Adventures in Scientology

Ok so it's been a while since I posted anything in this column. I know there's thousands of people sitting at the computers just waiting for this post. A good majority of my friends are up to date with what's been going on in my life and my career either from myspace or from running into me out and about. For those that don't know... well this is for them and for myself. I'd been spending most of my time up until a month ago shooting models and working on graphics for Safeway when out of the blue I got an email from a producer at Golden Era Productions in Southern California. Apparently he had stumbled across my website and liked my effects work and asked me to call him at the studio to discuss some potential contract work. I was curious about the project and about the fact that Golden Era Productions is the production studio for the Church of Scientology. My knowledge of Scientology at the time was minimal so I checked out both the scientology wikipedia link and their scientology.org website. I found it fascinating how many urban legends there are based on Scientology. Well I called the phone number the next day and spoke with the producer for a few moments and he mentioned they were interested in possibly moving me down there to do some 3D Studio Max work. He then put me on the phone with the director of visual effects so that he and I could discuss the technical details of where my skill sets where at and so he could explain more about what the projects were that I'd be working on. After about a 10 minute conversation and him taking a look at my demo reel he asked if I'd be able to fly down there the next day. I was a little shocked at how quickly they wanted me to pick up and move down there but of course I was also thrilled to have the opportunity for a longer contract than I've been getting lately and the fact that they would be putting me up in a furnished apartment made the decision pretty easy. I ended up waiting until Monday to head down there just because I had already committed to a photo shoot for a pilot episode of a reality television show. The shoot was a lot of fun and I met some great models and interesting people. I immediately left the shoot to pack and drive down to Southern California the very next day. It was quite and adventure to pick up and move down there. I met a lot of cool artists some of which were staff at Golden Era and some who were contractors like myself. They had brought people from all over the world in to help them meet their deadline. So I spent a month there working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. By the end of that time I was finally dying for a day off to recover some sleep but when we finally were given a whole weekend off it was the end of the project so they let the majority of the artists go home until the next crunch period. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed everyone there but I was definitly becoming a zombie until I had a full day off to sleep in. I did learn a lot from the other artists and refreshed my 3D Studio Max skills as well which is nice. Now I'm back in the San Francisco bay area and I'm back to working on some Safeway things and my demo reel. I've got a pretty fun little project I gave myself that I'll post some screens and or test animations of soon.