Animation Magazine Online

Here at Animation Magazine, we believe one of the most inspiring aspects of the animation industry is its people. With this simple fact in mind we are launching a new online area called Animated People. We hope you get a kick out of this continuing feature and that you find the inside info on artists and execs motivation for your own career.

		David Andrews Animation Director ILM	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …the original Popeye the Sailor cartoons. I'd run home from high school to watch them instead of going to football games. Popeye's funny run is a kick in the eye. More...
		Dan Taylor Animation Supervisor Jurassic Park III	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …The 7th Voyage of Sinbad! I was eight years old. More...
		Bill Schultz Partner Mike Young Productions	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Speed Racer More...
		Mike Young Mike Young Productions Partner	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …how much money Walt Disney had made. More...
		Tom van Waveren President Egmont Imagination	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …That you didn't actually need to work on anything serious to be in media. More...
		Bill Davis Director/Executive Producer Mother Productions	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …The kid from next door standing in the doorway to my room dressed in a Mickey Mouse outfit. More...
		Ginger Gibbons MD of GSCF (current projects Angelina Ballerina and Bosom Pals)	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …a showing of films at the Canadian embassy in London. For the first time, I realized that animation didn't have to be just cartoons – More...
		Jennifer Combs Character Animator Big Idea Productions	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …cartoons on TV growing up. I loved cartoons and as I got older, I NEVER grew out of my love for animation. More...
		Amber Rudolph Character Animator Big Idea Productions	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Jurassic Park and Toy Story when I was in High School. I was amazed by the quality and believability of the computer animated creatures. More...
		Tony Tarantini Assistant Director George Shrinks Nelvana Limited	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …some cartoon shorts in Carosello, a ten minute commercial break that came on once on the only TV station in Italy at the time. More...
		Larry Jacobs Director Nelvana Limited	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …a film called Walking by Ryan Larkin. More...
		DAN HASKETT Veteran Animation Artist, Cornerstone Animation Inc.	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …television. It was still a new medium when I was a kid, and it showed the entire history of American animation, from silents to educational shorts, and Looney Toons cartoons to features. More...
		JODY GRAY Owner and Chief Composer for Gray Noise Music, Currently scoring Season 4 of "Courage the Cowardly Dog", Looney Tunes and "Stellaluna"	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Daffy blown up and blackened w/beak turned around. Then completely unhurt in the following scene. Aha! Immortality. More...
		Xeth Feinberg Founder, President, Chief Everything Mishmash Media, Inc. (mishmashmedia.com) "Queer Duck" for Sho.com and Showtime	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* ...That by the mid-1990's desktop computers were making it possible to make animation as personal and "easy" as drawing cartoons with pen and ink. More...
		David Freedman & Alan Gilbey Creators MR. HELL	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* ...how real actors behaved. Very few drawings can lock themselves in their trailers and refuse to come out. More...

Film Roman Unplugged: 5 Days On The Inside
Last week Film Roman Entertainment invited us inside to meet their artists and take a walk around. Today, were featuring Klay Hall, supervising director on King of the Hill. Tomorrow, look for our story about what it's really like to work at one of the most successful and hip studios in independent animation history. You won't believe who we ran into... More...

		Eric Radomski Executive Creative Director LEVEL13.NET Film Roman	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Warner Bros. cartoons. I always had Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Ward Kimball in my head. More...
		Tanya D. McClure Director of Digital Animation Film Roman	*• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …my interests needing to be fulfilled in terms of writing and art, wanting to bring those two areas together in my life. More...
		Brad Ableson Film Roman Storyboard Artist The Simpsons	*• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* The Simpsons. I was 13 when they started and have been a Simpsons freak ever since. The first time I set foot in Film Roman I wanted to roll around naked in the recycling bins. More...
		Klay Hall Film Roman Supervising Director, King of the Hill	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: …Pinocchio at a drive-in with my mom and dad. Wow, that blew me away. It inspired me to draw all along in school. More...

