I’ve had the honor of being the manager of the Adobe After Effects User Group for 6 years (2013-2019). It’s been a blast and I’ve thrown a bunch of Adobe sponsored events as well as animation-themed Design Week events and meetups in Portland. I’ve since passed on the reins to local PDX animation studio, Deep Sky Studios.

Reel Review / 2013

The first event was a reel review with a panel of local judges picking their favorite Student, Professional, and Studio reels.

Event flyer

AEmoji / 2014

Participants were given random emojis as the inspirational theme for their videos or animations.

Event poster art by Jason Sturgill

Alphabest / 2016

Participants were given a random letter and had to come up with one word as the title and theme of their videos or animations.

Event poster

DrAEms / 2017

Participants had to come up with dream-inspired animations.

Event poster

CuriOsity / 2018

Participants had to come up with a single word with the letter “O” along with two colors to create their video or animation.

Event poster

Retrospective / 2019

We showed off a highlight reel featuring the best of the last 5 years.

Event slide