After finishing his contract at Motion Picture Company (MPC) Technicolor studios, Mazen learned some very valuable and enriching experiences. Being given the opportunity to work on movies such as “The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle” and “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” was the opportunity of a lifetime and a dream come true. The experience and knowledge he picked up while on the studio floor was more than any university or classroom can offer. Still, that being said, Mazen wouldn’t be the artist he is today without the hard work and effort he put in while at his old university.
While working on his Dynamics degree at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Mazen studied compositing, rotoscoping, lighting, texturing, and other aspects of animation and visual effects, but his main focus and passion is in FX. He works in Maya, Houdini, and RealFlow and has a strong understanding of each program. Some of his best work includes cloth, fluid, and dynamic simulations. The effects he creates blend smoothly into his shots because he looks at his shots with an artist and scientific viewpoint. His vision and his imagination reflect through his work by the amount of detail he strives to employ and pushes the bounds of his limitations, always seeking new ways to get things done.
When Mazen isn’t working, he watches a collection of movies, reads books and comics, and draws in a variety of styles to keep his mind active and imaginative. After all, it was these passions that lead him to his chosen profession. These simple acts remind him of all the hard work he put in to achieve the goal he set out as an eight year old boy, to work on movies.