Hi! I’m Jason!
I am a digital media expert with more than twenty years of development experience. He began his career in the mid-90’s as a video game artist at Konami, where he quickly climbed the ranks to become a lead artist. Seeking new challenges, Jason attended the Vancouver Film School to study film and storytelling where the short film he wrote, directed and produced was selected as a finalist for the BC Film Director Internship Program. With cinematic skills in hand, he returned to the game industry as a designer at Radical Entertainment, shipping several acclaimed titles including Hulk, Hulk Ultimate Destruction and Simpson’s Hit & Run.
In 2005, Jason began teaching art, design and coding at the Art Institute of Vancouver. As the lead faculty of the Game Art & Design department, he was instrumental in developing the curriculum into one of the top 10 undergraduate Game Design programs in all of North America according to the Princeton Review. After a decade of teaching, Jason returned to school himself and earned his Masters of Digital Media. Upon completing this program in December 2015, Jason had the opportunity to join the Center for Digital Media as a faculty member and to teach the Foundation of Game Design course.His other duties are as project mentor for Projects 2 and Projects 3, which includes advising on project considerations, observation of client and team meetings, and guiding 360 reviews, as well as teaching project and team skills in the PreMDM program.
Jason is deeply engaged in the local digital community, volunteering for over a decade with organizations including the Artery, IGDA, Full Indie, GameMaker Vancouver User Group, was the President of the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH chapter, and now a voting member of SPARK CG Society. He is a trusted consultant for various industry groups including Cultural Human Resources Canada, Nordicity, and New Media BC (now DigiBC). Jason also consults and develops with various research projects, such as the creation of a therapeutic Kinect-based game for children with autism to increase their social participation, and a project focusing on gamifying physiotherapy and rehab practices.
Jason is very passionate about applying game design theory to non-traditional fields and exploring new technologies.