My name is Ahmed Bahaa Hassan. I was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, and it’s where I have lived most of my life. As I was growing up, my favourite subjects in school were art, math, physics, and geometry. As a natural destination for a kid in Egypt with those interests, I went to college to study architecture, and then to urban design. While I was in college, I started self-learning 3D and doing architectural visualisation.

Soon after I graduated from college, my career started shifting gradually. After 2 months of working as a junior architect at a respected firm, I took a job as a 3D artist and architect. I did not really do any architecture work there. At the same time I realised that my passion for CGI is greater than that for architecture. Not so long after working there, I decided to change my career entirely and permanently leave architecture. I left for another small studio that does TV commercials and small projects here and there. All I knew before that was lighting, shading, and modeling. It was a chance for me to explore into something that I really wanted to do, effects.

I worked in a few studios in Egypt for a couple of years. BTS, Aroma, and Grafica. Working so hard and so enthusiastically, I had in my hands a rich show-reel in a relatively short time. I was offered an opportunity to work in Bangkok, Thailand on a feature film. Unfortunately I did not do well taking advantage of this opportunity. In Egypt, I did some international freelancing, one of which was the graphics for the games Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy for Sony Pictures Digital.

Working in Egyptian studios doing TV commercials was not of my highest dreams. I was looking all over the world for something better. In 2007 I got a job offer from Tigar Hare Studios to do effects on ‘Brutal Legend’ game cinematic. I worked really hard so I can prove myself. ‘Brutal Legend’ had so many effects, almost all of them were done by me. That was my first step in Los Angeles. I met a lot of people at TH that liked my work, and my professional network in LA started to come to life.

I stayed in LA looking for a job. TH didn’t have more work for me at the time after doing 2 shows with them. It took me quite some time to finally find a job at Cine-Fn. Knowing that I have no experience in movies, Cine-Fn made it possible for me to work on my first feature film, ‘Nim’s Island’. As I was finishing up my work, I was accepted to work in Digital Dimension. There I worked on many movies, ‘Pink Panther 2’, ‘Mirrors’, ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’, and ‘The Warrior’s Way’. Working there was utilising and teaching me a variety of skills. As Digital Dimension was unfortunately closing their office in LA, Uncharted Territory was hiring effects people to work on ‘2012’. I was lucky to get an interview and be accepted. There, I met some of the best 3dsmax FX artists in the industry. It was quite a fun learning experience for me.

Following ‘2012’ I experienced a long time of unemployment. It was not the best time in my career, but I took advantage of the time to learn Houdini and take a course in Python. Houdini has become my favorite piece of software. I was looking for Houdini jobs at the time. Motion Theory hired me as a Houdini artist despite my lake of experience with the software. A friend’s recommendation helped in getting the job. I did not let them down. I worked with them on Disney’s ‘World of Color’ TV spot and Katy Perry’s ‘California Gurls’. The main effects in ‘World of Color’ were made with RealFlow, but most of the Houdini effects were done by me. Recommendation played a key role again in my career as it got me an interview at Sony Pictures Imageworks. I worked there as a FX TD on ‘Green Lantern’. Working with so many talented Houdini artists was an amazing experience. I am looking forward to going there again to work on ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’...

This is where I stand now in my career. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without certain people in my life. I am grateful to everyone who has ever supported me, recommended me, or gave me a first chance.