When I was a kid, I wanted to be a children’s book writer.

Then one day, I wanted to be a clown.

And then one day, I went to school for live-action film production, where I fell in love with every step of the mythmaking process. There I learned how much I loved making my mom cry (in a good way, I promise), but also how bad I was at lifting heavy objects and driving U-Haul trucks. Nowadays, I write movies & moments with my drawings :) 

I feel very blessed to have had the chance to collaborate with some very inspiring people in indie video games, visual effects, immersive media, and now animation.

I do my best work when I’m playing with theme, filmmaking, people, and process!

I especially love working on productions with a cinematic film language, a style grounded in naturalistic sensibilities, and a rich emotional palette full of both heart and darkness. I'm a big sucker for genre-bending, magical realism, and anything that pushes the boundaries of storytelling.

I care a lot about making thoughtful choices and probing other artists, creatives, problem-solvers, and fellow humans for how they think too — insight lives within the invisible connections between things that may appear disparate at a glance. Metaphors are our superpowers. Imagination will set us free.

Let’s crack open weird questions! Let’s make something cool together!

- Your friendly neighborhood Kath

Los Angeles, CA, USA
kathyliu.mov {at} gmail.com

Resume

Software:

2D Design | Toon Boom Storyboard Pro | Adobe Photoshop | Blender + Grease Pencil | Flix | Adobe Illustrator | Procreate | Clip Studio Paint
3D Layout | Maya* | Blender 3D* | Sketchup | Oculus Quill (VR Paint Software)
Post-Production | After Effects | Premiere | Avid Media Composer | Final Cut
Systems | Mac | Windows

*Camera controls & lensing, 3D navigation, object transforms, basic character posing & keying.

Experience:

Storyboard Artist (Aug 2022 - Present)
Marvel Animation

• Production boards on upcoming animated series, X-Men ‘97

Storyboard Instructor (2023 - Present)
Gnomon School of VFX, Games, and Animation

Titmouse Future Directors: Official Scholarship Winner (2022)
ProjectCity.tv Mentorship Program

Story Artist (Jan 2022 - Jul 2022)
Warner Bros Animation

• Story Artist on Wings of Fire (Action/Adventure CG series, 1hour-long episodes).

  • Participated in story rooms to build upon character arcs, moments, and filmmaking/storytelling techniques for each episode. Proposed and implemented script enhancements like combining scenes, trims, and making small additions of dialogue.

  • Blender 3D/Grease Pencil storyboards + layout, rough edits to radio plays. Staged scenes in 3D space by keying movement/placement on virtual cameras & 3D character proxy models, and making camera lensing choices. Key-posed assets to build character proxy’s pose libraries, a central resource for use by all story teams. Created Grease Pencil drawings in 3D space to enhance communication of story ideas and specific character acting.

• Production boards on Batman: Caped Crusader (Action/Adventure 2D series).

Story Artist (Apr 2021 - Dec 2021)
Blizzard Entertainment

• Launch trailers, in-game cinematics, and shorts for the department of Story & Franchise Development.

• Conceptualized storyboards based on mood-boards, outlines, or scripts (depending on the project).

• Various projects for both 2D- and 3D-animation pipelines.

• Various action/adventure, fantasy, horror genres.

Freelance Storyboard Artist (Nov-Dec 2020, Feb-Mar 2021)
Dreamworks Animation Television

• Production boards on Dragons: The Nine Realms (Action/Adventure CG series)

Storyboard Revisionist (Jul 2020 - Mar 2021)
Dreamworks Animation Television

• Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (Action/Adventure CG series)

• Re-boarding and re-staging sequences from scratch, based on major script rewrites during animatic reviews.

• Fleshing out character acting over rough thumbnails from board artists or director.

Freelance Storyboard Artist (Jun 2020 - Jul 2020)
Nickelodeon Animation

• Production boards on Star Trek: Prodigy (Action/Adventure CG series)

Associate Producer (Nov 2018 - Jun 2020)
The Game Band — Downtown Los Angeles, CA

• Summary: The Game Band is an indie video game studio, featured in the March 2019 Apple Keynote. Our debut game, Where Cards Fall, was an official launch title of Apple Arcade, winner of the 2020 Apple Design Awards, winner of the Unity Game Awards’ 2019 Best Mobile Game, and nominee for Best Mobile Game at SXSW 2020. You can play the game now on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and AppleTV!

• Creative production for narrative design & story structure. Contributed to writers’ rooms and functioned as de-facto assistant story editor, working with the Creative Director, Lead Writer, and Executive Producer to craft key storylines, character arcs, and narrative themes.

• Served as the lead producer for Content Departments (design, animation, 2D & 3D art, audio). Interfaced with Executive Producer to balance Content Dept milestones with Engineering Dept status.

• Created and maintained pipeline/workflow standards for Content Departments; set delivery standards and progress-reporting procedures for production coordinators to execute day-to-day.

