joesparks.com : Higher : Joe Sparks Resume |
Joe Sparks <joesparks@joesparks.com> |
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Joe Sparks BIO - SUMMARY Joe Sparks is an award-winning artist, animator, musician, game developer, and San Franciscan, with a long, well-known career in the software and web publishing industry. He has developed several prominent games & entertainment products for the web and CD-ROM. His work has been the subject of feature articles in major magazines and newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, SPIN, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and hundreds more. He is best-known for his one-man show "Radiskull & Devil Doll," a flash cartoon seen by several million unique visitors and root to many spin-off products (comic book series, international book from Carlton, dolls, toys, merchandise). http://joesparks.com/radiskull His first game, Spaceship Warlock (1991), was one of the earliest & best-known multimedia CD-ROM games to combine all original animation, story, music, & game play. Spaceship Warlock is widely considered a pioneering work, and it received many awards and honors, including the "Game of the Year" award from Macworld Magazine. Sparks' next notable achievement was the Total Distortion CD-ROM game released by Pop Rocket (1995). This influential production blended creative activities with adventure gaming. Total Distortion collected several industry awards and widespread coverage in major magazines and newspapers. A few highlights: Won New Media’s Award of Excellence; The New York Times Magazine ran a 4 page story on Joe Sparks entitled "Virtual Virtuoso;" Entertainment Weekly listed the game in its top ten releases of the year; Rolling Stone placed it among the top 5 music CD-ROMs. Joe Sparks has also served as VP of R&D for Reactor (Game publisher), CEO of Pop Rocket (Game publisher), and Artist-in-Residence of Macromedia (now Adobe). For over 2 years, Sparks served as Game & Interactive Developer, Show Creator & Senior Designer for San Francisco-based shockwave.com (Most popular online games & entertainment site during Sparks’ time). For more bio info see: http://www.joesparks.com/bio PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE Central Designer, Programmer & Developer Graphics & animation for a variety of computer and console games Additional Programming & Design Video and Shows (wrote, directed, produced, shot, animated, scored, voice-over, etc.) TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY Expert: Adobe CS3 Masters Edition, FInal Cut Pro Studio (including motion, etc.), Flash Animation & Actionscript, streaming media, Director Development & Lingo Programming, and many standard art, video, and animation tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, AfterEffects, etc.). Music & audio software expert (Sonar, Cubase, SoundTrack, Garageband, and many others). Daily use of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. God with Blender 3D and other 3D tools. Decent with AJAX, Javascript, CSS, HTML. Not bad with PERL. JOB & COMPANY EXPERIENCE Joe Sparks Digital Media / joesparks.com (1998-Ongoing) - Principal. Original content developer and consultant, developer, designer and developer. Regular consultant to Apple, Adobe/Macromedia & other companies. Strong experience in advertising, working contracts for Publicis, Y&R, BBDO, Eleven, Godfrey Q & Partners, Questus, Code & Theory, and others. Regularly hired as conference speaker at trade shows such as FlashForward. Gyro International, San Francisco Office (2006 to 2008) Lead Developer, Senior Designer/Programmer/Animator, flash, actionscript, multimedia and web development, video and animation design and editing from brainstorming to execution, delivery, and on-going maintenance (site admin). Day-to-day use of Adobe CS3 Master's edition, Final Cut Pro Studio, Blender 3D. Managed many large and small projects, both solo, and as a team leader on the larger technical developments involving 4 or more flash developers. I worked on nearly every example in our portfolio here: http://gyrosf.net/ Kessler Pacific (2006) Designer and programmer on a large team. HTML + javascript + flash development & design for web sites, email campaigns, web application forms for credit cards. Stand-in role as web master for kessler worldwide. Creative design and animation for several web advertising campaigns for Washington Mutual and others. Pulse Mobile (2004-2005) Art Director for interactive mobile and web entertainment company. FUEL (2004) LA based TV advertising, motion graphics, multimedia shop LeapFrog Enterprises (2003) 3rd largest toy company in US Shockwave.com, a Macromedia company (1999-2001) Macromedia (now Adobe) (1997-1999) Pop Rocket, Inc. (1992-1996) Reactor, Inc. (1990-1991) Artificial Works (1989-1992) - Principal NASA Ames Research Center (1989-1990) - Animation, Design, Virtual Reality, Video Director Paracomp, Inc. (founding company to Macromedia) (1988-1990) EDUCATION AND TRAINING 5 years switching majors at San Francisco State University, Bakersfield, & Taft Colleges; AWARDS Macworld magazine Game of the Year (Spaceship Warlock) LINKS About Joe Sparks Flash Animation, Character Design, Show Creation, Sites by Joe Sparks |
Contact joesparks@joesparks.com |
joesparks.com : Higher : Joe Sparks Resume 2005 |
Joe Sparks <joesparks@joesparks.com> |