ANIMATION FILM ART BLOG BIO

Biography of Dillon Markey
Who the Hell Puts Their Entire Life Story on the Internet?

By Dillon Markey
Los Angeles, Ca.
Monday, March 5, 2007

 

Dillon Markey was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and currently lives in Los Angeles.

After Dillon's graduation from high school in 1997, he decided to search for his Birthmother before his 18th birthday on August 6. The decision was reached after he was accepted to Hampshire College, to begin classes that September. It was incredibly easy.

That summer, Dillon saw an exhibit of Alexander Calder's wire sculptures at the National Gallery of Art and began making his own wire sculptures almost immediately.

Dillon attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachussetts from 1998 until 2002. There he concentrated on Animation and Russian Literature, while simultaneously developing his own wire sculpture style. He completed his first film, a 12 minute stop motion using foam latex puppets called "The Secret" in 2002.

After college, Dillon went home to DC for a while. He sold wire sculptures and portraits at Eastern Market near Capital Hill.

In the early summer of 2003, Dillon packed up his car and moved to Los Angeles. Totally scared and unaware of the availability of job prospects, Dillon blazed a new trail in his life. He worked at the American Film Institute as a temp, driving vans at events and operating the front desk when the receptionist was on vacation. He hustled to get web design jobs. He did some character design, computer work, drawings, library organization, whatever he could get his hands on that would put money in his pockets. Dillon had a blast!

After about a year, Dillon secured two great jobs that would make him forever less available to many of his friends. The first was to animate the AFI Festival trailer and the second was his largest order of wire sculptures to date, 200 wire flowerpots for Simple Shoes, the biggest badasses in the shoe biz.

Dillon applied to the California Institute of the Arts in 2004 and was accepted. He completed Hello, My Name is Joe, a wire sculpture stop-motion, as his first year short film. Hello, My Name is Joe has gone on to be accepted to the CalArts Experimental Animation Showcase for 2006 as well as the Philadelphia Film Festival 2007, Australia International Film Festival, and the London International Film Festival. Hopefully the hot air I put into this film will keep propelling it along for a long long time.

Dillon is currently in his second year at CalArts and is working on his thesis film - working title: The Theory of Everything, which brushes upon the meaning and experience of existence as well as the nature of the universe.

To learn more about Dillon Markey, please visit: ...um...dude, I don't know. How much more do you want to know? Just ask him.

But actually, you could visit INSPWIRE.COM to see all of his wire sculpture work.