Resume
Johnny Kim
AI filmmaker · creative technologist
Bangkok, Thailand (U.S. citizen) · info@animgeek.com · LinkedIn
Download PDF ↓I make finished branded films with generative AI — concept through final master, on my own. What separates my work is the production system rather than any single shot: locked character references, deterministic grading in post, and shot plans written before a frame is generated. That’s what holds character, product and setting consistent across a sequence, which is where most generative video falls apart. Twenty-five years in software engineering and 3D technical art behind it, including motion capture and Unreal pipeline tooling.
Selected work
The Someday Ticket — Volkswagen ID. Buzz 30-second spec spot
- Dual-era narrative spanning fifty years; one couple cast young, then aged through image-reference editing, holding facial identity across both eras.
- Single unifying film grade built in DaVinci Resolve and keyframed to dissolve mid-film across a hand-matched cut. Delivered to exact 30-second spec.
The Last Boat — Toyota Tacoma 30-second spec spot
- Bait-and-switch comedy built on strict shot-family segregation: two visually isolated coverage sets used to conceal a reveal until a single hard cut.
- Both spots concepted, produced, edited, graded and delivered solo in nine days.
Johnny Ruins Movies ongoing original series
- Recurring-character comedy series with a locked visual identity held across 30+ scripted scenes and multiple recurring cast members, produced on a repeatable batch pipeline.
- Individual episodes run 20–40 seconds and ship every one to two days, delivered in both 16:9 and 9:16.
Core capabilities
- Generative video
- Seedance, Kling, Veo, Higgsfield, RunwayML, Luma, ComfyUI, Topaz Video AI
- Generative image
- Nano Banana Pro, Seedream, Flux, Imagen, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Magnific / Freepik
- AI production
- Character reference systems, previsualization and burst-frame storyboarding, shot planning, prompt architecture, LLM and MCP tool integration
- 3D & technical art
- Unreal Engine (UEFN, Motion Design), MetaHumans, Maya, Blender, ZBrush, Substance Painter
- Motion capture
- Faceware, Rokoko, Perception Neuron, MotionBuilder, iClone, KeenTools; facial and body mocap plus hand-keyed animation
- Post & finishing
- DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator; color grading, sound design, voice-over
- Engineering
- Python (PySide, PyQt, Django), C#, C++, JavaScript / TypeScript, React, Vue, PostgreSQL, Docker, Git, CI/CD
Experience
AI Filmmaker & Technical Artist — AnimGeek 2016 – present
Independent practice. Full-time focus on AI film production since 2024.
- Produce end-to-end AI video — concept, script, character design, generation, edit, grade and sound — for branded spots, narrative shorts and serialized vertical drama.
- Developed a reference-locking methodology that maintains character, product and setting consistency across multi-shot sequences.
- Deliver complete 30-second branded spots solo, concept to final master, in under two weeks.
Technical Artist, Motion Capture — Faceware Technologies 2021 – 2024
- Rewrote a Python animation-transfer script as an Unreal C++ plugin, reducing transfer time by more than 10×.
- Built a headless, unattended Unreal pipeline (Python / PyQt) for automated facial-animation capture and MetaHuman video rendering.
- Shipped batch-processing tooling in PySide that let non-technical staff process multiple mocap recordings without engineering support.
- Led facial-animation R&D on MetaHuman and Fortnite characters in UEFN, including mocap-driven likeness recreation for product demos.
- Built and administered internal CRM modules (Python, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, Docker) and integrated third-party APIs.
Technical Artist, AR — Image Metrics 2019 – 2021
- Built AR prototypes and demo scenes in Unity, Maya and Blender for a commercial facial-tracking mobile SDK.
- Test-built and troubleshot facial and body-tracking SDKs across Android, iOS, React Native, Xamarin and Unity.
- Provided client-facing technical guidance in a technical account management capacity.
Earlier engineering & game development 2006 – 2019
Promenade Software (C#/.NET medical device applications; Django and Python patient-record backends), Candy Lab AR (Unity AR technical lead), Golden Rat Studios (Unity mobile games), Fujitsu (Unity automotive dashboard prototypes). Prior consulting for Boeing, Foot Locker, ITG and Guidance, building database-driven e-commerce platforms for Fortune 500 clients.
Education
University of California, Los Angeles — B.A., Economics