Aaron Sowd
Founder, President

Aaron Sowd is the internationally acclaimed Founder and President of The Story Department. Aaron is a uniquely talented and experienced storyboard artist known for his evocative visual storytelling skills, and his knack for breathing life and believability into characters and storylines. His compelling visual sense and attention to detail help immerse audiences in the world of the story.

Aaron was the award-winning Art Director of Stan Lee Media. He has taught Storyboarding for Filmmakers at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has been a featured guest speaker at events and institutions such as San Diego Comic Con International, Pixar, Schoolism, Lightbox Expo, Wonder Con, Otis College of Art and Design and SIGGRAPH among others.

With over twenty years of experience in the film industry, he has contributed to numerous projects across all forms of media and has worked with a diverse range of clients, from major studios to independent production companies. His skill in collaborating with other creatives to help them actualize their vision is apparent in his insightful execution and professional attitude. Aaron is a versatile artist who can work in a variety of styles and mediums, and is always seeking new challenges to push his creative boundaries.

Notable projects include: Spider-Man: Far From Home, Godzilla vs. Kong, Star Trek Picard, Secret Invasion, Black Adam, Bad Boys For Life, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Ms. Marvel, Transformers, The Simpson Ride, God of War and The Boys.

Bill Thompson
Founder, Managing Partner

Bill Thompson is the award-winning Co-Owner and Managing Partner of The Story Department. He grew up in a small farming community in North Dakota with a population of only 49 people. When Bill was a young adult, a director from Los Angeles bought his grandfather's home. After meeting with him and learning that art can be a career and not just a hobby, Bill enrolled in the legendary artist Joe Kubert's school in New Jersey to learn his craft and solidify his storytelling skills. There he fell in love with art and visual storytelling in all forms of media.

After honing his storytelling skills, he headed off to Los Angeles to establish himself in the film industry. His career quickly took off working on projects for Ridley Scott Associates and then onto the X-Men Franchise at 20th Century Fox. He has since worked with most of his favorite directors such as Robert Zemeckis and recently worked on Rescue Rangers with Akiva Shaffer which won a Primetime Emmy. When he has any free time, he likes to play Players Unknown Battleground only to be consistently massacred by little kids.

Notable projects include: Disney's Haunted Mansion, Blue Beetle, The New Mutants, X- Men: Dark Phoenix and Pinocchio

Barret Ferrell
Director of Business Development

Barret joins The Story Department from the Rocky Mountain State of Colorado and prides himself on being a relationship-driven problem solver. He is highly focused and aspires to provide a unique customer experience that leaves his clients feeling heard and understood. His personal philosophy echoes the words of Thomas Edison "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time". Barret is a family man who enjoys spending time with loved ones coaching football and camping.

Brian Busch
Storyboard Artist

Brian is a Los Angeles based illustrator who has created numerous storyboards, poster comps and illustrations for film, books, video games, and commercials. Born in rural Illinois, Brian studied illustration and painting at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. In 2017, Brian moved to Los Angeles, where he continues to work along side his wife, Illustrator Zelda Devon and searches out the finest street tacos L.A. has to offer.

Clients include: L.A. Magazine, Lowes, Comedy Central, FX, Audible, DTLA, Blizzard's Hearthstone, The National Hellenic Museum and his Mom.

Brian Murray
Concept Artist

"A visionary." "A genius." "The fastest storyboard artist I've worked with."
Some of the words spoken by top-tier Hollywood Directors regarding Brian "Adobewan" Murray.

Traditionally trained, with stylus in hand, Brian uses Photoshop, ZBrush, and SketchUp to create concept art, storyboards, and illustration for film, television, and comic books. Director David Twohy touts Brian's boards on the "The Chronicles of Riddick" DVD commentary. Brian performed triple-duty on "Chronicles", as lead storyboard artist, concept art, and designer of "The Hunt for Riddick" web experience.

Career Highlights: -"Star Trek: Picard", "Mortal Kombat 12", "Spider-Man: Far from Home", and "Ready Player One" with Steven Spielberg. On "Solo – A Star Wars Story" Brian worked on the infamous "Kessel Run" sequence.

