Hello! I’m Max.

I’m a producer from Pittsburgh, PA who is passionate about creating interactive experiences with others. Whether the experience being created is something you can hold in your hands or a fully digital world, as a producer, I strive to make sure my team has everything they need to be creative and do their best work. As an artist, I view everything I make as a reason to play and love to explore new mediums.

I have a diverse resume that includes Assistant Facilities Manager at the Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Finisher/Woodworker for Kelly Custom Furniture, where I learned the excitement of building something with others. Wanting a career change, I decided to attend Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center where I attained the skills and qualities needed to be a great producer, artist, and teammate. Having finished my time at Deeplocal and earned my masters degree I am now looking for new adventures!

  • As a producer, I’ve used methodologies such as agile to help guide development and set project milestones with my teammates. I’ve also been the main point of contact for clients with whom I’ve helped set project expectations and, at times, help my team exceed them. I also bring hard skills to the table with experience in Notion, Jira, and Google Sheets.

  • As a producer, I like to build trust. What I bring to the people I work with is understanding, empathy, respect, and a sense of humor. I can work in teams with diverse talents and backgrounds. While I always try to stay aware of people’s limits, I am also aware of their potential. Rather than taking total control, I try to serve my team as best I can to allow them to tap into their talents.

  • I have experience with the 3D pipeline in games and animation, creating models, rigs, textures, and animations working with software like Maya, Zbrush, and Unity. Though no matter what medium I’m working with, whether it’s 3D, painting, or drawing, I always approach my creativity with a sense of play and humor.

3D Art and Tools

Experience

Team Projects

  • Fall 2022

    Built and launched Project Ecotopia, a first-person narrative game set in an optimistic, sustainable future for PC and Mac on itch.io.

    • Created production roadmap for major project milestones and facilitated stand-up meetings.

    • Collaborated with interdisciplinary team to establish workflows across art, design, sound, and programming.

    • Optimized team efficiency by tracking and assigning tasks in Trello.

    • Created and assigned detailed, prioritized bug reports in Github that enabled a smooth QA process and game polish.

    • Utilized Fmod and Github to integrate directional and spatial audio into Unity as well as a fully composed soundtrack made in Logic Pro.

    • 2nd place winner of the IEEE Game SIG Intercollegiate Competition.

  • Spring 2022

    Developed hardware prototypes that have seen continued use and helped teachers engage kids (K - 2nd grade) with light color theory.

    • -Successfully delivered product to stakeholders on time by utilizing agile methodologies during development.

    • Managed multiple stakeholders including our client and schools in the Greater Pittsburgh Area to coordinate playtests with children in the project’s intended demographic which allowed us to quickly iterate and plan for future sprints.

    • Created detailed instructional documents that and allowed teachers to successfully deploy hardware in classrooms.

Work

  • JAN-APR 2023

    -Created comprehensive Notion templates later used by production teams and studio to organize and track project progress and allowed for cooperation between departments.

    -Maintained project documentation to maintain transparency with team and allowed for a more detailed project archival post-launch.

    -Researched and communicated with vendors to meet the budgetary, engineering and creative needs of project.

    -Developed initial expenditure sheets to accommodate labor, materials, and travel expenses within stakeholder’s budget.

    -Collaborated with team of 10 to develop project for major health care company that launched in May 2023.

  • Summer 2022

    -Managed a team and created workflow to develop post-production, closed-captions of over 30 virtual sessions.

    -Maintained an essential spreadsheet containing all festival speakers, their registration status and session info.

    -Executed training and quality control sessions with all live speakers for the virtual portion of the festival.

  • 2021 - Present

    • Manage a schedule of training sessions as well as the inventory of the woodshop and paint room.

    • Communicate with the student body with protocol for using the woodshop and getting trained.

    • Collaborate with ETC faculty to develop training strategies and protocols.

  • 2016 - 2021

    • Assisted a full production furniture shop with the design, building, finishing and installation of cabinetry.

    • Interpreted client feedback to ensure their satisfaction of our product.

    • Drove decision making and impromptu design changes while in the shop and at installation sites.

Project Highlight

Producer - Project Ecotopia - Future Forgers Project Team

2nd place winner at the IEEE Game SIG Competition 2023!

Very proud to have been the producer and sound designer for the game Project Ecotopia. I was lucky enough to work with an amazing and talented team. To learn more about us follow this link.

Project Ecotoptia is a first-person narrative game that shows the development of rooftop community garden over 3 time periods as it builds to a sustainable and optimistic vision of our future.