Michael is a Senior Technical Director & Lighting artist who chose to earn an MFA in VFX Compositing to open up possibilities of teaching at the university level. He worked at ILM (Lucasfilm) for over 17 years before switching to full-time schooling in order to finish the degree more quickly. Mr. Rich has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from BYU and came out of their animation program before starting at ILM. He has years of experience in leadership positions. During his school work, through AAU's StudioX program, Michael was Compositing Supervisor, Compositing Lead, and a compositor on many independent industry films.