David Szehi

Shortly after this, the feature film Jumanji (1995) was being shot nearby and Dave got his first week long job as an extra. Dave has since been involved in many theater, music and film productions as actor, poster illustration, set designer, puppeteer, extra, stand-in, special make-up effects artist, sound engineer, etc. . . Dave also helped create the Starving Artist Film Festival in Peterborough, New Hampshire as well as being the film festival director/coordinator/projectionist three years in a row for The Wilton Art & Film Festival.

After two semesters of film animation studies, Dave got a position as post production intern on Ken Burn's"Baseball" (1994) documentary.

In 1991 Dave got into puppetry by joining The New England Marrionette Theatre. He helped build the theater from scratch and was a key sculptor, puppeteer and set designer for two years working on La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Movies have always been a very important part of Dave's life. Many Saturday afternoons were spent in his parents basement watching Chiller Theater in the dark. Films like "The Scars of Dracula", "The Creeping Flesh" and "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" that featured actors Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. As he got older, Dave began drawing and sculpting monsters, gory images and creepy things from beyond. His father helped feed his love of horror movies by taking him to see things like "Halloween" in the theater when he was 9 years old. During his junior high days he would go to his friends houses after school and close the blinds in the darkest room to watch horror movies like "Evil Dead", "Dawn of the Dead" and "Phantasm" on VHS. Whenever a new horror movie came out, he saw it. Dave and his friends then started making their own movies on super 8 and with video camcorders borrowed from their parents. Then, in 1986, Dave got a job working in a small chain of video stores in New Jersey where he was able to watch almost every movie ever made. Dave then got his start in theater during his senior year of high school doing make-up for and singing in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. His goal at that point was to become a special make up effects artist like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Stan Winston and Dick Smith. Dave then went off to college where he did the make-up, special effects and poster design for The Wiz. Dave studied many mediums of art. . . painting, drawing, photography, sculpting, film animation, acting, etc. . .