My Skills.
I have built up a wide variety of skills since leaving school, heading off to college and working at several jobs. Here are a few of them that need a mention.

Film-making -
Ever since I was a young boy I would always be creating short films with my brothers using our dad's Super8 camcorder and while these films were never going to win any Oscars they did help me understand the simple basics of shooting with a camera early on so that I would have an advantage later on in life. Several years later and after finishing four years worth of study on the art of filmmaking, I have found myself able to go through the entire filmmaking process with relative ease to come up with a superior end product. Examples of this can be found across my entire website but most notably are my two main short films, BartonCC and Assassins Eye.

Computer Generated Visual Effects -
I first found out that I was capable of creating visual effects on my own when I was still in school almost 10 years ago, Phil Smith and I first started trying out the effects with a simple webcam and then painting on crude effects to each frame of the footage (little did we know that this was our first foray into rotoscoping). The years after that I kept on learning about the intricacies of visual effects and how the professionals did it and how I could replicate the same effect (I have CDs loaded to the brim with VFX tests that I have done over the years), along the way I also decided to delve into the 3d side of things and learnt how to model, animate and then fully render CG objects to look convincing enough against real-life footage. My latest work can be seen all across my website and is a testament to all the hard work and long nights that I have spent huddled over my computer just trying to create something that looks cool.

Web Design and Creation -
As you can see from this beautiful looking website that you are currently casting your eyes over, I am capable of creating websites and maintaining them as well as uploading new information and updating old information. Many years ago I had a small Geocities website, but it wasn't until I got a job at Meroncourt that I dived right into HTML editing and found myself quite at home with all the technical areas. I also had to design email-newsletters every week that would be sent out to customers so they could see the latest new products, using nothing but the most basic HTML editor. Recently I have just got my feet wet with Flash animations and its many powerful features. Examples of the websites I have helped build from the ground up are lightsage.net, scott-tierney.com and soon dominic-tierney.co.uk, whilst at Meroncourt I was charged with administrating their main website as well as their sister site - Powerdrive-computers.com

Acting -
While not my most impressive skill, I can still step out in front of the camera and convincingly act to any circumstance that is needed, my year of training in Performing Arts certainly helped this where I would have to stand in front of a large audience and perform (back when I dreamt of becoming a professional actor instead of filmmaker). While this helped myself when I wanted to film a quick FX test and needed an actor, it also helped a few friends of mine who wanted someone/anyone to stand in front of the camera and tell a story while they could be behind the camera and direct it. Plus it also helped me become a better character animator as it made me understand poses, levels, focus and all those technical things that I wouldn't have found out otherwise.

Advanced Computer Repairing -
Whilst I don't have any sort of official qualification on how to fix computers, I do have advanced knowledge on how to fix, repair, upgrade, modify and build a new computer from scratch. Ever since we got our first family computer almost 10 years ago, I was always trying to figure out how it worked and what made it tick, sometimes by casual observation and research, sometimes by simply cracking open the case. As such I am now able to build a fully working computer from the ground up and have done so on five of my personal computers with a few more still in the pipeline. I also have a keen interest in modifying computers to make them unique, such as adding personal fans or even giving the case a makeover with a paint job.

Hobbies.
Obviously one of my main hobbies is to create films and visual effects for them, however I also do other things that get me away from the computer such as gardening when the weather is favourable and sometimes I even like to go for strolls in the country. To relax I also tend to do a bit of gaming, particularly on World of Warcraft (of which I can bore most people stupid with my knowledge of the lore). I also tend to read novels and plan on re-reading the Lord of the Rings soon.