Growing up in rural Southeast Alaska, Jed spent much of his youth helping his family with their small logging and milling business, which catered to clients seeking high-quality boat wood. Wielding chainsaws while balancing on fallen trees, hauling cables through choking brush, and moving stacks of lumber by hand, he developed a strong a work ethic, a practical hands-on approach to learning and problem-solving, and an outstanding ability to anticipate needs and accomplish tasks efficiently. Jed’s stronger interest was always in the pursuit of knowledge, however. He was schooled at home through one of Alaska’s academically challenging correspondence study programs, and he developed a formidable ability to teach himself about things that interested him. Jed has always had a strong fascination with figuring out how things work. This tendency has given him a marked proficiency in most things technical. At first this carried over into his fascination with music, specifically, the electric guitar. He designed and built two electric guitars from scratch, and played them daily. This awareness for the specific details of things, and how these details fit into larger patterns, makes Jed skilled at solving problems. This helped with his growing affinity with computers as well, which would serve him well in his later pursuits of audiovisual manipulation.
In 2004, Jed moved to Olympia, WA to attend The Evergreen State College, a school which emphasized collaborative learning and interdisciplinary study. With his aptitude for self-motivated study, Jed did quite well. He started out learning about mathematics and computer science, and was challenged and made quite a lot smarter by the intense rigorous thinking that was required. He was soon distracted by something which he found quite fascinating, exciting, and fulfilling: making movies. For 3 years he studied film theory and history, animation, and film-making, while being distracted at times with photography and electroacoustic music. Over this time, Jed’s natural ability with computers and the post-production side of film-making began to assert itself, and he began to specialize more in visual effects animation software. In his last year, he started learning Maya and Nuke, in addition to his old friend After Effects, and by the time he graduated, he had figured out what he wanted to do with his life.
Jed is so intrigued by visual effects because it is almost like creating magic. With the illusions of film, fantastic realities outside of our experience can be created, things on the edge of the possible, things which can stimulate our imaginations and instill a sense of wonder at what might be possible. In 2009, Jed moved to the Bay Area of California, and continued to learn in earnest about compositing, matchmoving, rotoscoping, and all of the associated concepts, techniques, and software. His goal is to get a job as a junior rotoscoper, so as to better learn about visual effects while getting valuable practical experience in a production environment. Meanwhile, he works as a freelance visual effects artist on music videos and short films.
Biography of Jedediah Smith
Growing up in rural Southeast Alaska, Jed spent much of his youth helping his family with their small logging and milling business, which catered to clients seeking high-quality boat wood. Wielding chainsaws while balancing on fallen trees, hauling cables through choking brush, and moving stacks of lumber by hand, he developed a strong a work ethic, a practical hands-on approach to learning and problem-solving, and an outstanding ability to anticipate needs and accomplish tasks efficiently. Jed’s stronger interest was always in the pursuit of knowledge, however. He was schooled at home through one of Alaska’s academically challenging correspondence study programs, and he developed a formidable ability to teach himself about things that interested him. Jed has always had a strong fascination with figuring out how things work. This tendency has given him a marked proficiency in most things technical. At first this carried over into his fascination with music, specifically, the electric guitar. He designed and built two electric guitars from scratch, and played them daily. This awareness for the specific details of things, and how these details fit into larger patterns, makes Jed skilled at solving problems. This helped with his growing affinity with computers as well, which would serve him well in his later pursuits of audiovisual manipulation.
In 2004, Jed moved to Olympia, WA to attend The Evergreen State College, a school which emphasized collaborative learning and interdisciplinary study. With his aptitude for self-motivated study, Jed did quite well. He started out learning about mathematics and computer science, and was challenged and made quite a lot smarter by the intense rigorous thinking that was required. He was soon distracted by something which he found quite fascinating, exciting, and fulfilling: making movies. For 3 years he studied film theory and history, animation, and film-making, while being distracted at times with photography and electroacoustic music. Over this time, Jed’s natural ability with computers and the post-production side of film-making began to assert itself, and he began to specialize more in visual effects animation software. In his last year, he started learning Maya and Nuke, in addition to his old friend After Effects, and by the time he graduated, he had figured out what he wanted to do with his life.
Jed is so intrigued by visual effects because it is almost like creating magic. With the illusions of film, fantastic realities outside of our experience can be created, things on the edge of the possible, things which can stimulate our imaginations and instill a sense of wonder at what might be possible. In 2009, Jed moved to the Bay Area of California, and continued to learn in earnest about compositing, matchmoving, rotoscoping, and all of the associated concepts, techniques, and software. His goal is to get a job as a junior rotoscoper, so as to better learn about visual effects while getting valuable practical experience in a production environment. Meanwhile, he works as a freelance visual effects artist on music videos and short films.
