I was born in San Francisco, California, and would grow up in the East Bay with many artists in my family, including writers, musicians, painters, and indie filmmakers. From a very early age I expressed interest in art and storytelling. As a teenager I knew I wanted to do art for a living, watching the credits for Regular Show was when it clicked that doing art was a normal job that I could actually do. But, from 2D animation to comic books, it took some time to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. I would graduate high school in 2014.
At this point, I knew I wanted to work in animation. But I still needed to explore more to pick between 2D, 3D, stop-motion, storyboarding, 3D modelling, or many of the other parts of the pipeline. I also wasn't sure if I wanted to go a 4-year school, a faster kind of school, or just self-study. So I used my time in community college to explore aspects of animation, take some basic math and English credits in case I would need them, and also took some classes in subjects that interested me, such as philosophy, psychology, and anthropology. I would also be working several part-time jobs and gigs during this time. I worked in a frozen yogourt store, Yolo Berry Yogourt, and I would basically be running the entire store by myself during my shift. I would be the cashier but would also have to prep the fruit and other toppings, the yogourt itself, and also keep the store clean. When it went out of business, I would work for Grassroots Campaigns as a recruiter, which is a fancy word for walking around all over the Bay Area to hand out flyers and tape up posters, which were meant to get more people to work as canvassers (fundraising money for social causes.) This would lead to a few local businesses asking me if I could also hand out coupons for them. I would also do independent art commissions for a few different clients across this time. I would continue this until I got a partial scholarship to Vancouver Film School.
I went through Vancouver Film School's 3D Animation & VFX program, where I would focus in 3D modelling and surfacing. I was entirely focused on school at this point. I wanted nothing else but to improve my art. I would start the program in August 2016 and end in August 2017.
VFS, being a 1-year program, was not enough to get a Post-Graduate Work Permit (PGWP). I was really hoping that if I just applied to enough places then at least one of them would sponsor me. In order to get sponsored, it's not enough to just be good enough for a job, but I also have to be significantly better than any Canadian applicant, since that was the law where the employer would have to prioritize Canadian applicants before they can sponsor anybody.
I gave myself until the New Year to find a job, and after I would end up going back to California. I had plans to go back to Canada to study at BCIT, which would get me a PGWP. My grandma, who had dementia and osteoporosis, would need a caretaker. At this time I would do a bit of independent work, since she really liked watching movies and I could easily work on my laptop while watching her. This is when I would learn Blender and other free alternatives to software. I would work with a small, now-defunct indie game studio called Horizon Fire Productions, working on a game that never ended up being completed. My grandma would take priority, though, so I didn't do as much art as I would like, but I'm very glad I did it. I shared a bedroom with her growing up, both of my parents worked so she would often take care of me while they were busy, and she definitely had a hand in raising me. I'm really happy I had the chance to spend time with her and take care of her while she was still here.
I would move back to Canada towards the end of 2018 to study Business Management at BCIT. This program would last about 6 months and I would get my PGWP after. While the business skills I learned can come in handy, after this program I was more certain than ever that animation is the career path for me.
After a couple months of job hunting after BCIT, I would have a recruiter reach out to me and offer me a job as a QA Tester at The Coalition. I would get very familiar with a professional game production environment, as well as software relevant to the job such as Jira, Teams, PIX Capture. I had a really good time and would like to go back, although after all this time I would really want to get an art role. After working there for about a year, I would talk to an immigration lawyer about how to get Permanent Residency. That was when I found out that I likely did not have enough points to get PR, but that I could if I got a bachelor's degree. I would decide to set up a profile in hopes that I get lucky, because they pick a random number every month, but it was very unlikely that the number they picked would be low enough to include me. So, I would make plans to go back to school. I would continue working at The Coalition until the office closed for the holidays in December, so I worked there for about a year and a half.
Because of my previous schooling, I got to skip some classes at ECUAD and start in January 2021, just a few weeks after my time at The Coalition ended. Needing to go back to school, to a 4-year school especially, was really when it sunk in for me that my career is a marathon, not a sprint. I started to really value balance in my life and taking care of my health. I would also decide to take every class seriously, not just the few classes that I thought would directly contribute to a future job. I once again started to explore the possibility of the other parts of the animation pipeline. Rigging finally clicked for me, which made me really excited at first. I changed my focus to that for about 6 months. But what stuck with me longer was character animation. After having a decent amount of knowledge in many parts of the pipeline, I can say that animation is the most fun, and the thing I can imagine myself doing the longest.
Halfway through, I would actually get very lucky, and the points requirement for Permanent Residency dropped really low one month, so I was able to get my PR. I had the option to drop out at this point, but I figured I would go ahead and finish what I started and use the opportunity to improve myself.
I would also work at Lowe's as a cashier for a few months in 2021, before getting a job on my campus, working in the kitchen in the school cafeteria. This was a very good part-time job since I wouldn't have to commute to a third place. After work I would go upstairs to the animation lab even if I was tired, and would usually end up getting at least something done. Outside of just taking classes more seriously, I also wanted more balance in my life than just work or school. I have a much better social life now than I did at VFS, I participate in school events and help run a club, the Animation of the World Club. I also started doing martial arts again, exercise more in general, cook more often, and started going to church, where I would eventually start volunteering to operate the cameras for their livestream.
I hope that clears things up! I am now a recent graduate of ECUAD and working part time in the Basically Good Media Lab. This is giving me the opportunity to learn Unreal Engine. I am meant to be doing PreVis, but the director wants it to be very detailed and pretty. So I am also editing free assets and textures that I find online in order to fit the director's vision, doing VFX such as fog, fully rendering shots with nice lighting, and video editing. Since it's only part time, I'm still looking for other roles.