• Coordinated teams of up to 40, with multiple offsite collaborators and vendors across LA, San Diego, SF, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, London, New Zealand.

Production Coordinator, Pre-Visualization (Oct 2017 - Nov 2018)
The Third Floor Studios — Los Angeles, CA

• Projects: Jungle Cruise, Captain Marvel, Detective Pikachu, Lovecraft Country (HBO), Jurassic World ride previz @ Universal Studios Theme Park.

• Coordinated teams of up to 30, with cross-site teams split between various LA offices, ATL, London.

• Coordinated the ‘Asset Department’ new-initiative task force to develop a standardized workflow for central asset management; shared findings with London offices.

Freelance Filmmaker + Designer (Sep 2013 - Present)
See also: 2D Designs Samples — Selected projects below:

• Directing + Producing — Cinematic Virtual Reality Short Film / Music Video — 1969 VR. Experimental Projects Grant recipient from the Jaunt Cinematic VR Labs @ USC. Official selection: Sydney Lift-Off Online Film Fest; USC ‘First Look’ Screening; VRSC Virtual Reality Fest @ USC. Awards: USC Discovery Scholars Award (Cinematic Arts);  USC Symposium for Scholarly & Creative Work - 2nd Place Winner for Digital Media. 2016-2017.

• Directing + Producing — Cinematic Virtual Reality Short Film — XpoBlues VR. Created for the Jaunt XR Internal Hack-A-Thon, in < 48 hours. Exhibitions at Women in Games Int’l E3 after party / art gallery. 2017.

• Directing — Pinned short film. Official Selection: California Women’s Film Festival. Finalist: Los Angeles CineFest. 2016.

• 2D Production Art — Wonder Buffalo: The VR Experience, special projects at the Entertainment Technology Center @ USC, dir. Christine Berg. Exhibitions at at Sundance ‘VR on the Mountain,’ SXSW. Nominated for a Technical Emmy. 2016-2017.

• Poster Design — NAACP Pasadena x The Animation Guild’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, billboards and posters. 2021.

• Art Direction — White Horse Productions’ charity video for Shwashlock Center for the homeless. 2019.

• Motion Graphics — City National Bank training videos, via Downbeat Entertainment LLC. 2019.

• Poster Design — Fine China short film, dir. Tiffany So. Winner: HBO APA Visionaries Short Film Competition. 2019.

• Poster Design — Spitting Image short film, dir. Will Ilgen. Finalist: Burbank Film Festival, FilmQuest.

• Poster Design — Uninvited short film, dir. Ryan Wagner. Official selection: Burbank International Film Festival. 2018.

• 2D Cel Animation — HANDS. short film, dir. Zach Madden. Screened at the Ace Hotel Theater in DTLA, ‘Last Night Was a Movie’ by Bang Olufsen. 2018.

• Storyboards — Bret Easton Ellis’s thriller series The Deleted (Episodes 1-6), on Fullscreen TV’s premium SVOD service. 2017.

• 2D Cel Animation — Untitled documentary short film, dir. Yana Bille. 2017.

• Motion Illustration, End Credits — Tulip Hill short film, dir. Pete Etherington. 2016.

• Concept Design — Kansas, dir. Shane Courtney. Finalist: ‘The Next MacGyver’ TV pitches for the National Academy of Engineering. 2015.

• Lyric Music Video direction, capture, edit, graphics — King’s Castle, artist Anna Dellaria. 2014.

Education:

University of Southern California (Aug 2013 - May 2017)
Film & TV Production (BFA), Animation (BA) — Student Films

Continuing Education:

Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Arts — Weekend Workshops via The Animation Guild & Team Eido
Pitching: From Concept to Execution (May 2022, Instructor Jack Thomas)
Character Design for Animation (Dec 2021, Instructor Adam Dix)
Episodic Directing for Storyboards (Apr 2021, Instructor Pete Michels)
Cinematic & Theatrical Lighting (Oct 2021, Instructor Peter Markowski)
Timing for Animation (Jun 2021, Instructor Pete Michels)

Project City (fka. Rad How To School)
Feature Storyboarding (Instructor Maggie Kang)
Storyboarding with “The Umbrella Method” (Instructor Andy Cung)

Concept Design Academy (Fall 2019 - Present)
Storyboarding for TV Animation (Instructor Alan Wan)
Character Design 1 (Instructors Kevin Chen, Joshua James Shaw)
Architecture for World Building (Instructor Gabe Yeganyan)

Storyboard Art, Sergio Paez (Spring 2020)
Visual Storytelling Bootcamp (Online, via Sergio Paez)
Storyboard Intensive + Action Boarding (Online, via Giancarlo Volpe)

Art Center Extension (Spring 2019)
Mastering Color for Art and Designers (instructor: Rob Pastrana)