about marc toscano

Marc Toscano Resume >>

When most people ask me what I do or ask what is a Lighter? I usually smile and say “I make pretty pictures”, and have been enjoying doing so for almost twenty years now. It was a bit of a crooked path getting to where I am today, but I have enjoyed every moment of it. While growing up in Stamford Connecticut I attended Norwalk Community College where I earned a Associates Degree in General Studies with a Mass Communications concentration. Which lead to my first steps in exploring the world, they were small steps but steps none the less. Even though it was only one state over, Providence, Rhode Island. Attending Rhode Island College gave me the opportunity to explore my more creative side and change my major to a more fine arts concentration. It was there where I fell in love with Photography, Drawing and the visual image itself. After Graduating with a B.A. Art Studio degree, Graphic Design concentration. I was ready to get out and make my way into the world, unfortunately the world decide to switch from the standard paste/ups and mechanicals to electronic prepress. I needed to go back to school, but in the process I decided to stick around a little longer, hone my skills in photography, drawing and learn some painting (as well as learn computer graphics) at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn NY. In 1992 I received my M.F.A. in Computer Graphics, Animation Concentration. My love for movies and photography skills were great assets to have especially for the animation concentration.

From there I headed west for feature film, television, and commercial at Boss Films. Which had an enormous impact on me, the people, the projects, the variety of work! Every project was different and on every project you had to learn new skills. (including surfing, snowboarding, and kickboxing) It was a great starting point and just with that experience at Boss Films I received opportunities to work at all the major studios (Warner Bros, Digital Domain, ILM, Dreamworks, ESC) as well as see the world (Japan, England, New Zealand, Canada). Every project brings opportunities to work with new people and learn something fresh about the craft of Visual FX. I have been very fortunate in my career to work on great projects and even greater people! It was there as a Digital Artist I began specializing in Color/Lighting and Compositing (beauty lighting for characters, crowds, environments and FX). But at a certain point I wasn’t learning anything new and in a technology driven industry, that’s not a good thing so I decided to try a different path. (I’m always looking for the next cool project and cool people to work with). After noticing the computing advancements, and depth of narrative in the gaming industry I decided to give that try. For the past three years I have been leveraging my lighting and compositing experience, concentrating on lighting design in environments and levels with additional involvement in Look Development and a little concept art. These days with the computer you can do anything – Film, Games, whatever…but the most amazing thing to me is that I get to do this as my job.