		Nancy Cartwright Founder/Co-Owner Sportsblast Voice of Bart Simpson	*• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* Ever since I was seven years old, people have told me that I have special vocal quality. More...
		Brent Young President, Super 78 Ink. Currently working on: Pac Man World II and a top secret Universal project.	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: … Prince Planet, Speed Racer and Gigglesnort Hotel (not animation but puppets). More...
		Dan Philips VP of Production Big Idea Productions	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Pinocchio. *• When I was a kid I:* …drew everything I saw in the movies and things I saw in my mind. More...
		Dave Warren Animator/Founder CHANNELZERO Creator of SoSophie	• *My parents wanted me to be:* …out of the house as soon as humanly possible. More...
		Tom Bancroft Director/Character Designer Big Idea Productions *Current project: Director of new Larryboy* 2D video series**	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Believe it or not: Black Cauldron. I'm embarrassed to say that film, though bad, made a big impression on me. More...
		Phil Walsh Executive Producer/Comedy Writer Walt Disney Television Disney's Teamo Supremo.	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …a one-eyed sailor consistently triumph over long odds. More...
		Phil Robinson Director/Animator/ Co-Founder Wild Brain Inc. Current Project: Willy Wonka Candy Spot	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …my first painted animation cel. It was from Snow White. I had seen plenty of funny drawings before but seeing a painted cel against a background just thrilled me. More...
		Julia Tortolani Commercial Director Wild Brain Inc.	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* Well, after compulsively drawing Charles Schultz characters for most of first and second grade. I do remember seeing a Peanuts special on TV. More...
		Leonardo Quiles Character Designer & Lighting Artist Kleiser-Walczak Just Completed CorkScrew Hill a 3D stereoscopic ride film	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* ...The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. It might be a toss up between that and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Rankin-Bass. Both of those shook me at my foundation. More...
		Blair Peters Partner/Co-founder Studio B Productions/ Vancouver, Canada Working on second season of D'Myna Leagues for CTV & YTV	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: I saw How The Grinch Stole Christmas! *• When I was a kid I:*…drew everything from Andy Capp to Scooby-Doo to my siblings. More...
		J.J. Sedelmaier President/Director J.J. Sedelmaier Productions Currently Working on: *Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law*	*• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* … the Fleischer Superman series. *• When I was a kid I:* …ALWAYS knew I’d do something with art. I drew everything... More...
		Jhonen Vasquez Creator/Executive Producer Invader ZIM	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: … the real world. More...
		Butch Hartman Creator/Executive Producer Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: … my friend's basement animation studio and how he made his own animated TV commercial for a local pizzeria. More...
		Kevin Munroe Creator/Producer Holiday Special: Donner	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: …the feature animation tour at Disneyworld where you walk through that big hamster tubing going through the studio. It just wasn’t a real option as an art career when I finished high school years before. More...
		Steve Sagovac Creative Director Mad Cow Pictures Currently working on the in-house short A Fistful of Nothing (or Dance with me Hombre)	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …the Disney Australia Studio. My sister introduced me to a friend she went to school with (Steve Trenbirth, director at Disney Australia) who showed me around the studio. More...
		Jack Finlin Head of Production Animator/Director/Writer Art Barn	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* I think the first animated show I loved was the first Robotech series. Probably because it had giant robots (see following response) More...
		Igor Kovalyov Director, The Way the Dead Love (Working Title) For Klasky Csupo's Adult Entertainment Division, Global Tantrum	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* I was already working at Kiev Studio when I saw Borivoj Dovnikovic's film Second Class Passenger and knew I had to be in animation. More...
		Stephen P. Mann CG Supervisor Kleiser-Walczak Recently completed work on The One	•*I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …that during the past years, when I was desperately trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, More...
		Arielle Walrath President of Art Barn Painter/Animator/Writer	•*I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …my friends doing it in college, and then I sort of fell into it. I thought I'd be a painter. But I love the idea that you can express the moving relationships between things More...
		Clark Anderson New CG Director for Kachew Klasky Csupo's Live-Action Commercial Group	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …The early work coming out of Robert Abel & Assoc….the new CGI art form blew me away! More...
		Tom Sito Animator/Director Most Recent Project Animation Co-director, Osmosis Jones	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …my own animation moving on screen. Sure, I had grown up watching Bugs Bunny and other cartoons on Saturday mornings and More...
		Dave Shirk Head of 3-D, for Quiet Man Just Finished Hat Trick Walt Disney World Spot Celebrating Disney's 100^th Birthday	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …that artists actually created these moving pictures. When I was really young, I couldn't understand how these things happened. More...
		Simon Sherr Character Animator Kleiser-Walczak Just Completed Work On: Santa Lights Up New York for Radio City's Christmas Spectacular	• I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw: I think I was always drifting towards animation. For the better part of my childhood, I would More...
		Paul Demeyer Animation Sequence Director The Wild Thornberry's Movie Klasky Csupo	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …Disney's Sleeping Beauty, I was about six. More...
		Van Partible *Creator of Cartoon Network's Johnny Bravo.* *Currently Working On: A Johnny Bravo Christmas.*	• *I realized I wanted to be in animation when I saw:* …that you could make a living out of drawing. More...

The folks at R&H invited us over to meet directors and have a look around last Friday. Although we didn't make it in time for the afternoon BBQ, we did manage to corner five of the CG company's stars. We also learned that at this studio the battle between felines and canines was won a long time ago. The company that completed animation on Cats & Dogs is a "dog friendly zone." No cats allowed, due to allergies.

Rebecca Ruether
Rhythm & Hues, Animator

Currently working on
Scooby-Doo

• I realized I wanted to be in animation when: …Bill Kroyer's Technological Threat on a SIGGRAPH reel while attending art school. More...