James Ojala (born May 6, 1977) is an American special effects and makeup artist, screenwriter and film director. Career overview Early years Ojala grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, where he developed an early love of film through horror movies and the works of directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, George A. Romero and Buddy Giovinazzo. Following his graduation from Duluth Central High School in 1995, Ojala began his career working in public-access television. There, he and his friends created the series My Three Scums, a horror comedy sitcom about a dysfunctional family of mutants and monsters which he described as "sort of an obscene punk rock Munsters on crack". The series ran locally for three years, after which Ojala sent tapes of the show - in a large box filled with inflated helium balloons reading "I LOVE MY THREE SCUMS" - to Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, who was impressed enough by both the series and its eye-catching promotion to offer Ojala an internship on the feature film Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. Upon receiving the news, Ojala immediately quit his job as a medical records filing clerk and moved to New York to work on the film. Early Hollywood career During the production of Citizen Toxie, Ojala stepped into an open spot in the film's makeup effects department, working alongside Tim Considine of special effects company Direct FX. At the film's completion, Considine offered Ojala a full-time assisting position within his company. With Direct FX, Ojala worked on numerous features, commercials and theater, which included manufacturing an entire line of bald caps whose clients included Saturday Night Live and several Broadway productions. Ojala also worked alongside B-movie auteur Larry Fessenden on the 2001 horror film Wendigo and was involved with the Millennium Film Workshop, where he learned how to work with 16mm film under the supervision of underground filmmaker Mike Kuchar. After the events of September 11, Ojala found it difficult to obtain any type of work in New York, eventually forcing him to seek out career options in California. Only a few days into a week-long visit to Los Angeles, Ojala was hired on the spot as a lab and on-set technician for the visual effects studio Almost Human, Inc., providing various functions including moldmaking, makeup application and puppeteering for film, commercials and television series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. Since leaving Almost