straight to series, proving I can turn napkin ideas into successful cinematic visions.