Other highlights: Brian's co-creation, scripting, and illustrating of Image Comics' hit "Supreme", which Tom Clancy took note of in his novel, "Black Ops". Brian produced covers and interiors for DC, Marvel, Image, and many more. Brian's illustrations of the L.A. Dodgers were on large-scale display throughout Los Angeles on banners, billboards, and bus posters.

The Sunday LA Times featured Brian's storyboards for "Now You See Me 2".

Dan Quiles
Storyboard Artist

Dan Quiles comes to The Story Department from Mawah, New Jersey. Like Bill Thompson, he was also trained in illustration and storytelling at the Joe Kubert School in Dover, NJ. He started his career working for a multimedia company doing illustrations and designing mobile games.

Since making his move to Los Angeles he has worked in themed entertainment designing attractions and media. His latest endeavor was storyboarding Invincible seasons 2 and 3 for Amazon Studios. In his spare time he works designing and illustrating books.

Daniel Hyun Lim
Storyboard Artist

Daniel Hyun Lim is a California-based artist who has excelled in many roles. In his 20+ years of experience he has contributed to the worlds of art and entertainment as a senior illustrator, costume illustrator, concept designer, and applied his talents to storyboards and marketing.

He has worked with companies such as CBS, Disney, DreamWorks, Apple, Blizzard, Riot, Netflix, Paramount, Universal, and many more. With projects spanning genres from sci-fi to pop culture, Daniel has worked on a wide scope of productions.

Notable projects include: Goosebumps, Homecoming, Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, Star Trek Picard, Orville, See, Atlas, We Can be Heroes, Witches, Pinocchio and most recently Section 31.

Elle Spencer Lewis
Composer

Elle Spencer Lewis is an Emmy-nominated music composer for film, TV and video games, multi-instrumentalist, 3D projection mapping artist, interactive experience programmer, and performer. Based in Los Angeles, she moved from Montreal to attend Los Angeles Music College on full scholarship and later, UCLA's esteemed Filmscoring program.

During the last ten years, she has created scores for film (Dreamworks, BBC, Lionsgate, Diablo), and in TV shows such as Missing and Friday Night Lights. She has composed for multiple media platforms from films, documentaries, and commercials to interactive environments such as Redbull-At-Night and 3D visuals for the Space Shuttle Endeavor opening at the Science Center in L.A.

She currently serves as a consultant and developer on Arizona State's 15 million dollar Alzheimer's Research project working on integrating music and biofeedback, and is on the ASU faculty teaching non-linear composition.

Frankie Smith
Storyboard Artist

Frankie moved from Oregon to Los Angeles specifically to work as a storyboard artist. In Oregon she worked as a prolific freelance illustrator specializing in games, publishing and illustration. She illustrated a cover for the famous Heavy Metal magazine which was a dream come true for her.

The intersection of live action, sequential art and visual storytelling that is storyboarding drew her to Hollywood and the entertainment industry. She has worked on a diverse array of productions with some supremely talented and creative folks. Examples include features films like The Perfection, Quasi, as well as independent films, TV shows like The Mysterious Benedict Society and various commercials for Disney. Frankie looks forward to working on more diverse projects and continually honing her already sharp eye for visual storytelling.

Frankie likes to devote her spare time to her complimentary twin hobbies of oil painting and photography. And she still prefers watching movies on the big screen.

Ian Dorian
Storyboard Artist

Ian Dorian is a character designer and story artist working in the fields of animation, comics, and film. From an early age he studied dance and martial arts alongside his fine art studies. While attending the school for the gifted and talented he performed in theater, be it classical performances or ballets such as Medea, Macbeth, at times writing and performing in his own productions whether on film or on stage.

From the age of eighteen through his thirties, he learned from comic book professionals such as Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, Mark Texeira, Joe Kubert, Adam Kubert, Rags Morales, and others before creating his own graphic novel titled Law of Resistance. He has had the pleasure of having some of his favorite talents ink, color, do alternate covers, and lettering for Law of Resistance.

He has worked as a character designer, consumer products artist, and storyboard artist for companies such as Warner Bros., Marvel Productions' Avengers Assemble, 20th Century Fox's Rio 2, Family Guy, and The Simpsons. Ian has spent much of his life as an avid martial artist, a linguaphile and as a voracious reader of theoretical physics. Despite loving to write and draw action adventure, his most watched movies are When Harry met Sally, A Few Good Men, and The Agony and The Ecstasy.

