Born in Denver, raised on the island of Kauai, I was a child heavily influenced by media. I grew up in love with music and soaked up my family's musical tastes ranging from 80's punk, jazz/soul, shoegaze, 60's war-era music, symphonic/classical music, and metal. I grew up beat oriented, with an ear for hooks, and an adoration for bending chords. 

 

As a kid, I loved to choreograph dances. I forced my class to learn a dance I made up for our elementary school graduation. Over the years I took ballet, country line, cheerleading and street/jazz dance classes.

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All the while I tinkered on the piano,  learned to play percussion in middle school band, and eventually picked up a guitar as well. Over the years I tried my hand at making music for fun on my own and occasionally with some friends. Playing things ranging from rock to techno to pop to rap.

 

I named my company after a word I heard in psychology class. I fell in love with the sound and general idea of the word "cortex."  The cerebral cortex is a large part of the brain that plays a major role in perception, cognition, thought, language and consciousness. 

 

As far as film, the television was my teacher and babysitter. I was obsessed with any form of media that stunned and struck me emotionally. Since the age of 7 I began to imagine music videos. I first fell in love with the act of filming when I decided to make a video using Barbies to reenact the Salem Witch Trials for a class in middle school which was quickly followed up by a Barbie parody of Titanic.

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As a naturally animated person I decided to try acting class in high school. I was offered the lead in the play but I turned it down after discovering that my ADHD brain couldn't successfully retain all the lines I was meant to learn. I was then given the next biggest role of stage managing. To my surprise I enjoyed the frantic environment of controlling the curtains, lighting, sound effects, props, and queuing actors.

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I took Video Production classes throughout middle and high school and fell in love. I was surprised to find that this one activity captured all my focus as I found myself filming and editing for hours. I became a passionate delinquent; skipping classes to edit videos in the media room thanks to a teacher who saw my potential and turned a blind eye. I even made videos for other students if they were struggling. The top videos from our class were shown to the school and I was proud to have two of my works chosen. I decided to continue using the word I had grown fond of and proudly stamped "Cortex Productions" on my videos.

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Skipping class took its toll. I was failing classes but the teachers refused to give up on me. I failed miserably in shop class. The math and numbers were like a foreign language to me so the teacher allowed me to make up credit if I participated in set design for the school's plays. So I stayed after school crafting props and wobbling on a shaky ladder painting 20 foot tall backdrops.

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I began to work with film outside of school at Ho'ike Public Access Television in a program called Teen TV for a couple years. We mixed and ran live tapings of local news, filmed local events, and created a Teen TV segment including our own skits that were aired locally. I achieved small island fame and was recognized for my comedy and effectively cheap special effects. 

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Colombia University was the goal in mind out of high school. I tested the waters by taking a film appreciation course at a community college. Although I was passionate about the subject, I couldn't function in the academic environment of paperwork and tests. Not to mention the astounding amount of money required. With fears that my creativity would be stifled with rules and that a potentially low GPA would hold me back in credibility, I decided to find other avenues of learning new filming and editing skills. I decided to go back to Ho'ike for another year to brush up on the latest cameras and editing software before moving back to Denver.

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YouTube became my best friend. In ten years, I posted over 140 videos to my personal YouTube page including vlogs, unofficial music videos, skits, reviews, local events, shorts and how to's. Without ever intending to gain an audience, I accumulated 245 subscribers with my most popular video reaching 65k views.

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I began getting frustrated as my inspiration and desire to make better videos grew. I didn't have any equipment and my editing software was subpar. I wanted to make music videos that would stop getting flagged as copywritten and desperately wanted to stop being the only person acting in my videos.

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Then I met my ex-wife Nicole Disney; author and martial artist. One day it clicked that I should just try to focus on making a career out of my true passion of filming music videos. Nicole responded with supportive, encouraging words and a lot of equipment! She is my right hand with productions as she succeeds where I fail and vice versa. Her structure plus my creativity yin and yangs us into a strong team with the same powerful vision.

 

The word Cortex has grown in popularity since I first fell for it and I have since seen bands and businesses use the word. I knew it wouldn't survive the name battle so I decided to add on one more part. I decided to use my birth year 86 and it doubled as a term for being rid of something. I liked the play on words like we were creating mind blowing content and a reference to my own damaged cortex.

 

Cortex 86'd Productions was born. The goal simple: make a kickass video

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