Marc Schwartz at Palestrini Post Production (now Bluerock).

It was 1995 at three a.m.

I had to make a 30 second spot, with just ten titles, two stills, and no music. I stayed up the night before to experiment with different ways to animate the type, so when the client came in, they just picked their favorites. We rendered the actions, edited it on the desktop, sent it to sound design, and it was done! The client loved it, and I was in love.

In 2000, I was freelancing in Munich with a team of Flame artists. We had been working on the same piece for over a week without being able to satisfy our client. On a Friday, I locked myself and ten chocolate bars in the Flame room, and two days later I delivered a complete redesign of the spot.

At the 11th hour on a national spot, I was able to save our 3D department. By using the displacement mattes and bicubic layers in Flame, way back in version 4, we were able to create an effective 3D fabric effect that a week of CGI had been unable to crack.

"Underground: Letter from an Immigrant," a short film I made about my experiences in London.

Nothing will ever top Pasi's incredible compositing in Bjork's "All is Full of Love" video, directed by Chris Cunningham.

Well...as a freelancer, it's not always easy to get near a Flame...when you haven't got a budget. So, After Effects can be a great place to start an idea. However, I still always want to get onto a Flame to finish.

The elegance of the interface. The gestural editing, the paint module, and of course...da, da, da, dah! Batch!

Never name anything "final."