Rick Helmick: Graphic Design

gaming/animation bio

My first real project out of school before I even landed my first full time job was a freelance project working on Emmit Smith Football for the Super Nintendo. Back then things were a lot less involved and the project team was literally me doing all the graphics and animation for the game and two programmers.

After that I began work at Lightpoint Entertainment a young company that was just getting started. There I learned 3dStudio Max and Alias PowerAnimator which we used for the 3D modeling for several games we worked on with Microsoft. These graphic adventures paved the way to Disney who we started doing 3D animation work for on broadcast spots and live shows. This relationship lead Lightpoint to acquire the graphics division at Disney MGM Studios and I became the creative director leading projects that included shows for Disney Cruise Lines and the parks. In addition to our work for Disney we also did work for the gaming industry where I had the opportunity to direct cinematic sequences for games.

I eventually left the Disney-MGM lot to join Planet X(later to become Cytura) as the Director of New Media. Here I was tasked with building the new media division from its inception. This included not only functioning as Creative Director but hiring staff, setting up production processes, acquisition of hardware and client relationship management.

I spent the next few years growing the department and building successful business relationships with clients such as Disney and Microsoft. It was during this time that I had the opportunity to lead the team that built stadiums for NFL Fever 2002 from Microsoft that was for the new XBOX system. This project lead to additional work with Microsoft building environments for other Microsoft sports games.