Steven Ford

Current

• lecturer at Breda University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of International Game Architecture and Design (IGAD)
• lecturer at NHTV University of Applied Science
• Creative Director at Eventyre Productions (Sole Proprietorship)

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Past

• art director / creative manager at medxplore & milestep
• Instuctor at U Mass Lowel
• Character TD at American Animation Studios

• Application Engineer at Great Eastern Technology
• Instructor at Boston University’s Center of Digital Imagining Arts
• Technical Director at Finale Studios
• Chairman/ Proffessor MFA Program/ Proffessor BFA at International Fine Arts College now Miami International University of Art and Design,
• Rush Hour at 3D Artist
• Instructor at Mass Art,
• 3D Animator at Alien -Tec
• Art Director, Computer Animator at Rubin Tarrant Productions
• Intern at The Big Machine Studios
• Art Director, Storyboard Artist at Eastman Kodak
• Conceptual Designer, Storyboard Artist at Hasbro Interactive
• Director of Digital Art at Rochester Institute of Technology

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Education

• Rochester Institute of Technology
• University of Hartford

Recommended

4 people have recommended Steven

Connections

201 connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Steven Ford’s Summary

I have done a bit of everything. Maya Generalist fits me best. I have worked as an Art Director, Storyboard artist, FX animator Character Technical Director. This last year I had a minute long animation in SIGGRAPH with 12 dancing singing furry bears! Oh I taught animation for 6 years and was a the department chair for a while. That scratches the surface but it is a summary.

Steven Ford’s Specialties:

Shading networks mental ray. character rigging, storyboarding and project management. oh and video Editing, and compositing. Teaching and explain tech to people.

Steven Ford’s Experience

• lecturer

  Breda University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of International Game Architecture and Design (IGAD)

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  2008 — Present (1 year)

• lecturer

  NHTV University of Applied Science

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  2008 — Present (1 year)

• Creative Director

  Eventyre Productions (Sole Proprietorship)

  (Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Animation industry)

  May 2003 — Present (6 years 3 months)

  Wrote/Directed and Animated “Sharing Bears” one minute short to Tom Lehrers “I got it from Agnus” Accepted into the SIGGRAPH 2006 Animation Festival.
  Medical animation of root canal demonstrating new tools for ActiV GP.
  Wrote/Directed and Animated French Style an 3 minute toon rendered short.
  Storyboards for WGBHs “American Experience” on Biological warfare.
  Miami Herald full page illustration for the “Latin Music festival.”

• art director / creative manager

  medxplore & milestep

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  May 2007 — June 2008 (1 year 2 months)

  Responsible for project planning, resources management, working the cameramen, contracting and managing freelancers, storyboarding the films, creating special effects using Maya, Photoshop, combustion, composting FX, motion tracking and video editing. Medical animation. Clients Glaxso-Smith-Kline. Weyth, Acomplia, Boeringer-Ingels. Statcraft, Skanska.

• Instuctor

  U Mass Lowel

  (Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Animation industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  teaching Autodesk Maya to Graphic Design students.

• Character TD

  American Animation Studios

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Animation industry)

  September 2006 — January 2007 (5 months)

  TD I do what ever keeps everyone else working. Pipeline Design. managing outher artists. Charcter rigging, FX compositing.

• Application Engineer

  Great Eastern Technology

  (Public Company; 1-10 employees; Animation industry)

  2006 — 2007 (1 year)

  Custom Maya training for: Timberland shoes, the Boston Police Forensics Department, and Springfield college, LaMitre Vascular inc,Green Monster Games Digizyme. Wrote converter for Solidworks to Maya.

• Instructor

  Boston University’s Center of Digital Imagining Arts

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Animation industry)

  August 2005 — September 2006 (1 year 2 months)

  Teaching 3D animation using Alias Maya , specifically the introduction modules Character rigging , lighting and texturing. Advanced Texturing II UV mapping and Photoshop. Modeling one Poly Models, Modeling 2 Nurbs Mechanical Modeling.
  Ran 2week 3d animation summer camp.

• Technical Director

  Finale Studios

  (Animation industry)

  December 2001 — August 2005 (3 years 9 months)

  Ga-sing project - Technical Director- Rigging Department Head responsible for over seeing other two riggers as well as rigging the following characters; Steve Jackson, Erick Covington, Brad Porter, Steve Thomas,Buzz Lightbeer, and the Queen. Consultant on the budget and pre-production.
  Rigging of Horse, Wolverine, Fish, Lizard, Book and a Gate.
  “Clubhouse Chronicles” project modeled the little girls bed room set and the tree house set and 3 cars, and rigged Martha character.

• Chairman/ Proffessor MFA Program/ Proffessor BFA

  International Fine Arts College now Miami International University of Art and Design,

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; Animation industry)

  December 1998 — August 2005 (6 years 9 months)

  Professor MFA Program
  Teaching all levels of the MFA in Computer Animation, Classes using Maya, Intro to Animation Production, and Advanced Animation Production. Animation Studies, graduate thesis 1,2,3 Innovative and Essential Animation Studio, and Final Cut. Graduate Theory and Criticism, Storyboarding, 2D-Computer animation using US-Animation.
  Managed Thesis projects, drafted thesis criteria and structured thesis review boards.
  
