Recommendations
Tim Baxter
I worked with Tim at Capital FX and later at Deluxe Digital Entertainment where he was the Film Scanning & Recording Manager
Having worked with Mark on VFX & editorial workflows for the film industry there is no other specialist that I would rather have in the team. His talent, knowledge and dedication created solutions to complex problems and helped deliver Hollywood blockbusters on time.
His understanding of collaboration across processes and departments and work ethic makes him a very valuable asset to any business.
Tim has subsequently been Director/Co-founder, and held managerial Client Relations and Business Development roles at several renouned VFX facilities including Fugitive Studios, Soho Digital Cinema (acquired by Visual Data) and Eclair
Ian Buckton
I worked with Ian at Capital FX where he was MD / Co-owner, and later at Deluxe Digital Entertainment where he was a consultant.
Mark is a true team player and helped CFX/Deluxe digital cinema become a world leader. He can think out of the box, take on any challenges and deliver a great end result.
Mark would be a great asset in any organisation and I would highly recommend him.
Ian has subsequently held a variety of consultancy and strategic advisory roles for companies such as Motion Picture Solutions (MPS)
Dave North
I worked with Dave at Signiant where he was DevOps Manager and Director of DevOps
I worked with Mark at Signiant both remotely and in person. As a solutions architect, Mark frequently came up with innovative solutions using the Signiant workfliow engine to solve complex customer problems. I was always impressed at how Mark could take the complex customer requirements and translate them into workflows that could easily be followed.
I then worked with Mark when he transistioned to a developer working on Media Shuttle. Mark picked up the concepts quickly and helped to turn Media Shuttle into the world class product it is today.
Dave has subsequently held Cloud Architect and Director of Technical Operations roles at Rewind
Darren Breeze
I worked with Darren while he was Director of Technology Development and Architecture at Discovery Networks Europe, who were clients of the company I worked for Signiant
I worked at Discovery Networks Europe where Mark provided technical support for our Signiant system. Mark initially worked with us and developed a number of complex workflows within Signiant to support our fledgling VOD system.
I found Mark to be a good lateral thinker, knowledgeable and just a pleasant bloke to deal with.
A definite asset to have on our workflow project.
Darren has subsequently held Director / Co-owner, CTO and CEO positions at companies including DAO Media Systems (UK), Yapku (HK), KSN Systems (HK & NZ) and KidsSafetyNet (HK)
Matt Rountree
I worked with Matt at Signiant where he was Senior Solutions Architect
I worked on the same team as Mark while at Signiant and mentored him on some of his early projects. I found him inquisitive, innovative, intelligent and diligent. It was pleasure to work with him.
Matt has subsequently been an Independant Consultant / Media Workflow Architect, and held Senior Software Engineer roles at companies including the National Football League (NFL) and Zixi
Henry van der Beek
I worked with Henry at Jim Henson's Creature Shop (UK), which was part of the Jim Henson Company, where he was System Administrator
I worked with Mark at Jim Henson's Creature Shop where we were both on the sys admin team, running the helpdesk. It was a pretty hectic atmosphere, a lot of production pressure and tight deadlines but Mark was great at keeping it all together, working with the team and the artists - he was very dedicated to getting the job done. There was a lot of liaising with different departments: software/developers, production, 2d/3d artists - he's great at keeping everyone together and on the same page. Our work involved a lot of bash and python, managing a lot of workstations and render farm nodes, and making sure the farm was always fully optimised. We worked on some great projects, some crazy creatures with some cool artwork and I would thoroughly recommend him as a colleague and friend.
Henry has subsequently held Technical Director and Senior Technical Director roles at several renouned feature film VFX facilities including Framestore (UK), Method Studios (US) and animation production studio Psyop (US)
Roberto Milev
I worked with Roberto while at Signiant where he was Software Architect
I worked with Mark during my time at Signiant. He pioneered the customer adoption of the (then new) workflow engine and the Media Exchange workflow integrations. Mark is a seasoned solutions engineer and was instrumental in driving innovation and applying integration architecture patterns to deliver successful solutions to our customers in the field. He lead the technical implementation of many Signiant based solutions for big customers such as Canal+, Chellomedia, Swiss Television, Discovery Channel and Prosiebensat. Highly recommended!
Roberto has subsequently held several Senior Architect and Senior Developer roles at companies including TELUS Health Solutions, GE Digital and Anaplan
Emmanuel Proulx
I worked with Emmanuel at Signiant on the Media Shuttle Web Team where he was Lead Developer
I am writing this to recommend Mark. I worked with him at Signiant in 2013 for a few months. We were using Scrum, including daily stand-up, sprint planning, and retrospective meetings.
During that time, I enjoyed working with Mark. He demonstrated an eagerness to learn, and he was hard-working. He's also easygoing and caring.
