Hello to the Steemit world from Dave Matherly ! (its about time I wrote an intro)

Hello. This is my (rather late) introduction to Steemit.

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My LinkedIN profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-matherly/0/939/477/

and my Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) page (very incomplete)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0558470/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr20

and this is my demo reel from a couple years ago.
If any of you need visuals, animations, logos... just ask, I'll see what I can do.

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I have been a special effects artist of one type or another since I began my adult life (moved from my parent's place) in 1985 at the age of 20.

I moved to Los Angeles from Louisville, and began an internship at a very large company named Boss Film Corporation. A movie called "Fright Night" was in production at the time, their schedule was in complete shambles (3 months late) and they needed extra help. I had stuck up a relationship with one of the men running the project for the company, and sent him pictures of my amateur blood & gore makeups, monster face sculptures, etc. Impressed enough to give me a try, he decided to offer me an internship.

The job mostly entailed fabricating props from rubber and plastic that would stretch and 'transform'.
It was a werewolf/vampire movie, so that was the gist of it. From that project, the company went straight into Poltergeist 2, Big Trouble in Little China, and Predator (then called "The Hunter").
That company closed its "creature shop" and I was hurled out into the wilds of the studio world.

Me on "The Hunter" working on a dummy head of Shane Black, script writer and actor.

At that time, calling the various studios to set up a meeting with somebody face to face for an interview was the only way to go. One might go the introductory letter with resume and pictures route, sure, but nobody seemed to mind the direct approach. Today, its very different.
Dropping in to say hi and introduce yourself is seriously frowned upon.
Websites take your info and then you hear nothing... ever.

Through the 1990s, my chosen means of employment worked out well. I was working more than not. And the hiatus between jobs was like a mini-vacation till the next grind began. It beat the 9 to 5 desk job any day.

Me on Nightmare On Elm Street part 4, wearing the Freddy glove on set... briefly.

Onset for the Tales From The Crypt movie "Demon Knight" making up demons... in tie dye?

Me (on the right) cleaning up a foam casting of our Lady Liberty costume from Ghostbusters 2, at George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic in 1989.

Then came Jurassic Park. EVERYTHING CHANGED.

Available work became harder to find.
Having rubber monsters in your movie seemed cheap and petty to the average producer.
Everybody wanted to go CGI digital with their special effects.
And I realized if you can beat them, join them. So I got some tutorials and taught myself some software.
My final physical (or practical) effects job was working in the mold shop at Rick Baker's Cinovation. I had worked for Rick earlier, in 1987 on Gremlins 2. But this time around the stint had included Nutty Professor 2, Life, Wild Wild West, and finally The Grinch.

In 1999 I left that field to begin working in the digital world.

Music CD Cover Art for 'Josef' his disc titled "Taken Apart" created using Lightwave 3D.

From Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" adding fire and smoke to the scene.

Me on set with my close friend Walter, he played Dr Satan in both movies, but was cut out of Rejects.

On set of Living Hell in New Mexico, painting dots on an actor's arm for 'tracking'.

Digital visual effects has been my field for the past decade or so.
Today, one person with compositing software can perform the tasks previously handled by twenty or more artists sitting at photo-enlargers, in a darkroom with a razor knife and matte boards. At Boss Film, we'd watch our dailies in the main office building's screening room. On the way there we would walk through the matte cutting department; about two dozen people working feverishly, frame by frame.
The software eliminated jobs, more so than created them.
This is most likely the overall trend in our economy.
Robots will do the same to millions more very soon.

And frankly, domestically speaking NAFTA did more harm than good.
Our film industry was in large part exported north to Canada from the late 90s into the early mid 00s.
The Canadian Federal Govt subsidizes each and every project brought to Canada by paying HALF the cost to produce it. So a US movie or TV producer get an immediate HALF OFF discount to take the work away from us. The Canadians don't work any cheaper than we do. Oh no. And why should they?
But with tax payers flipping the bill, producers see double the profit.
And people like me either move on or starve.
Thanks Slick Willie. Thanks a bundle.

That's it for the intro.
At this point if I don't stop, I'll ramble incessantly about nonsense.
(The NAFTA thing really gets me going!!)

I'm very leased to be here on Steemit, and I have great expectations for the future of this decentralized social media site. Follow me if you wish, soon I'll be posting a tutorial on how to make a human head from a box, digitally.
Like sculpting with zeros and ones.... kind of.

And I do sincerely hope our nation's favorite Peter Pan man-boy Mark Zukerberg (I'm convinced his whole persona is one massive psy-op) is sweating bullets over the rapid rise of STEEMIT!!!
Watch out fer the little guys! They sneak up on you and...