Michael M. Frankel

Michael showed an early love and skill for art. At a young age his family and teachers recognized his talent and encouraged him. Michael's artwork stood out from that of his peers in attention to detail, drawing minutia such as zippers and nose hairs. He showed promise in drawing, painting, and sculpting. In 3rd grade his work was entered into a national "world peace" competition and received an "honorable mention". That same year, a papier-mâché mask that he created for an art project was selected among a few others to hang in a local restaurant. His love and interest in arts continued to middle school where he took an advanced art class focusing on sculpting. Around this time, he became interested in using computers for art and taught himself how to manipulate and re-touch photos, one pixel at a time, in Microsoft Windows 3.1 Paint Brush program. The next year while browsing in a computer store he came upon a book about 3D modeling and animation that came with a demo of a program called TrueSpace, published by a company called Caligari Corporation. He went through every tutorial in the book and learned the basics of 3D modeling and animation. In high-school he created all sorts of 3D scenes and models including a replica of his bedroom. He included 3D stills into his portfolio, along with many drawings and paintings, which helped him get accepted into the Advanced art class, bypassing the prerequisite intro classes. While in high-school he continued to pursue his interest in art and computer animation, but around the same time he began to teach himself HTML and how to use photoshop to create artwork and manipulate photos. After high school, Michael attended North Harris Community College part time. At the time he hadn't decided between a major in fine arts or computer science so he took a handful of each. At the same time that he was taking a basic programming logic class, he took a drawing class taught by animator and cartoon producer Gerard Baldwin, known for his work on the Smurfs. Eventually his interest in computers steered him toward technology and into tech support. Michael worked for years in the tech support field working for companies such as Compaq Computers, Prodigy Internet, Southwestern Bell DSL, and a local internet provider, Kingwood Cable. While working in tech support Michael continued to do freelance web design and photo restoration on the side which eventually led him, in 2005, to a project with a friend, an inventor and entrepreneur, that he was creating a website for that he had previously created some 3D mocks ups for a few patents. The website specialized in science experiments, spy technology, and self defense products as well as hosting articles about various science experiments and tests conducted by the government such as the nuclear bomb tests of the late 1950s. The client requested that the videos be water-marked so that people could be re-directed toward the website if they viewed the videos elsewhere. He hadn't worked with video editing before so he purchased a copy of Sony Vegas and a few tutorials later he had successfully watermarked over a hundred videos and uploaded them to the website and other video sharing websites. In the search for tutorials Michael met some interesting characters on Youtube and he began to watch more and more editing tutorials for Sony Vegas and eventually Adobe After Effects. Eventually, Michael started publishing his various editing experiments on YouTube and became a slightly well known vlogger in the early YouTube vlogging community. Michael attended The Art Institute of Houston from June 2008 to March 2012. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking and Video Production with a 3.72 GPA, graduating with honors cum laude. He received the Quarterly Scholarship and Award, was a member of the National Honor Technical Society, and was the President of the Film Production Club for two terms. As a student he worked in the schools equipment rental department where he re-organized the equipment and created the equipment rental sheets and was in charge of inventory. Michael distinguished himself from his classmates by his extensive work with faculty and staff. He filmed and edited many the quarter fashion shows for the fashion department and instructor Jane Hall including shows at the Galleria, Museum of Natural Science, and Houston Design Center. He also filmed several poetry readings for the poetry club and creative writing instructor and published poet, Dr. Ken Jones. He did his internship with Houston based boutique video production company, Vividmix for Dwight and Karen Cook. After his internship he worked contract with them until he graduated from the Art Institute and they hired him full time as the in-house video editor and motion graphics designer. Eventually Michael became the lead WordPress & Front End Web Designer as well as the graphic designer and photo editor for the company. Michael worked on many projects in his three years with Vividmix including industrial videos for O&G companies like Halliburton, Apache and Vallourec. He worked on various websites & print campaigns for non-profits like Boys And Girls Country and SpringSpirit Sports and others. He also created over 20 wordpress websites and micro-sites for various businesses and non-profits.