Jeffrey Henderson
Storyboard Artist

Jeffrey Henderson is an award-winning writer, illustrator, filmmaker, actor and musician. A renowned storyboard and development artist, his major film and TV credits include: Black Adam, The Boys, Ms. Marvel, Jungle Cruise, Uncharted, Fargo, Inception, The Dark Knight, to name just a few. He also worked with director Sam Raimi on multiple projects, including OZ The Great and Powerful, Spider-Man 3 as well as the legendary, unproduced Spider-Man 4.

He wrote, directed and starred in the short film, Star Wars: The Sable Corsair, which took home the trophy in the LucasFilm Fan Film Awards.

As an actor/voice over artist, and a singer/songwriter, he's also contributed vocal performances, songs and music to a number of film, TV and video game projects.

Jordan Raskin
Storyboard Artist

Jordan Raskin is an experienced commercial illustrator specializing in story development across a multitude of narrative media including animation, film, storyboards, animatics, video editing, comic books, and screenwriting.

Jordan is also an alum of the legendary Joe Kubert School. He began his comic book career illustrating the Ripclaw Special for Marc Silvestri's Top Cow Studios and Image Comics. His clients include Halon, Warner Bros., Riot Games, Company3 Animation, Studio Wildcard, Sony Pictures animation, Cartoon Network.

He is currently writing and drawing his creator-owned series and drinks way too much coffee for his own good.

Kyle Haase
Storyboard Artist

Kyle was born in Dallas, Texas. He began reading comic books at the age of 7 and it fostered an intense devotion to the art form well into high school. Kyle originally entertained the notion of a career in fine art, but a cover contest for a comic magazine led to a much more mature obsession with cartooning and illustration. Kyle attended the famous Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic art in 2003 and earned a degree in cartoon graphics. He cut his teeth working as a production manager at Marvel Animation where he soon worked his way up to being a storyboard artist. He has since amassed a long list of credits building a solid resume for himself.

Notable projects include: Marvel's Spider Man: Maximum Venom, Marvel Rising: Operation Shuri, Marvel's Avengers: Black Panther's Quest, Marvel's Avengers: Secret Wars, Marvel's Spider Man, Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell, Marvel's Avengers: Ultron Revolution, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's Spider Man.

Luke Thompson
Director of Sales

Originally hailing from the mean streets of Bismarck, North Dakota, Luke is a dedicated sales leader who prides himself on understanding the depth and nuance of his clients' many needs. He has a long history of success using a boutique white glove approach when working with each individual client. In conducting business this way, Luke's track record of repeat and referral business is exceptional. "When my focus is on truly understanding the challenges my clients face, then customizing a right-sized solution for them, it is a win for everyone. That's how I work with all my clients regardless of company size and budget."

Luke is also a Gemini who loves donuts, 70s funk music, a good pair of flip flops, and candlelit yoga classes.

Michelle Thompson
Director of Finance

Michelle Thompson is the Director of Finance for The Story Department. Originally from Flasher, North Dakota she has proven her aptitude by being recruited from a bio-tech background to work as a Financial Analyst for a The City of Hope cancer research hospital. She has consistently proven her ability to take on any situation and navigate to a solution.

Michelle is a highly accomplished finance professional with extensive experience in financial management and strategic planning. Her background in finance and accounting, combined with her strong leadership and analytical skills, has allowed her to excel in her role. She is a result oriented professional who takes a data-driven approach to making decisions, and has a proven track record of successfully managing budgets, implementing cost-saving measures, and increasing revenue streams.

In her spare time she spends as much time as possible with family and tending to her succulents.

Sean Lockhart
Director of Sales

Sean brings an impressive 15 plus years of creative experience and expertise to The Story Department. Hailing from Oakland, California, he now resides and works in Los Angeles. Sean's track record is as diverse as it is successful. From advertising, social media, digital marketing, custom marketing solutions and developing branded content, Sean has done it all and exceeded his clients expectations while doing so.

Some of Sean's clients include Disney, Dreamworks, Fox, ABC, Saban Studios, Sony, Universal NBC, and Warner Bros are a few of Sean's studio clients. His commercial clients include Dr. Pepper, Snapple, Honda, VW, Lexus, Mattel, Nike, PUMA, PlayStation, RPA, mOcean, TeamOne, Ogilvy, Deutsch, MAL\TBWA\Chiat\Day and Wieden + Kennedy.

