flipping pixels is Aaron Zisman and Aaron Zisman is flipping pixels.
Maybe even as you’re reading this…
Graduating art school at the start of the millennium and into the first Dotcom “bomb,” work was scarce in NYC. As a fresh faced freelancer I cut my teeth on the first wave of reality television, spawning out of the intertwining Dotcom media companies and cable television networks. At the inevitable lulls in live action work, I freelanced at boutique animation studios, similarly popping up overnight, as it were, in the new media landscape.
In the first wave of digital technology, if you weren’t afraid to get your hands dirty under the hood, per se, one could shoot video, edit and animate with tools that only cost about as much as an inexpensive used car. As a baby Gen-Xer, I was born for this. Digital had taken the media crown.
Working largely out of NYC I’ve produced, shot, edited and/or animated on commercials, shorts, music videos, episodic television, documentary, narrative and experimental pieces.
I’ve worked on projects for large companies including MTV Animation, FUSE (previously MMUSA), Cartoon Network, IBM, Nike, Pioneer, OIAF, Colgate-Palmolive and many smaller ones too.
Educationally, I have a BFA from RISD in Film/Animation/Video, a diploma in advanced character animation from Animation Mentor and I studied at Gobelins in the 2009 summer character animation workshop and Kyle Balda masterclass. Additionally, I’ve taken coursework at Columbia, Brown and SVA, among other schools.
As an accidental punk rocker I’ve naturally gravitated towards shooting bands and artists, personally and professionally. On the professional side these include oldies like The Roots, Pink, The Cranberries, Basement Jaxx, Cypress Hill, Natalie Imbruglia, Ari Up, DJ Spooky, Train, Rusted Root, A Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Sugar Ray and several hundred more bands and artists you’ve never heard of.
My core competency is making shit- getting a project done well. Colloquially, producing. But if there’s a second one, it’s video editing. Producing and editing aside, I’ve also DPed, shot, animated character and motion projects and worked as a character designer and vis dev artist. I guess you could call me a mutant ani-preditor.
Honing my skills outside of filmmaking I’ve done extensive life drawing, photography and a bit of graphic design. I grew up as the in-house “design intern” to my father’s communication design studio, Ricochet.
Having been involved in several bands and musical projects myself, I’ve played bass and self-produced several albums with my bandmates. Music and sound design has always been an important aspect of my video work.
flipping pixels is a repository of bits of all of this and my handle for my work in the visual and motion worlds.