Heading west Tennessee focused on practical theory and application of filmmaking at The City College of San Francisco before beginning his professional animation career on Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, which subsequently landed him the role of a principal animator on ABC'S Bump in the Night. During this period, he also produced and directed several of his own films, including the award winning festival favorite stop-motion short, The Lizard Whomper & If I Had a Hammer.

Tennessee returned to live-action to produce F. Scott Fitzgerald's -The Sensible Thing, for Empathy Films, which was nationally televised on PBS's series American Storytellers and featured in Entertainment Weekly. He then blended his animation and live-action experience as a Producer / Motion Capture Performer on Squeezils: The Movie! For Protozoa Inc, which won Best Animation from a CDROM at The 97 World Animation Celebration.

In an amazing twist of fate Tennessee had the pleasure of being included in the new updated edition of The Animation Book by Kit Laybourne - the same book where he first learned his craft.

Between seasons working as a stop-motion animator for Will Vinton Studios on Eddie Murphy's The PJ's, he wrote, directed and produced another short entitled The Answer. In a heart-wrenching twist, the negative was lost in a studio reorganization. More than a year later a digital transfer of the shots was discovered, kicking off a flurry of re-engineering. Effects, audio and music were completed in September of 2003 and The Answer toured with Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation.

After The PJ's, Tennessee was a Lead Animator on Gary & Mike for Bahr & Small/Big Ticket Entertainment – originally broadcast on UPN and syndicated airing on Comedy Central.

Spring of 2004 Tennessee was the Animation Director of Facing that Void, a stop-motion animation / marionette music video for the French hip hop band The General Electrics.
Summer and Fall of 2004 Tennessee animated for his pal director Roy T. Wood on his pilot for MTV - The Statistics Show as well as the first "R" rated stop-motion animated feature film - Disaster! The Movie which had it's theatrical release in 2006.

In Spring 2005 Tennessee was Animation Director on a stop-motion animated concept music video for XOW! Studios - Not a BECK Music Video, which was premiered at ComicCon 05.

In Fall 2005 Tennessee also began animating for Shadow Animation & Fragical Productions on Dino Stamatopoulos' Moral Orel and Seth Greene's Robot Chicken for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, where he continues to provide his animation and puppet fabrication skills.

During 2006 Tennessee animated and fabricated on several projects including on the My Name is Earl episode Robbed a Stoner Blind, a commercial for HGTV's show BUY ME, and a live action / stop-motion animated Music Video for the Norah Jones song Sinkin’ Soon from the album Not To Late.

In 2008 and 2009 Tennessee animated on two new stop-motion shows for Cartoon Network including Titan Maximum & Mary Shelley's - Frankenhole. The first and second Robot Chicken Star Wars specials were also animated during this time, highlights of Tennessee's work on these specials are: Admiral Ackbar's Fishsticks Jingle & Emperor Palpatine's Very Bad Day.

Tennessee resides in Hollywood and has a number of live-action and animated projects in development. His dual experience in live action and animation, in combination with his deep technical expertise, results in a uniquely postmodern storytelling sensibility well suited for many mediums.