Who is Pony Horton?

Let Me Introduce Myself...

   My name is Pony R. Horton. Howdy!

   I am an American filmmaker/journalist/actor of Irish and Cherokee descent. 

   I have lent my talents, usually in the area of technical or visual effects work, to a number of low-and-medium budget feature films, four of which were produced by Roger Corman, including Masque of the Red Death (1989), and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (1989), as a matte artist/cinematographer.

   I also created matte paintings and photography for the Paulco films Fate, and Eternity (1989) both of which were co-produced by actor Jon Voight. 

   I began my career in film, as do many, as a "gofer" and janitor/general laborer at Van der Veer Photo Effects, as well as working as a projectionist at Valley Projection, both in 1978 in Burbank, California.
   At Van der Veer, I was one of a small staff who lent their talents on a number of films, including Star Trek The Motion Picture; Superman (mostly processing HiCon matte film); and I created certain specific effects for 1941 and Nightwing, mostly doing rotoscoping. 

For 1941 I created some of the searchlight beams rising into the night sky, at Van der Veer Photo Effects.                                                       1941 Universal Pictures - Columbia Pictures Corporation (1979)

   By 1982, I had become the Director of Photography at Valley Cable TV's Public Access studio, where I was in charge of the 3-camera studio and supervised the lighting and photography on over 120 1/2-hour talk shows. 
   During that time, I created and produced a public affairs program called Whipping Around L.A.! which featured places of cultural and recreational interest in the Southland. 

   In 1983, I began producing and directing TV commercials for the local Los Angeles market, including the first AIDS Awareness Public Service Announcements ever aired in the U.S. 

   By the late 1980s, I was one of the main operators of the Mitsubishi IMAX Theater at the California Museum of Science & Industry.

   In 1992, I left the west coast to move to the Washington, D.C. suburb of Reston, Virginia. 
   
   There I joined the staff of the Times Community Newspapers as a photojournalist and writer, publishing hundreds of images and dozens of articles from 1992 to 1994. 
   One photo/story combination garnered me the First Place Virginia Press Association award in 1993. 

   By late 1994, I was back in Los Angeles, doing freelance journalism for several newspapers and magazines.

   Since 2001, I have been producing low-budget TV commercials and industrial videos, as well as high-end book trailers.


   Since 2007 I have been creating world-class visual effects for the web series STAR TREK NEW VOYAGES aka STAR TREK PHASE II. In 2011 I became the show's Visual Effects Supervisor.

One of my other skills is whip cracking, and I am currently producing an instructional video on the lost art of whip work.