Mark De Sousa first got started in Visual Effects in 1996. Prior to that he worked in civil engineering for four and one half years when he decided to pursue his love of filmmaking and entertainment. He attended Centennial College in Toronto, Canada where he studied digital animation learning packages such as Alias PowerAnimator, Side Effects Prisms, Softimage, Wavefront Composer, and Ice. At the end of the program he was recruited by VIFX in Los Angeles, California as a 3D Technical Director. Here his tasks included effects animation such as creating smoke, fire, and debris. Also included were previsualisation and animation of vehicles. At VIFX Mark learned the next generation of software from Alias called Maya, Side Effects' Houdini, and Silicon Grail's Chalice.
Mark is currently with Sony Pictures Imageworks where he continues to work with Maya and Houdini in effects animation.

Mark's thoughts on production: While production can be quite rewarding, be prepared to sacrifice your social life! Expect long hours, little sleep, frustration, and know that Murphy's law does tend to rear it's ugly head at times! The trade off is getting to work in an industry like no other. Making pretty pictures is a hell of a way to earn a living!