Influenced and inspired at the age of 12 by such films as the 1933 “King Kong” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Mark Sullivan saved money earned from mowing Clintonville lawns and bought a Super 8mm camera and projector. With friends in the neighborhood, Mark made short films that usually had scenes featuring animated clay dinosaurs, miniature train wrecks, and flying saucers.

Mark studied painting and illustration at the Columbus College of Art and Design, and spent several years in his parent’s basement photographing a 16mm demonstration reel of stop motion animation and matte painting effects shots. He then moved to Los Angeles in 1982 hoping to find work related to his interests.

The timing turned out to be good: veteran matte artist and animator Jim Danforth had just signed a contract with Columbia to create matte shots for the televsion series “Bring ‘Em Back Alive”, and was sufficiently impressed by Mark’s reel to hire him as an assistant.

Over the years. Mark has worked as a matte painting artist at such companies as Dream Quest and Industrial Light and Magic, as well as running his own freelance studio located in the industrial flats area of Berkeley, California. Some of the films he has worked on include: “Rainman," “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Bugsy,” “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “Kundun,” “Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones,” and “Apocalypto”.

Mark was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the 1991 film “Hook”. After moving back to Ohio in 1999, Mark has primarily been involved in creating pre-production design art for animated films such as “Polar Express” and “Monster House”.

Mark still experiments with animation and matte paintings for his own short film projects.

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