At 6-years-old I would go through piles of paper drawing various Pokémon. I won a school-wide contest in fourth grade for an artistic treatment of my initials, and another in fifth grade for my drawing of a superhero called "Pyro Punk", clad in baggy JNCO jeans with flames for hair and armed with a gas can 🔥

 

Despite these prestigious accolades, I was almost always dissatisfied with the quality of my work and felt limited by "analog" art.

 

But then, at age 12, a new friend introduced to Photoshop and iMovie 🤝 and I was set free 🦋 

​

My high school really only offered three classes in digital media creation—Graphics,  Advanced Graphics, and Multimedia—and I got upwards of 100% in all of them...while rarely getting above a B in my other classes 🙃

​

Last I heard, my old graphic design teacher was still showing some of my work to new students in a slideshow at the beginning of each semester.

 

I got my first job as a graphic designer the summer after I graduated making ads in the Yellow Pages (RIP 🪦) and worked consistently in the field for years, both as an employee and a freelancer.

​

I bought a Canon DSLR 📸 with my first check from that design job and it quickly became my second love 💕

 

I took everyone's prom photos and senior pictures, got really into doing headshots, and even happened into some food & product photography gigs. I've snapped probably a couple hundred thousand shots at this point, and run every one of them through Lightroom and/or Photoshop. Still can't decide whether I like taking photos or editing them more 🤔

 

I mentioned earlier that friend at 12 also introduced me to iMovie 🎬

 

Throughout high school we made a number of short (very short, often unfinished) Star Wars fan films and other no-budget videos with our friends, participating in the yearly 24-hour film competition hosted by the LDS Film Festival, and accidentally won first place in the prestigious Utah High School Film Competition in 2008 with a short Chaplinesque silent film about a lonely pizza maker turned kidnapper.

 

When it came time for college 📚 I figured that of all these creative disciplines, video production was the one where I would benefit most from professional training and resources. So I majored in Digital Media with an emphasis in Cinema Production at Utah Valley University, where I learned all the ins-and-outs of professional video production. I was one of the first students to be certified as an editor in AVID Media Composer (not that I've used it a single time since!) and worked key positions on several senior capstone projects. I left before graduating to work full-time after getting married.

​

In 2021 I came on as the Multimedia Specialist at Agility Ads, where I am currently the lead editor on video projects big and small, headshot photographer, solely responsible for all things audio, and have recently become the resident expert in AI video creation 🤖

​

Outside of work I enjoy cooking, playing music, collecting records and CDs, hosting parties, playing Xbox with my son, and traveling 💖