Always looking to improve and challenge himself, Sean has taken the time to expand his knowledge and expertise as an Executive Protection Specialist. Working domestically and globally, his travels have offered many unforgettable and life challenging experiences. His world travels and volunteer work with Habit for Humanity give him an unique skill set for bringing people from different backgrounds and cultures together and make him a dynamic and inspirational leader.

Shashanna Singh
Head of Accounting

Shashanna Singh is a seasoned finance professional. With over 20 years of experience as an accountant and bookkeeper, Shashanna has honed her expertise, establishing herself as a trusted expert in her field.

As the founder and visionary behind SMS Financials, her renowned bookkeeping firm, Shashanna has been instrumental in transforming the financial landscape for countless businesses. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her firm has become known for catering to a diverse range of clients spanning across the United States.

Stephan Martiniere
Concept Artist

Stephan Martiniere is an acclaimed multi award winning science fiction and fantasy artist. Stephan was voted one of the 50 Most Inspirational Artists by Imagine FX Magazine. His work not only holds an astounding uniqueness of vision, but as a digital pioneer he has set the bar for digital painting as a whole. In the past 40 years he has become known for his talent, versatility and imagination in every entertainment fields including feature films, animation, video games, and theme parks, editorial, commercial and book covers.

Stephan was the art director for the visually acclaimed ID Games Rage released in 2011, he was also the visual art director responsible for the games URU: Ages Beyond Myst, URU: The Path of the Shell, and Myst 5, and worked several years at Midway Games as Visual Art Director for the game Stranglehold and later as Creative Visual Director of the concept department for several other Midway games including Black Site: Area 51, Blitz, Ballers, Mortal Kombat vs. DC, Wheelman, and more.

As the director for the five animated musical adaptation shows Madeline, Stephan Martiniere received the A.C.T Award, the Parent’s Choice Award and the Humanitas Award and was nominated for an Emmy. Stephan also gained global notoriety for illustrating the Where’s Waldo Sunday comic strip for King Features, distributed to hundreds of newspapers worldwide.

Stephan Martiniere is also an accomplished concept illustrator who has worked on movies such as Skeleton Crew, Foundation, Aquaman, The Suicide Squad, Independence Day: Resurgence, Tomorrowland, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, 300: Rise of an Empire, Total Recall (2012), Alpha, Tron: Legacy, Star Trek, Star Wars: Episodes 2-3, Knowing and I, Robot. He has also worked extensively over the last 15 years with Disney Imagineering on Disneyland parks and expansions across the globe doing visual development for The Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, Star Wars, the Guardians of the Galaxy Epcot, the animal Kingdom, Zootopia and Marvel land. In the last 10 years he has participated in the architectural visualization of several mega-project in Saudi Arabia including Neom, Neom Bay, Qiddiya, Al-Ula and the Murabba.

Over the last fifteen years Stephan has produced over a hundred and fifty book covers and numerous Magic Cards, comic book covers and editorial illustrations for such clients as National Geographic, Popular Science, Tor Books, Pyr, Penguin and Random House, Dark Horse and Radical Comics.

Stephan Martiniere has received the Exposé Grand Master Award, thirteen Exposé Excellence Awards, five Exposé Master Awards, and two Chelsey Award for Best Book Cover, two silver and one gold Spectrum Award for Book Covers and Editorial, The Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist, The Ennie Award for Best Cover Art, The Bookgasm in 2009 Award for Best Cover Artist and was the Grand Prize Winner of IBA in 2012.

Stephan Martiniere is currently a visual consultant and freelance concept illustrator on various films, games and theme parks and frequently teaches workshops and presents lectures worldwide. He teaches at Schoolism and is an advisory board member of the CGSociety.

Zelda Devon
Storyboard Artist

Based in sunny Los Angeles, Zelda makes visuals for the entertainment industry. She has absolute gob tons of experience in advertising for film, TV, games and social media. Zelda's focus is on rich storytelling through movement and vibrant color, evoking a sense of magic and whimsy. She is currently accepting advertising illustration and lettering work, whimsical or otherwise. She shares a studio with her magnificent husband, Brian Busch, who is also an illustrator.