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| Site Name: Daniel McMillan |
| Site Contact: Daniel B. McMillan |
| Location: USA |
| Languages: English |
| Site URL: http://www.danielmcmillan.com |
| E-mail: daniel@cosmicorigins.com |
| Brief: Daniel B. McMillan is a model maker and designer from the USA whose multi-faceted talents have led to work in many industries! |
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Daniel McMillan
"I've always been building models as far back as I can remember" Daniel said, "but in 1976, winning the Science Fair in Junior High was the first time I recall that other people started to enjoy the work. A friend and I had built a miniature "Stone Henge" with a small orbiting light that represented the sun in order to depict our theory that the old ruins might have been a sun dial. We also built a robotic arm out of an Erector set, powered by a DC motor. Visitors could control the arm to pick up a glass beaker. Finally, the real kicker was 'Project T.O.T.T' (Theory on Time Travel) where I designed an 'Electron Engine," and produced a theory that proved (on paper) that a person approaching only one-third of the speed of light would travel a certain amount of minutes into the future.
Daniel was fascinated by time travel in those days, and in 1977 created a half-hour super-8 film entitled: "Time Quest" which caught the attention of teacher/mentor Joe Cash, who helped him launch the first Independent Film Study Program at Lamphere High School in Madison Heights, Michigan. After graduating high school in 1980, he studied traditional art at Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, and Macomb Community College, in Warren Michigan. While going to school, he founded "The McMillan Effect" a "Per Diem" service for Detroit-Metro area producers. "They would call me on a friday night, asking if I could build them a robin costume, a set of Roman Pillars, or two full-scale paper Tigers. Stuff like that, and they always wanted it by Monday morning it seemed."
In 1984, while serving an Internship, Daniel was offered an entry level position at Universal Images Productions as in-house storyboard artist, and worked his way up to Lead FX Artist over the next four years. "We focused on implementing our in-house Aurora Computer Graphics Station, he recalls, with edgy scripts and shooting on video or film. I also worked with Tom Hitchcock at Illuminations of Dearborn. Tom was an opponent to using Digital technology, and so Illuminations was a great place to learn traditional film production techniques, and work on high-end productions. I spent a couple of years working with Tom, implementing the traditional disciplines of 35mm Oxberry Animation using hand-drawn and painted cels, mattes, and multi-plane, but best of all was the model shop - a traditional Hollywood back-lot style model shop complete with a Linear Axis Motion-Control rig.
In the summer of 1990, Daniel ran away from Michigan, and joined Circus Circus, in Reno, Nevada. He worked "under the big-top" for Circus Entertainment, setting over 10,000 live shows over 4 years. "After so long a time sleeping on floors, collecting returnables for gas money, and 'doing whatever it takes' I could appreciate a 40 hour a week job" he said, but the inner-drive to get back on track into my first love of film fx never left me. During that time as a stage hand, in the wee hours of the night, Alberto Robles "McMillan & Robles, Ltd., and authored a feature length screenplay called "TQ." Once completed, it was obvious that we had to shelf the project until a time when computer graphics could handle such imaginative settings and the project could be marketable, but "Terminator 2" had just hit the theaters, and it was clear that there would be a time to emerge the TQ project in the future.
His stage work and prior achievements in TV commercial production earned him a mixed-media Journeyman Card with IATSE Local 363. Returning to Detroit in 1996, he worked on such prolific Theatre and Opera shows such as, "La Boheme, La Traviata, Salome, Beauty & The Beast, The Magic of David Copperfield, Romeo & Juliet. By this time, the TV & Film effect craft had largely translated into Digital, and Daniel had gone on to work with in Video Game Development, contributing to over ten published video games, such as Sierra's "The Realm Online," Legend Entertainment's "Shannara," and Outrage Entertainment's award winning "Descent 3."
Today Daniel consults for a variety of clients needs in film/TV production, game development, web-based marketing, and has also established online communities. He founded Cosmic Origins studio in November 2000 for the exploration of storytelling arts. Among the introduction of several cutting-edge projects is an online virtual world called Frontier 1859, and a feature-film space opera entitled "TQ." Through the realization of these projects, Daniel hopes to create jobs, help others meet their potential, and offer new and inspiring experiences to audiences everywhere.
He still gets an occassional call for practical miniatures from time to time, and one of the more recent commissioned peices was the "2001 Discovery Spacecraft" built from the original Lunar Models resin-kit.
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