NERD’s CGI-sharp Light + Mathematics mirrors his infatuation for creating imaginary, child-like worlds full of billowing birds, scintillating squirrels and lustrous lions through each of his passion projects, as you may have seen in his roster of blockbuster movies such as Ice Age, Shrek, Harry Potter and Madagascar. But we wanted to know more…

Tell us about your NERDy obsession…
LM> Well, you know mine already. It’s animals and nature.

My wife was really surprised when we started dating that I knew the names of more trees and flowers than she did. Take me down Columbia Road Flower market and I’d do pretty well naming all the flowers on display.

I always have fresh flowers in the house. Goes the same for trees. I get really distracted by grand, beautiful trees. I even have a bit of the tree I was married underlining the inside of my wedding ring.

As for animals, I was fascinated by nearly everything about them. From their anatomy, to their behaviour. I couldn’t tell you the last five people I talked to but I could describe the last five dogs I saw. The complexity and design of the animal kingdom puts any human invention to shame.

Are there any animal or nature orientated projects you wish you could’ve been a part of?
LM> One project I wish I had been on was Jungle Book. That would have been a joy to obsess over. Animals AND flowers!

Tell us about any new projects you’ve been working on…
LM> New projects? Well, I’m wrapping up a massive VFX job through Light + Mathematics. We are the primary vendor on a SyFy Channel tv movie. It was about 90 VFX that mostly included CG storms and a CG creature (like a squid). It was brutal and exasperating. Looking forward to getting back to directing. One thing I’m pretty excited about is this November I will be shadowing a TV director for a couple of weeks, on a BBC drama. Hoping to crack into TV at some point. Also writing my second feature script.

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