Tom Arndt(1945-2012)
- Animation Department
- Visual Effects
- Art Department
Tom Arndt was born in 1945 in Portland, Oregon. Tom inherited his life
long passion for film from his parents. When he was 7 months old, his
parents Bud and Mary Arndt, started what they called the "Circuit
Theater." With a Bell and Howell movie projector and a 8' X 10' screen,
they traveled to towns near Baker, Oregon to show movies. They charged
admission. In high school, Tom became a magician. He honed his
performance skills through a tour of Minnesota and Alaska shortly after
graduating from high school. He was a member of the Society of American
Magicians his entire life and was president of the Portland Chapter in
1975. During the Vietnam War Tom served in the U.S. Navy, on a diesel
submarine. His personal animated films, Lavender and Bloom, have an
anti-war theme. Tom graduated from Portland State University with a
B.A. in Painting. Tom began to teach himself stop motion and cartoon
animation while still in college. In the 1980's Tom worked as animator
on music videos among which are Paul Simon's The Boy in the Bubble and
Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone. Tom animated the skeleton of the
Elephant Man that Michael Jackson dances to in this video. Leave Me
Alone won a Grammy for Best Short Music Video in 1990. Tom was visual
effects supervisor for Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho which was
released in 1991. Tom was a render artist for Lucas Art's The Curse of
Monkey Island 3. From 2005-2012, He was a full time instructor of
animation and visual effects at the Academy of Art University in San
Francisco.