Steven Churchill

Steven Churchill began his study of photographic art while at high school in Orange, California, having a special interest in visual effects, manipulated imagery, unusual color film stocks, and creating multi-projector slide shows with music. He also pursued video production and film animation during his last two years of high school.

He continued his study of photography, film animation and motion picture special effects while at U.C. Santa Barbara. Using a 35mm optical printer, an animation stand and a motion picture optical printer there, various techniques were explored to further grow in this field.

Following college, Steven worked for a company in Orange County which had just developed a state-of-the-art optical printer camera system, and then he later worked for a company in San Diego which was producing large 30 projector multi-image slide shows. In 1982 he struck out on his own and founded the first San Diego company to produce 3-D computer animation. Clients included Coca Cola, General Dynamics, Union Oil, Southwestern Cable, Metrocast, Honda, and TV stations all over the country.

During September of 1986 and again in 1987, Steven organized, promoted and hosted two computer animation festivals at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, which were the first such shows of their kind in the world. 17,000 people paid to see these two film presentations in the theater at the museum, selling out many of the shows. The purpose was to raise public awareness of computer animation as an art form and communication medium.

In 1988 Steven produced the very first home entertainment video of computer animation ever released, called "State Of the Art Of Computer Animation". He then decided to focus the company solely on producing these videos and theatrical presentations of computer animation. Pacific Arts Video distributed this first product on VHS and Laser Disc, which was sold around the world. The video won the "Best Video Art" award from the American Film Institute at their American Video Conference Awards Show in November of 1988.

In 1990 Steven produced the first in a series of videos called "The Mind's Eye". These videos have featured the best computer animation from around the globe and have original scores created by notable music artists like Jan Hammer, Thomas Dolby, Kerry Livgren and Tangerine Dream. The four videos in this series have sold well over one million copies so far. Since then he has produced 28 different videos of computer animation, in a variety of styles and formats. Currently, the fifth "Mind's Eye" video is in production, along with several other new CGI compilation DVDs. The other key focus of his business is the company's animation destination website, www.AnimationTrip.com.