Emmanuel has subsequently held Lead Developer and Full-Stack Software Developer roles at companies including BackOffice Associates, Dialogic and High Tech Genesis
Eliot Hobdell
I worked with Eliot at Jim Henson's Creature Shop (UK), which was part of the Jim Henson Company, where he was Render Wrangler
I previously worked with Mark at Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London and found him to be a diligent member of the team and great person to work with. He is highly experienced, dedicated and knowledgeable as well as extremely hardworking - I can't recommend him highly enough!
Eliot has subsequently held Senior Motion Graphics Designer and Motion Graphics Supervisor roles for renouned feature film VFX facilities including The Moving Picture Company (MPC) and DNEG
Bruce Ross
I worked with Bruce while at Signiant where he was Technical Delivery Manager
I had the pleasure of working with Mark when I was a Technical Delivery Manager for Signiant. Mark’s role as a Solutions Architect was to build and integrate Signiant workflows into customers’ infrastructure.
Signiant software played a pivotal role in a large digital transformation project for ProSiebenSat1 (P7S1), one Germany’s largest private broadcasters. Our main contacts included the PMO, senior broadcast technology and IT management and business management.
P7S1 implemented an enterprise-wide digital asset management (DAM) system that managed their video production, content creation, video encoding, editing, program scheduling and content distribution among several physical locations around Germany and the EU. Signiant managed distribution of very large mezzanine files across their enterprise. The project spanned about 12 months between planning, implementation, test and turnover.
Mark carried out a requirements gathering phase uncovering a number of complex workflows. He architected a custom solution incorporating Signiant software with their DAM resulting in a workflow supporting ingest, transcode and delivery with editorial review and approval as well as metadata and media verification.
Mark was the primary, on-site Signiant representative to the customer, so his combination of strong customer facing skills and deep technical acumen established Mark as the customer’s advocate. The customer could always rely on Mark to execute on time and in a professional manner, and as such, established trust with the customer.
Since then Mark has become a freelance web developer, consultant and automation engineer. He also publishes a technical blog and a newsletter.
I would highly recommend Mark to anyone who needs the skills of a strong builder and customer-facing technical resource.
Bruce has subsequently held several Media Technology Workflow Consultant, Senior Solutions Architect and Senior Solutions Engineer roles at companies including Verizon Media, IBM Watson Media, Comcast and Amazon Web Services
Tony Vasile
I worked with Tony while at Signiant where he was Cloud Solutions Architect, Software Development Manager
I worked with Mark primarily in a sales engineer role. I recall his first company experience was at the IBC trade show, he was sent without really knowing the product or current customers. Mark dove in to the deep end and gave customer demos, immersed himself in the company culture, and was a pro by the end of the trade show. That first impression was indicative of Marks dedication and work ethic, and he went on to architect and build many custom workflow solutions for Signiant clients in the EMEA region.
Later Mark joined the Web development team, where he became part of the SCRUM team and delivered high quality software.
Tony has subsequently held Chief Software Architect and Technical Product Owner roles at companies including Signiant and Cisco
Mike Nash
I worked with Mike while at Signiant where he was Solutions Architect, and Product Manager / Product Owner
Mark and I worked together twice at Signiant. The first time when Signiant's products were early-stage, Mark was part of the Global Operations team. Mark had the patience and capability to find ways to get things done in spite of many technical challenges. He was the guy in the field who brought the big accounts across the line from a technical perspective.
The second time we worked together, I was the Product Owner for the Media Shuttle agile scrum teams. He was one of the software developers working closely with me, other developers, QA, and DevOps engineers.
I’d welcome the chance to work with him again.
Mike has subsequently held Director of Product Managenent and Cloud Technology Consultant roles at companies including Signiant and Randstad
Ian Hamilton
I worked with Ian while at Signiant where he is Chief Technical Officer.
I worked with Mark from 2007 to 2013 at Signiant. Mark was originally a member of our Professional Services team in EMEA and later moved into our software development team in Ottawa. Mark spent the majority of his time at Signiant in customer facing technical roles. Mark was well liked by customers and gained their trust by showing a genuine interest in solving their problems with practical solutions. Mark is detail oriented, has great follow-up and is always open to exploring new opportunities and technologies. Mark was a pleasure to work with.
As a founding member of Signiant, Ian leads the development of innovative software solutions.
Chris Reichhelm
I worked with Chris at Deep Tech Leaders and Deep Tech Jobs, where he is Founder & CEO. He was a client for whom I built some critical features needed for the launch of their jobs platform.
And thank you for your very good work to date. It’s helped to get us where we are today, and for that, we are all very grateful.
The work involved making a Squarespace website dynamic with a serverless API, frontend page hydration and search.
Their platform launched successfully and has been operating since.