Michael McCray
Micheal McCray was born in Knoxville, TN, and attended Holston High School (now Holston Middle School), where he was introduced to the Upward Bound program in his sophomore year. While dealing with the adjustments and social pressures of a new school, he earned mediocre grades. But after his first semester of participating in Upward Bound, his grades greatly improved. One of his favorite classes was a Computer technology class.
After graduating from Holston, Micheal entered the Architecture program of the University of Tennessee. After some time in the program, debating between his focus of art or technology, Micheal choose to change his major to Computer Science to learn more about computer graphics. The knowledge he gained was valuable, but being a research institution, the UT program tended to focus on neural networks and other abstract principles. Micheal finally decided to find the perfect merger between art and technology, and entered the Graphic Design program in the Art Department. After some adjustment, he finally found his niche and began to focus on his passion: computer graphics and animation, even though there were no classes for animation. He has also taken video production/editing and film classes, and an independent study class learning Alias Wavefront Maya, the industry-standard 3D software used for feature films and television. During his senior year, Micheal set up an internship with a locally-operated cable network, Cinetel Studios/Home & Garden Television. The artistic and technical knowledge he had gained from his previous college majors had impressed the Director of Computer Animation & Design. After a semester learning about broadcast design and animation as an intern, Micheal was offered a job, upon graduating with a Bachelors of Fine Art in Graphic Design, even though he did not have the 3-5 year experience that is normally required for the position. Micheal has been at Scripps Productions (a name change) for four years and does design and animation for HGTV, Food Network, and two new networks, Do it Yourself Network and Fine Living Network.
Contact:
PCUB
Nancy Headlee, Director
1914 Andy Holt Ave
25 HPER Building
Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (865) 974-4466
Fax: (865) 974-3961
Email: nheadlee@utk.edu
