Adam McDaniel is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, and writer. He is also an unapologetic nerd and movie geek.

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Growing up in Connecticut and New Jersey, he was drawing at an early age and won several local and regional art competitions. At the start of his junior year in high school, he sought out a two-year television production and editing internship with a local cable company; he was the youngest intern they ever had at that time.

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McDaniel then attended Vassar College, where he won honors at various festivals for his student film work, and received the college's academic film and cinematography prize upon graduation. (He also wrote and directed a three-hour stage play that had the misfortune of opening the same night as an on-campus Billy Joel concert.)

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Following college, McDaniel served as a technical director and set designer for several theatrical stage shows, and as a production designer and cinematographer for independent films and documentaries.

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Since moving to Los Angeles, he has worked extensively in film and television, with considerable emphasis on post production, marketing, promotions, advertising, and research. His work history includes such companies as Ascent Media, Big Ticket Television, Revolution Studios, and Columbia College Hollywood – the latter where he helped the film school with a new web and marketing relaunch, and refined a cost effective outreach program for new prospective students throughout Southern California.

 

During twelve years at Warner Bros., his work ranged from performing an extensive overhaul of the Digital Distribution team’s extensive digital art marketing library, to overseeing and coordinating the deliveries of artwork to clients worldwide. He also serviced worldwide end-to-end client onboarding for WB Technology’s Client Relations team.

 

He's currently a project manager for digital graphics and effects at DELUXE in Burbank, where he helped manage such high-profile projects as WHEEL OF TIME, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, and digital key art for Disney.

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McDaniel has experience in 2D and hand-drawn animation, motion graphics, and both digital and traditional painting. His artwork has been featured in several galleries and publications, including a film soundtrack release by Intrada Music, and at special events held by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Paris Games, The Newport Beach Film Festival, and Los Angeles' Secret Movie Club.

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He studied traditional, hand-drawn animation techniques in a year-long program under the tutelage of Don Bluth (THE SECRET OF NIMH, AN AMERICAN TAIL).

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As a writer, McDaniel's screenplays have garnered nearly 40 festival and contest honors, and coverage in entertainment website Aint It Cool News. His first novel, How To Succeed in Heaven Without Really Dying, was published in 2002.

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McDaniel's definitive website about American illustrator and movie poster artist Richard Amsel (The Sting, The Dark Crystal, Raiders of the Lost Ark) helped to rekindle awareness of the late artist's work. McDaniel is currently filming a feature length documentary on Amsel's life and career, through his company, CINEMALAD PRODUCTIONS. McDaniel traveled extensively throughout the United States, conducting over 50 interviews with Amsel's family, friends, colleagues, classmates, and art collectors, as well as new generations of artists whom Amsel inspired.

 

The documentary AMSEL: ILLUSTRATOR OF THE LOST ART is the culmination of over a decade's worth of research into Amsel's life and creative oeuvre..