  Chairman of Animation Dept
  Responsible for scheduling faculty and classes. Scheduled Computer Animation Department using Maya Software for 3D sorting of Class rooms, faculty and students and course .
  Rewrote BFA and MFA curriculums.
  
  Professor BFA Program
  Advanced Techniques in Computer Animation, Project Management, Modeling One, Advanced Modeling, Animation, Concept Development, and Storyboarding, Introduction to Computer Animation. History of Animation, Digital Imaging, Advanced Shading Networks 1&2.

• Rush Hour

  3D Artist

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Animation industry)

  December 2004 — June 2005 (7 months)

  Created 3D animations for Stacker 2 and Slim Quick diet pill commercials. Designed logo animation for Norwegian Cruise Line commercial. Built architectural pre- visualization fly though.

• Instructor

  Mass Art,

  (Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Animation industry)

  February 2005 — May 2005 (4 months)

  Teaching 3D animation and special effects. using AutoDesk Maya software.

• 3D Animator

  Alien -Tec

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Animation industry)

  January 2003 — December 2004 (2 years)

  Royal Palm, vegetable can labels for heart of palms, asparagus and artichoke heart.
  Miami Herald “dot” com television commercials and Miami Herald dot com Spanish television commercials.

• Art Director, Computer Animator

  Rubin Tarrant Productions

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Animation industry)

  September 1997 — 2000 (3 years)

  Created special effects using Maya and Flint* for “Search for Alien Worlds” a project for the Learning Channel.
  Developed special effects storyboards for “Thank God They’re Gone” a TLC film proposal about gigantic, extinct carnivores. Created special effects storyboards for documentary film proposal “Killer Cloud”. Storyboarded proposal for TV series “Amy Prentice,” a program centered on teaching science to children.
  Storyboarded and organized a grant proposal package for the National Academy of Sciences. Then created the “Galileo Mall” a multimedia experience to be attached to the NAS web site Building the “Galileo Mall” 3D model using Maya and producing the opening animation, and gravity simulations for science experiments. As well as building 3D models of Newton and Galileo and programming interactivity of the science experiments.

• Intern

  The Big Machine Studios

  (Animation industry)

  May 1997 — June 1997 (2 months)

  Worked as an intern on Sun Microsystems “Rocketman” promotion for SIGGRAPH 97 in order to gain experience with Lightwave. Built CG models: articulated hands, a welding torch, an airlock door, and a facemask. Textured aircraft (F-14 and F-22), airlock door, and space background. Created character animation of man opening airlock. Worked as an actor for the in-house motion capture system.

• Art Director, Storyboard Artist

  Eastman Kodak

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Animation industry)

  November 1996 — April 1997 (6 months)

  Contracted to create animation showcasing the Kodak Snapshot Scanner 2 product. In order to accomplish this project, a 3D-mascot character was created and the script was rewritten so it met the project parameters. The 47 shots were storyboarded using Strata Studio and Bryce. After interviewing and selecting a post-production house, responsibilities were expanded to include setting up the production schedule and overseeing animators on a daily basis. During production phase of animation, was also responsible for creating the product interactive tutorial interface—3D art and user interactivity scripted with Lingo.

• Conceptual Designer, Storyboard Artist

  Hasbro Interactive

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Animation industry)

  January 1997 — February 1997 (2 months)

  Contracted to design the visual style and game play for Hasbro’s multimedia CD-ROM versions of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!”

• Director of Digital Art

  Rochester Institute of Technology

  (Educational Institution; 501-1000 employees; Animation industry)

  January 1994 — March 1996 (2 years 3 months)

  Animated opening title for PBS series “Creating a world of Opportunity.” Created 3D titles for numerous R.I.T. promotional videotapes. Worked with faculty to determine instructional objectives, then designed interactive presentations to explain various communications systems technologies. Created medical illustrations and animations for a series of ten sports biology videos.

Steven Ford’s Education

• Rochester Institute of Technology

  MFA , Computer Animation , 1993 — 1996

  Wrote, directed, modeled and animated Masters thesis film “North Wind” using Electrogig 3D-Go. Solved artistic, technical, and logistical problems that included storytelling, morphing and particle effect, and managing batch render sessions on multiple workstations. Set production schedules and goals. Worked on six Silicon Graphics Indy workstations for seven days a week during a year-and-a-half time period. Wrote shell scripts in Unix to handle batch file processing and archiving.
  
  Courses
  3D Animation 1, 2, 3
  Electronic Photography
  Programming in C++ 1, 2, 3
  Traditional Animation
  Masters Thesis
  Thesis Defence

• University of Hartford

  BFA , illustration , 1988 — 1992

  Undeclared minor in television production with experience in A-B editing and on line switching.
  Courses
  Advanced Television Production
  Portable Video Systems
  Traditional Animation independet study with Dennis Noland
  Advanced B/W
  Photography Color
  Photography B/W
  Technical Drafting
  Figure Drawing
  Figure Sculpture
  Portrait Sculpture
  
  Book Illustraion
  Figure Illustraion
  Editorial Illustraion
  Color Illustraion 1, 2, 3
  Illustraion Portfolio
  Advertising Illustraion
  Black and White Illustraion
  Small Business Mangement

  Activities and Societies:

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Additional Information

Steven Ford’s Interests:

hiking, running, painting, animation, NPR, BBC, British cars MGs, Austin Healeys,

Steven Ford’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch