Steamroller Studios has hired animation veteran Aaron Gilman to serve as their new Chief Creative Officer, joining the Steamroller Team in April 2021. His appointment builds on the studio’s hard work establishing itself as an animation player over the last six years, and will bolster Steamroller’s ventures into uncharted territories — such as the recently announced feature co-pro Master, exec produced by Peter Ramsey.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Aaron Gilman to our team as Chief Creative Officer of Steamroller Studios,” Sadool shared. “Aaron is a giant in the VFX and animation industry and has been both a friend of mine and of the Steamroller family for over a decade. His myriad achievements and vast experience will not only strengthen our foundation as leaders in animation, but also allow our company to reach even greater heights. Aaron’s philosophy and drive are exactly what this industry needs to propel it into the future. We are beyond thrilled that Aaron chose Steamroller Studios to flex his skills and demonstrate his expertise and leadership.”
Gilman began his prolific career as an animator for Meteor Studio in July 2001, quickly working his way up to lead animator, then senior animator, then animation supervisor. During that time, he worked on projects, including Dinosaur Planet and The Hobbit video game. He then went on to serve as a senior animator for Tippett Studio, contributing to projects such as The Matrix Revolutions, Constantine and Hellboy. In July 2004, he became Animation Director for Ubisoft Montreal, and then for EA Montreal. He moved to Double Negative to serve as an animation supervisor in April 2016, again rising to animation director on Pacific Rim 2: Uprising, Disney’s Togo and Ghostbusters, and on to his most recent role as Head of Animation at DNEG Vancouver.
“Steamroller has an amazingly talented team of artists, and they understand that the strength of a successful studio rests on the relationships they foster with their teammates and clients,” Gilman observed. “What I love about Steamroller is that they prioritize many of the values I think companies tend to lose sight of as they grow. They understand that great ideas, agility and innovation are the principal currencies of the animation and VFX industries. I am so excited to be part of a company that believes in developing talent, training great leaders, and investing in creative and technological ventures that make them a fresh and highly competitive studio. I can’t wait to join a team that puts relationships with their artists and clients first, and understands that great storytelling is an extension of the strength of those relationships.”
PBS KIDS and GBH Boston today announced that the award-winning animated series Molly of Denali will return for a second season in Fall 2021. The show is produced with GBH’s animation partner, Atomic Cartoons (part of Thunderbird Entertainment).
Following its premiere in 2019, Molly of Denali received critical acclaim, including a Peabody Award, a Television Critics Association Award and a Kidscreen Award. In its first year, the groundbreaking series reached more than 42 million people on-air on PBS KIDS, and the PBS KIDS digital platforms have over 450K users each month.
“It is gratifying to see how kids, families and educators have embraced Molly of Denali,” said GBH President & CEO Jon Abbott. “GBH is grateful to be a partner with PBS KIDS and our Alaska Native collaborators as we continue to create important content and opportunities that support children’s development and feature the experiences and contributions of all Americans.”
Molly of Denali follows the adventures of curious and resourceful 10-year-old Molly Mabray, an Alaska Native girl who lives in the fictional village of Qyah, Alaska. It is the first nationally distributed children’s program to feature Native American and Alaska Native lead characters, and incorporates Alaska Native voices in all aspects of the production, both on screen and behind the scenes.
“In Molly of Denali, we are sharing the rich wisdom of elders before us, passing along over 10,000 years of scientific, environmental and social-emotional knowledge,” says Creative Producer, Yatibaey Evans. “The series is an opportunity for Alaska Native people to tell the world about our ways of life that will help preserve our collective future.“
The 2D-animated series is grounded in a pioneering curriculum focused on informational text (IT), a foundational aspect of literacy education. Recent studies by Education Development Center and SRI International found that resources from the series improved children’s ability to use IT to solve real-world problems. After only nine weeks of access, this impact is equivalent to the difference in reading skills a first-grader typically develops over three months.
Season 2 will include a one-hour special and 23 half-hour episodes, comprising two 11-minute stories and a live-action interstitial, which will feature Alaska’s natural wonders, rich and diverse Alaska Native cultures, and the importance of community – with the humor and adventurous spirit that marked Season 1. Native languages will continue to be present in all stories, including episodes like “Uqiquq (Throw Party),” where Tooey writes and delivers a speech to his Grandmother in their native language. “Molly and Elizabeth” features the story of Elizabeth Peratrovich, an Alaska Native person who led the creation of the nation’s first state or territorial anti-discrimination law in 1945. In the episode, she inspires Molly to stand up to a group of tourists who make stereotypical assumptions about Alaska Native people.
“This season offers more groundbreaking episodes that uplift Alaska Native values and cultures and celebrates the importance of community and the natural world,” said series Executive Producer Dorothea Gillim. “Audiences will love all the great new content, including animated and live action shorts as well as a suite of digital games.”
“PBS KIDS is proud to bring kids and families nationwide a second season of Molly of Denali,” added Lesli Rotenberg, Chief Programming Executive & General Manager of Children’s Media and Education at PBS. “Representation and inclusion are critical to our work, and we’re thrilled to continue building on that mission through this groundbreaking series, which also teaches critical literacy skills.”
The new season will also bring new digital games, available on pbskids.org and on the PBS KIDS Games App, as well as new educational resources on PBS LearningMedia. The latest season of the Molly of Denali Podcast can be found on pbskids.org/molly/podcast or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Molly of Denali involves Alaska Native voices in all aspects of the production, both on screen and behind the scenes. Every Indigenous character is voiced by an Indigenous actor, including Molly, voiced by Alaska Native Sovereign Bill (Tlingit and Muckleshoot). Collaborators include Adeline P. Raboff, Dewey Kk’ołeyo Hoffman, Luke Titus, Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Rochelle Adams. Language advisors are Adeline P. Raboff, Aassanaaq Kairaiuak, Joel Isaak, Lance X’unei Twitchell, Lorraine David and Marjorie Tahbone. Informational text advisor is Nell K. Duke, University of Michigan.
Support for Molly of Denali is provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and by public television viewers. Additional funding made possible with the participation of the Province of British Columbia Production Services Tax Credit. Corporate funding is provided by Target.
A fresh batch of multitalented performers has been added to the voice cast roster for Pierre the Pigeon Hawk, from Exodus Film Group and director John D. Eraklis (producer, Igor, Bunyan and Babe). Grammy winner will.i.am (replacing Nick Cannon in the lead role); Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy winner Jennifer Hudson; and multiplatinum artist Snoop Dogg join a star-studded cast which already boasts Whoopi Goldberg, Kenan Thompson and Jennifer Coolidge as well as Howie Mandel, Luis Guzmán, Jamal Trulove and more.
The music-driven family comedy is set in New York City, where Pierre (will.i.am), the product of forbidden love between a hawk (Goldberg) and a pigeon (Mandel), grows up outcast from both bird communities. Determined to find a place where he belongs, Pierre set out on a journey of self-discovery, befriending unlikely animal companions: a bear that’s escaped from Central Park Zoo, a brilliant but mad owl named Ophelia (Hudson) and a pair of streetwise city squirrels, Scratch (Snoop Dogg) and Sniff (Thompson). Along the way, Pierre finds the courage to inspire animals from all backgrounds to change their ways and open their minds to a new way of thinking. It will take a hybrid bird to unite a hybrid world.
The project has also added Grammy winner Paul Blair (A Star Is Born) as the film’s music supervisor.
Eraklis is producing Pierre the Pigeon Hawk with Toonz Media Group and Sugar Water Entertainment, which are providing financing. Trulove and Delbert Whetter serve as exec producers. The film is being sold by CAA Media Finance (domestic) and Highland Film Group (international).
will.i.am is a founding member of The Black Eyed Peas and has previously lent his voice to animated projects including the Rio movies, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Arthur: The Revenge of Maltazard, The Cleveland Show and the X-Men Origins: Wolverine video game. He has also collaborated with filmmaking duo Pasha Shapiro and Ernst Weber on the Sundance-selected VR feature Masters of the Sun and animated short Unpredictable Behaviour, which premiered at Cannes.
Actress, recording artist and author Jennifer Hudson most recently performed the role of Forest for the VR short Baba Yaga, and previously stepped into the animation V.O. booth for Illumination feature Sing. She was hand-picked by Aretha Franklin to play the legendary singer in the upcoming biopic Respect.
Snoop Dogg is no stranger to animation. The hip-hop icon played Cousin Itt in 2019’s The Addams Family, and will reprise the role for the upcoming untitled sequel. His toon credits also include features Turbo,Freaknik: The Musical, Trouble, Arthur and the Invisibles & The Revenge of Maltazard, and series The Boondocks,F Is for Family, American Dad!, New Looney Tunes, Mike Tyson Mysteries, Sanjay and Craig, Black Dynamite, The Cleveland Show, King of the Hill and The PJs.
The Kwetu International Animation Film Festival (KIAFF) wrapped up this weekend with the announcement of the award-winning films. This East Africa-based festival solely dedicated to animation held its inaugural edition April 2-3, presenting 50 animation works from around the world. The 2021 edition was screened online via KIAFF partner, NuellaTV, which enabled viewers from around the world to enjoy the high-quality animated features (longer than 45 minutes), shorts, TV commercials and — with a focus on “Made in Africa” — films made by African animators in Africa.
Various awards were presented by the jury, made up of Prof. Martin Mhando, CEO of the Zanzibar Int’l Film Festival (Tanzania); screenwriter and film editor Fred Lyons (Australia); and Fibby Kioria, co-founder of Manyatta Screenings (Kenya), on Monday, April 5, live on Zoom.
In future editions, organizers say KIAFF will become a place of intercultural exchange and a platform for the critical animated cinematic exploration of social and development issues. It will discover and develop new animation talents to East Africa and the global and accompany them on their path into the spotlight and support their careers, visions, projects, dreams and works.
“The festival results highlight and speak to the need to raise a generation of Africans that will revive and thrive in the spirit of Africa,” said jury member Edima Otuokon (Nigeria), Executive Director of the Ladima Foundation for women filmmakers across the continent. “These animations resonate in so many ways. Pride, greed and corruption in Africa, dominate our current narrative. Yet African social systems, proverbs, tales and wisdom have always alluded and provided solutions to the issues that surround power and corruption. Hence, we need to consistently remind our youth through stories such as these, that we are a culture that is defined by respect, dignity, strength, collaboration, unity and truth. A renewed vision of Africa needs to be captured and entrenched, through the stories we tell.”
This Other Side
KIAFF 2021 Award Winners:
Special Jury Mention –This Side, Other Side | dir. Lida Fazli (Iran)
Jury statement: The jury found this film tackling the subject in a very powerful and creative but exceedingly impactful manner. The style, the imagery and the impact of the film stays with one for a long time as the subject itself. As the saying goes, “an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
Audience Award – 208 | Stanslaus Manthi (Kenya)
Best Commercial Ad – Water | Jessica Laurent (Denmark)
Jury statement: This ominous description of a state of being comes with a reminder and a lesson that there are always consequences to any decision we make.
Best Sound – Memories for Sale | sound designer Florian Calmer (Costa Rica)
Jury statement: The lyrical and dramatic sounds are brought together to narrate, emphasize and evoke emotional response and elevates the story dramatically to engulf the viewer in a never imagined mood as the story unfolds.
Memories for Sale
Best Character – Benjamin | dir. Mohsen Enayati (Iran)
Jury statement: A character whose quest for success instigates adventure and whose final revelation resonates with every viewer’s hopes and dreams through the thoughts, emotions and personality of the animated creature.
Best Story/Script – Memories for Sale | Manuel Lopez (Costa Rica)
Jury statement: Beautiful and intriguing films that remind us of the capacity to forgive is probably the greatest gift given to human beings and that understanding the weaknesses of others makes us better people because we are also fallible.
Best East African Film – From Here to Timbuktu | Brian Msafiri (Kenya)
Jury statement: This truly legendary quest for knowledge is an artful story steeped in African history, tradition and even politics whose sounds and visions take us to places where only the brave go a come back with a sense of confidence and hunger for more African history.
Best Film Made in Africa – The Legend of Lwanda Makere | Kwame Nyong’o (Kenya)
Jury statement: A classic story about vanity that teaches us all and reminds us not only of the purpose of art in society but also of our need for beauty and its perils among human beings.
Benjamin
Best Short Film – Beyond the Trees | Pierre Burgoni (France)
Jury statement: A beautiful narrative of a moment as we journey on to life. As the character faces their fears and confronts reality, we realise that in us we hold the power to express ourselves in the best way possible.
Best Feature Film – Benjamin | Mohsen Enayati (Iran)
Jury statement: A film that brings out the child in every one of us, and one that resonates with children, to whom adventure, travel and family are the best ingredients of life.
Based in Tanzania, Kwetu Int’l Animation Film Festival (“kwetu” means “our” in Swahili) is supported by Goethe Institut Dar es Salaam, CDEA and NuellaTV. Follow the new fest on Instagram @kiaff_festival.
The Easter Bunny has left an extra li’l treat in our baskets this year. The marshmallow sweet synonymous with the holiday, Peeps, will be the latest brand to go from store shelves to big screens in an animated feature project from Christine and Mark Holder of Wonder Street — producers of BAFTA-nominated, Golden Globe-winning drama The Mauritanian.
According to the scoop from Deadline, Wonder Street picked up film and TV rights to the candy brand from Pennsylvania-based Just Born Inc., and is spinning the movie as “being in the spirit of Trolls-meets-Smurfs” as it follows a ragtag flock of Peeps on a cross-country adventure to attend the big annual Peepsfest in PA.
Just Born’s Director of Marketing & Consumer Engagement, Keith Domalewski, told the site: “Peeps Chicks and Bunnies have been ingrained in American pop culture for nearly seven decades due to their instantly recognizable shapes and fan-favorite marshmallow taste, making them the perfect characters to bring to life on the big screen. We hope the new Peeps film spreads sweetness to families across the country and provides inspiration for fans to express their ‘Peepsonality’ in new ways.”
David Goldblum, a nominee for the Humanitas Student Drama Award and recipient of multiple screenwriting fellowships, is penning the script. He is represented by Wonder Street and attorney Eric Feig.
Just Born, founded by the late Sam Born, began mass producing the little yellow marshmallow chicks when it acquired the Rodda Candy Co. in 1953, greatly speeding up the production of their hand-formed Peeps process. In the 1960s, the company started producing new Peeps designs for different holidays, and in the 1980s introduced the popular Peeps Bunny. The brand’s bright colors and distinctive, fluffy shapes have translated to a successful licensed merch business, ranging from candy flavored lip balm to pillows and plushes, to nail polish and golf gloves.
Epic Games has today released the second volume of its Virtual Production Field Guide, a free in-depth resource for creators at any stage of the virtual production process in film and television. Available as a PDF download, this latest volume dives deep into workflow evolutions including remote multi-user collaboration, new features released in Unreal Engine as well as what’s coming this year in Unreal Engine 5, and two dozen new interviews with industry leaders about their hands-on experiences with virtual production.
You can download Vol. 2 of the Virtual Production Field Guide here.
Photo courtesy Epic Games
To mark this valuable follow-up to the July 2019 Guide, we heard from Head of Digital Jason Chen about how feature animation studio BRON Digital (The Willoughbys, Henchmen is leveraging virtual production and remote collaboration to connect top creative talents around the world and deliver high-quality work in an affordable, COVID-safe way.
Chen has worked in VFX for over a decade with top studios like Weta Digital and ILM on big-screen feats including Avatar, Jojo Rabbit, Real Steel, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Bumblebee and Thor: Ragnarok. BRON Media launched the division last year.
Jason Chen
Where does Unreal Engine fit into your workflow?
Jason Chen: On Fables, our current project, we have a virtual art department based mostly in New Zealand. We have our animation lab and environment design team in Vancouver. Then all the creatives, the director, myself and a lot of the mocap performers are in Los Angeles, and we’re all working cohesively in one little virtual box.
We’re embedding Unreal Engine from the early stages of asset creation, look development and character design through final render and delivery. We’re taking experience from live-action virtual production workflows and traditional animation workflows, and combining them into this fantastic pipeline. We’re also bringing live-action industry professionals such as Ra Vincent, the production designer of Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Ragnarok, and having them guide a virtual production team through their prep.
Virtual production and game engine technology have been in my blood since the beginning of my career when I worked on Avatar. It’s really exciting to see how it’s progressed, and I can’t wait to see how it progresses for the future. Just seeing what’s possible in UE5 is remarkable.
And everyone works from home, even the mocap performers?
The performers we hire are veterans in motion capture and also technical people who understand the medium. We’re able to send them an Xsens mocap suit in a Pelican case with a laptop. They’re capable of putting everything on, calibrating and syncing up. I’m doing virtual cameras in my living room and able to cover an entire scene in two hours.
We’re also working within Perforce and able to update assets on a 24-hour basis, with teams all around the world. It’s almost more efficient than just a singular team in one spot. Work is consistently getting updated, things are being built, and you notice new updates every day.
Photo courtesy Epic Games
What is causing the industry to push into real-time animation?
I worked at ILM for a while and was there when Kim Libreri transitioned to Epic. He has such vast experience in visual effects and the techniques that create stunning visuals, that his contributions to the engine have really brought it to the next level.
My goal is also to integrate motion-capture techniques and get that base layer of performance because it’s so valuable. The tools are getting better and better. We can do virtual cameras in our own home now, and thinking back to 10 years ago, we would need hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a system up and running. It’s really an exciting time to be in this next wave of content creation.
How do you manage assets to be performant in real time but still have high image quality?
There’s a balance. You could have millions of triangles in a single model, but with a combination of materials, shaders, textures and displacement maps that the engine provides you, it doesn’t matter. You can optimize and make it still look fantastic, where you can’t perceive the difference between a model with a billion polygons or a hundred thousand.
Skeptics are trying to find the catch with real-time. The engine is living, breathing, changing and evolving. It’s on its way to being the be-all-and-end-all solution, but you have to work at it. The iterations happening now are a combination of so many people in the user base, all contributing to it and helping it to grow.
Is it challenging for creatives who are not highly technical to contribute to virtual production?
It’s intimidating the first time around, but once you bridge the gap and say, “This is a location scout, this is a camera and this is a lens,” you can make them feel comfortable. On Fables, one of our directors had used his first greenscreen a month before quarantine, and now he’s directing an episodic show entirely within Unreal Engine.
As the supervisors and producers, we need to help guide them, because at the end of the day, filmmaking is filmmaking. We’re still going to have a medium shot, a close-up, and a wide. Unreal Engine gets us back to the core of filmmaking and allows the creatives to be more exploratory.
How has the need for remote collaboration affected your workflows?
There’s a massive shift in mentality because of the state of the world. The idea of choosing remote collaboration seemed too good to be true, but now people realize it works because they are literally forced to understand it. Now that we’re able to work from home, it opens up an entirely new thought process because we can pick the best people from around the world to contribute to a project. We’re in three countries right now, and we’re pushing through a pipeline that’s never been shaped in this way before.
Photo courtesy Epic Games
Is real-time a paradigm shift for visual effects, or more of an evolutionary step?
It’s a combination of both. Within the visual effects industry, it’s a monumental shift, but our job as professionals is to make the transition seamless for the general public. The images will get better because it’s been happening for a long time, but always in the background.
Once gaming technology and virtual reality become cool, the public will feel the shift more directly. For the longest time, computers were not seen as something cool until the iPhone came out. Now everyone, whether they like it or not, is a tech person.
Do you have any suggestions for someone interested in a career in virtual production?
The beautiful thing about Unreal Engine right now is that everyone, from 20-year veterans in the visual effects industry to college students just graduating, is on the same level field. People who want to get into this industry should go online and start learning. Epic has done such an incredible job of making information available. And it’s an open-source community where you can find people pushing the limits of Unreal on a daily basis. So, my advice is just to do the homework, because we are all doing that right now.
Where do you see Unreal Engine evolving in the future?
I feel that the engine will evolve into not only a tool that is used by technical artists, but one that creatives of all ages and skill sets can utilize to help realize their unique visions. World creation is the next step — and when creating worlds, it’s important to remember the 100-plus years of filmmaking skills and tools that helped shape the visual language of film and television. Preserving these looks will be extremely important as we move forward in this digital world.
We would love to incorporate distortion maps and lens grids from all types of lenses (anamorphic, spherical, macro) that were around since the Ben-Hur days and are still consistently used on movies like Scorsese’s Goodfellas and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. We need to preserve them for the engine so we can replicate those looks. Having my roots in traditional VFX, I understand the importance of those distortion maps because each lens is unique and has its own character. Unreal Engine will allow us to capture the best practices of traditional filmmaking and push them forward for the new generation.
Visit Epic’s Virtual Production Hub to learn more about the latest evolution in film. Download Unreal for free at unrealengine.com. And, learn all about BRON at www.bronanimation.com.
The scrappy underdogs of the U.S.S. Cerritos will continue their animated adventures into the spacefaring future! During its virtual First Contact Day event Monday, Paramount+ announced that Star Trek: Lower Decks has been renewed for a third season (10 episodes), and debuted a new teaser for season 2 that sets the show’s return for Thursday, August 12.
The free First Contact Day virtual panels are available to view on demand on Paramount+’s YouTube Channel and on Paramount+ in the U.S., following their initial airing on StarTrek.com/FirstContact.
Set in the year 2380, Lower Decks focuses on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos: Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), Ensign Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and Ensign D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) have to keep up with their duties and their social lives, while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies. The Starfleet characters that comprise the ship’s bridge crew include Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) and Doctor T’Ana (Gillian Vigman).
From two-time Emmy winner Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites) and Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard), the series is exec produced by Kurtzman and Heather Kadin for Secret Hideout, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth for Roddenberry Ent., and Katie Krentz for 219 Productions, alongside creator and showrunner McMahan. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout), who brought McMahan to the project, serves as a co-executive producer. Lower Decks is a production of CBS’s Eye Animation Prod., Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Ent.; animation by Titmouse.
Season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks is available to stream on Paramount+ and will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD from CBS/Paramount Home Ent. on May 18.
With a pandemic leading to lockdowns across the globe and putting audiovisual content in high demand for stuck-at-home audiences, the “streaming wars” definitely heated up over the last year. New data from Ampere Analysis reported by the TheWrap reveals that both the rapid success of Disney+, which launched in November 2019, as well as newer competition like HBO Max (May 2020) and NBCUniversal’s Peacock (July 2020) are challenging the long-held dominance of Netflix in the U.S. and Canada.
Another recent report shows Americans have increased their streaming spending average from $30 per month in Q1 2019, to $34 per mo. in early 2020, to $40 per mo.
The report shows that even though Netflix hit a new company record with 36.58 million new accounts around the world in 2020, its U.S. market share fell from 29% to 20% since the beginning of 2020 — a 31% drop. In January, the streamer reported 73.94M subscribers in the U.S./Canada; it’s estimated about 67M of those are U.S.-based.
Amazon Prime Video, another longer-term player, has also taken a hit and dropped from a 21% piece of the U.S. streaming pie to 16% over the last year. The platform’s numbers can however be muddy, as all Amazon Prime ecommerce club members get access to the streamer but may not be using it. The company announced it had surpassed 150 million paying Prime members in early 2020; Ampere pegs Prime Video usership by U.S. members at about 54M.
Also noteworthy in the Ampere data is that despite hitting subscription goals ahead of schedule and boasting 100 million subs worldwide, Disney+ comes in behind HBO Max in the domestic race with about 40M U.S. subscribers vs. the newer platform’s 41M — although fans of the network’s previous platforms HBO Go and HBO Now surely rolled over to Max, and the numbers include 17.2M “activated” users who downloaded the app but may not be subscribed. Peacock scored the biggest gain, going from zero to 5% of the market by the end of last year.
Per the Ampere data, the leading U.S. streaming platforms are:
Netflix
Amazon Prime Video
Hulu
HBO Max
Disney+
Meanwhile, Business Insider working from data from Antenna reports that Netflix accounted for 34% of the U.S. streaming market as of Q4 2020, down from 40% in Q4 2019. It puts Hulu second with 20%, followed by Disney+ with 18%, HBO Max with 10%, Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) with 6%, Starz with 6%, Showtime with 4%, and “Other” (which includes Peacock and Apple TV+) accounts for 2%.
Antenna uses opt-ins to track data and does not include free trial users. It found that the U.S. market grew 23% over the last year and 8% alone from the third to fourth quarters, and that the average household now subscribes to four different services.
HBO Max announced today that a slew of Hanna-Barbera titles and Looney Tunes series will no longer be departing the service on April 30. Animation fans already have a lot to look forward to this month, as Infinity Train: Book Four and a fresh batch of Looney Tunes Cartoons are set to debut on the platform. And for big kids, the arrival of R-rated fighting game flick Mortal Kombat at no additional charge to subscribers!
For young viewers, HBO Max recently launched a new feature that allows users to customize their profile images, either by uploading a photo of their own or by choosing an avatar from a selection of more than 120 iconic characters from shows like Looney Tunes, Sesame Street, Tom & Jerry, Adventure Time, Craig of the Creek, Teen Titans Go!, Scooby Doo, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and more. The child will only see age-appropriate avatar options based on their parental control settings. (Learn more about at hbom.ax/kid-profiles.)
Extended titles include:
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
Jonny Quest
Josie and the Pussycats
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space
Looney Tunes
The Looney Tunes Show
New Looney Tunes
Paddington Bear (1989)
Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Doo
The Scooby-Doo Show
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries
Tom and Jerry (Classic)
The Yogi Bear Show
Animation & VFX showpiece premieres:
April 11 The Nevers, Series Premiere (HBO) | August, 1896. Victorian London is rocked to its foundations by a supernatural event which gives certain people — mostly women — abnormal abilities, from the wondrous to the disturbing. But no matter their particular “turns,” all who belong to this new underclass are in grave danger. It falls to mysterious, quick-fisted widow Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) and brilliant young inventor Penance Adair (Ann Skelly) to protect and shelter these gifted “orphans.” To do so, they will have to face the brutal forces determined to annihilate their kind.
April 15 Infinity Train: Book Four Season Premiere (Max Original)| Ryan and Min-Gi are forced to put their music aspirations on hold as they board the train at the same time and receive the exact same number. Exploring the train’s inner puzzles in order to solve its mysteries and return home, the two old friends also find their relationship put to the test.
April 23 Mortal Kombat Film Premiere (Warner Bros.) | Why has Outworld’s emperor sent his best warrior, Sub-Zero, to hunt down MMA fighter Cole Young? In search of answers, Cole finds his way to the temple of Lord Raiden and begins unlocking the secrets of his heritage. As Outworld’s threat to Earthrealm grows, Cole joins warriors Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and Kano in a high stakes battle for the soul of the universe. Stars Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin.
April 29 Looney Tunes Cartoons Season 1D | In this newest batch of cartoons, Bug’s relaxing afternoon is interrupted by a hungry Puma looking for a “hare-y” snack. Daffy meets his match with an office photocopier, helps Porky find his keys and offers legal advice to Elmer Fudd. Taz, Tweety, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner also star in these 10 all-new animated episodes. Enjoy a Looney spring with your favorite Tunes!
Looney Tunes Cartoons
More April additions:
Space Jam (1996) – available now
Ted – available now
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal Season 1B – April 6
The New Mutants – April 10
The Dark Knight Rises – April 17
Last chance titles:
LEGO DC Shazam: Magic and Monsters – Leaving April 15
The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina (2002) – Leaving April 30
Godzilla: King of the Monsters – Leaving April 30
Godzilla vs. Kong – Leaving April 30
The Hobbit Trilogy – Leaving April 30
The Invisible Man (2020) – Leaving April 30
The Neverending Story – Leaving April 30
Rise of the Guardians – Leaving April 30
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride – Leaving April 30
Where the Wild Things Are (2009) – Leaving April 30
HBO’s Game of Thrones — based on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R.R. Martin — was one of the largest events in television history, culminating in 45 million viewers in the U.S., distribution in 207 territories around the world, and a massive global army of fans who continue to go to great lengths to celebrate the show.
This April, to mark the 10th anniversary of the hit series’ premiere, HBO has launched The Iron Anniversary, a month-long celebration to commemorate the series, engage passionate fans, and ignite audiences’ excitement for the next iteration of the franchise, with House of the Dragon slated to begin production this year. A custom spotlight page on HBO Max with personalized curations, a binge-watching marathon, special-edition products and more will launch throughout the month.
Game of Thrones
Starting today, HBO Max features a Game of Thrones Spotlight Page, an in app experience with curations for every level of fandom, from a broad introduction to the world and characters for newbies, to spoiler-laden curations featuring easter eggs for die hard fans. The page includes a treasure trove of content, with over 150 videos of behind-the-scenes extras, cast interviews, clips and trailers — many of which have never been available on the streaming platform before.
Beginning April 10, HBO will launch the MaraThrone with all episodes of season one airing on HBO2 starting at 10 a.m. ET, challenging fans to continue to binge watch all 73 episodes of the series on HBO Max while raising money for select global charities. For two weeks, Game of Thrones cast members will rally the fandom to contribute to one of 10 noble causes: Women for Women International, World Central Kitchen, Conservation International, International Rescue Committee (IRC), UNICEF, FilmAid International, SameYou, Royal Mencap Society, National Urban League and The Trevor Project.
A selection of superfans and influencers will receive a custom MaraThrone kit with fun essentials to aid in their marathon viewing experiences, while six unique marathon “routes” will offer a little direction to fans who want to experience the series in a whole new way. Viewers may choose from episode collections focused on the entire series, follow the Mother of Dragons through her most fiery moments, journey with Arya to Braavos and beyond, binge the best battles, watch the Army of the Dead come to life, or relive the series’ biggest spoiler episodes all over again.
Later in the month, HBO will surprise three couples who were married in Westeros-themed ceremonies with special anniversary gifts of their own: Thrones-branded barrels of wine, custom chalices and elaborate cakes designed in partnership with local bakeries to represent the Game of Thrones houses of Targaryen, Stark and Lannister.
Game of Thrones
Warner Bros. Consumer Products and its licensing partners have teamed up to create a variety of special-edition products kicking off the Iron Anniversary that include:
A one-of-a-kind Imperial egg by Fabergé, the world’s most iconic artist jeweler, inspired by Daenerys Targaryen, and co-designed by series Emmy Award-winning costume designer Michele Clapton. The egg includes a miniature crown designed by Clapton, which represents the crown Daenerys would have worn had she taken the Iron Throne. This lovely dragon egg will cost you £1.6 million pounds (or $2.22 million in U.S. dollars).
Mikkeller, the Danish craft beer company, have launched a range of beers inspired by the series, that will let fans all over the world celebrate one stein at a time. Fans can cheer with the first beer in the assortment called “Iron Anniversary IPA.”
Pop culture products leader Funko have unveiled a new iron-textured limited-edition assortment of fan-favorite Game of Thrones Pop! vinyl collectibles and new figures based on Arya Stark, Khal Drogo, and many more. Available for pre-order now at retailers everywhere.
Game of Thrones: Complete Collection is available to own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and through select digital retailers. The complete series is also available to stream on HBO Max.
Leading creative content studio TeamTO and top kids entertainment specialist CAKE announced the greenlighting of a fifth season of Angelo Rules with co-production partners France Télévisions, Canal+ and Super RTL.
Corinne Kouper, SVP Development & Production, TeamTO, commented “After more than 10 successful, fun-filled years on air, it was about time Angelo starred in his own feature length adventure. Angelo’s original take on the spirit of Christmas is sure to make sparks fly!”
Tom van Waveren, CEO & Exec Producer at CAKE said, “It’s rare to have the privilege of producing five seasons of a series and it’s very rewarding to keep bringing more Angelo stories to millions of Angelo fans.”
Season 5 (1 x 60’ + 46 x 11’) will kick off with Angelo’s first ever Christmas comedy special which will be broadcast on Canal+ and Super RTL on Christmas day 2021. This year, Angelo finds himself on Santa’s naughty list and gets stuck reliving the day before Christmas over and over again, in a nightmarish yuletide time loop. In order to escape, Angelo’s going to need a team, a plan and — a friend who speaks elf!
“We are very pleased that we can finally present this long-running show in film length. The festive Christmas setting is bound to inspire joy and giddy anticipation in our young audience, and Angelo’s tumultuous quest for his own Christmas miracle will keep kids on the edge of their seats,” commented Thorsten Braun, Chief Content & Revenue Officer, Super RTL.
Angelo Rules S5 will launch in France and Germany in 2022 and will introduce a brand-new rival: West Side Academy, a shiny, fancy, modern school. Rumor has it they have a pool, a dairy farm, a green roof where kids grow their own lunch, a surf club, a black-box theater, a music recording studio, and more. The ongoing battle between the two schools gives Angelo and friends the opportunity to ally with some of their old rivals, like Tracy, Mr. Foot, and Manetti. Now that they all have a common enemy, get ready for some epic Angelo mayhem!
“France Télévisions, the leading partner in French animation production, is proud to continue its collaboration with TeamTO on this successful series, enjoyed by our young viewers on Okoo, our public broadcasting kids platform, as well as on France 4,” said Pierre Siracusa, Director of Youth Programming and Animation, France Télévisions. “The new themes of this latest season and the arrival of an event-driven long-format adventure usher in an even brighter future for our on-screen hero and his sidekicks, to the certain delight of Angelo’s many young fans.”
Nathalie Leffray, Head of Animation Development, Canal+ Kids Department, added, “Canal+ has been supporting all of Angelo’s cunning plans since the beginning! Like his faithful friends Victor and Lola, we are delighted to follow him once again into his fifth series — starting with a totally loopy and surprising holiday Special where the spirit of Christmas is challenged by a more mischievous and spirited Angelo than ever. And for the great enjoyment of our viewers, the special will be available exclusively on our channels and Mycanal at the end of this year.”
Aired in over 100 territories on premium platforms like Cartoon Network (EMEA, Latin America, Asia), France Télévisions, Super RTL and Canal +, Angelo Rules has consistently secured great ratings on TV, and the digital world as well: the series’ four digital games (Angelo Skate Away, A Busy Day, Super Run, Funny Faces) have been downloaded over 6 million times. The series has also been widely recognized within the animation industry, receiving a Pulcinella Award for Best Kids TV Series (Cartoons on the Bay 2010) and nominations at the 2013 Emmy Kids Awards, 2013 Trickfilm Festival, 2012 Anima Mundi and 2011 BANFF World Media Festival.
Angelo Rules is a TeamTO/CAKE co-production with TeleTOON+ in collaboration with France Télévisions and Super RTL. Based on the French series of books Comment Faire Enrager, written by Sylvie de Mathuisieulx and illustrated by Sébastien Diologent, the series is produced in association with IRP (Amy Jackson and Andy Rheingold).
Following a special St. Patrick’s Day return to New York City last month, GKIDS has announced new theatrical re-release dates for Wolfwalkers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and additional select markets this Friday, April 9.
The latest Oscar-nominated feature from acclaimed Irish studio Cartoon Saloon and Luxembourg’s Melusine, the Apple TV+ pic will make a big screen comeback at The Landmark theater in L.A. (10850 W. Pico Blvd) and the Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema in S.F. (1 Embarcadero Center). Tickets are on sale now.
Synopsis: In a time of superstition and magic, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends a free-spirited girl, Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe rumored to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. As they search for Mebh’s missing mother, Robyn uncovers a secret that draws her further into the enchanted world of the Wolfwalkers and risks turning into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy.
Directed by Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart from a screenplay by Will Collins, Wolfalkers features the voices of Honor Kneafsey, Eva Whitaker, Sean Bean, Simon McBurney, Tommy Tiernan, Jon Kenny, John Morton and Maria Doyle Kennedy. Producers are Paul Young, Nora Twomey and Moore for Cartoon Saloon, Stéphan Roelants for Melusine.
Disney Junior’s newest animated comedy-adventure series The Chicken Squadpremieres Friday, May 14 (7:30 p.m. EDT/PDT), with two back-to-back episodes on Disney Junior and DisneyNOW. Inspired by Doreen Cronin’s popular children’s books, the series follows a trio of young chicken siblings — Coop, Sweetie and Little Boo — and their retired search and rescue dog mentor, Captain Tully. Together, they team up on problem-solving adventures in their backyard to help their animal friends, while modeling what it means to be good community helpers and finding the joy in assisting others.
A digital soundtrack, Disney Junior Music: The Chicken Squad, featuring the theme song and music from the series is also set for release May 14, on Walt Disney Records.
Joining the previously announced lead voice cast —Yvette Nicole Brown (Captain Tully), Ramone Hamilton (Coop), Gabriella Graves (Sweetie) and Maxwell Simkins (Little Boo) — the recurring guest voice cast includes Tony Hale (Disney+’s upcoming The Mysterious Benedict Society) as Frazz, a nervous squirrel; Jane Lynch (Glee) as Dr. Dirt, a forensic scientist snail; Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory) as Dinah, the chicks’ mother; Sean Giambrone (The Goldbergs) as Riley, a gruff pack rat; Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Resident) as Lt. Scruffy, a retired firehouse dog; and Melissa Villaseñor (Saturday Night Live) and Zack Pearlman (Dragons: Race to the Edge) as Wheeze and Snick, mischievous raccoon siblings.
The guest voice cast for season one includes Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) as Rebeecca, a nervous honeybee, and Chrissie Fit (Pitch Perfect franchise) as Quilla, a friendly porcupine.
Whether rescuing a stranded puppy from a creek, helping a bird track down its missing food, or solving the mystery of how their mom’s prized flowers got trampled, the Chicken Squad is always ready to lend a helping wing. Each episode, comprising two 11-minute stories, features the recurring “Chicken Charge” anthem that the chickens sing upon determination of a new mission and at least one new original song that showcases a variety of musical styles ranging from pop and R&B to country, hip-hop and electronic.
The Chicken Squad was developed and is executive produced by Emmy Award winner Tom Rogers (Elena of Avalor). Humanitas Prize and Emmy Award winner Rachel Ruderman (Sofia the First) is co-producer and story editor; Tony Trujillo (FarmVille 2) is art director; and Emmy Award-nominated Elliot M. Bour (Elena of Avalor) and Scott Bern (Puppy Dog Pals) are supervising directors.
Grammy Award winner Alex Geringas (Voltron: Legendary Defender) and Emmy Award-nominated Mike Himelstein (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) are the series’ songwriters, and Emmy Award winner Gregory James Jenkins (T.O.T.S.) is composer. The Chicken Squad theme song is performed by multitalented actress, singer and recording artist Renée Sandstrom (Kids Incorporated; Wild Orchid), along with Geringas.
The series is produced by Wild Canary in association with Disney Junior.
Writer Loses ‘Muppet Babies’ Lawsuit Because of Old Bankruptcy
A California federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by TV scribe Jeffrey Scott last October due to some little seen legal wrangling. Scott’s suit claimed that Disney Junior’s reboot of Muppet Babies infringed on elements of the original show’s bible, which he created in the 1980s.
In addition to arguing that Scott was only brought on by Marvel Productions on a work-for-hire basis on the already developed Henson concept, Disney lawyers pointed to the writer’s 2003 Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which did not include a disclosure of the Muppet Babies bible as an intellectual property asset. The copyright claim was dismissed without prejudice, meaning Scott could try to reopen the bankruptcy, sort out the asset disclosure, and try again.
Cartoon Movie 2021: Final Results
The total numbers are in for the virtual event, which wrapped on March 11. (The digital platform was accessible through to March 31.) Notably, the European feature animation pitch fest set a new record for buyer participation — read the full report here. At a glance:
The New Yorker Presents Oscar-Nominated Short ‘Yes-People’
Icelandic director Gísli Darri Halldórsson’s film follows three households in a humdrum apartment building as they go about their days — acknowledging, ignoring or annoying both their neighbors and their intimates. The animation process involved merging computer-generated characters with photographs, most of which belonged to the director’s father.
Halldórsson was inspired to begin work on the project after describing the word “já” (pronounced “yow”), meaning “yes” in Icelandic, to his Irish friends — explaining that the short word can contain myriad meanings depending on tone and expression. It’s the only word spoken during the entire film. “To limit dialogue to the primal language that I imagine was spoken by our ancestors, before words came about. And just to see if this format could reach a universal audience,” Halldórsson said.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
FMX Goes Online
The 2021 event will mark the conference’s first online edition. While the streets of Stuttgart won’t be swarming with animation and VFX pros, the May 4-6 virtual confab will still present thought provoking talks with world-leading creators. Recent additions to the schedule include a Digital Humans track and a look at Goodbye Kansas Studios’ cinematic ad for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Already planned for a hybrid edition, sister event ITFS (May 4-9) also announced that it is cancelling its Open Air screening program on the Stuttgart Schlossplatz. However, locals and international animation fans can still tune in to a free ITFS Live Stream to catch the program, which includes shorts, interviews, talks and more from 2 to 10 p.m. local time.
Golaem Launches Free Crowd Artist Training
Marking the award-winning crowd simulation/character layout software’s 10th anniversary, Golaem Academy is a free program for artists of all backgrounds to train for a new career. The certificate program consists of four sessions of four hours, instructing students on how to fill stadiums, create daunting battles and populate city streets. Sessions are scheduled for April 15, 16, 19 and 20 from 9 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. CT.
Cleve Hall Dies: Special Effects & Makeup Artist for ‘Ghoulies,’ ‘Twisted Nightmare’ Was 61
The Florida-born artist also worked on Book of Fire, Nightmare and Re-Animator; as a puppeteer on The Sandlot and The Halfway House, and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for his costume design on Nick Jr.’s Yo Gabba Gabba! His daughter, Constance, announced his death and launched a Go Fund Me to cover burial costs after the 61-year-old died of a heart attack Wednesday.
“To all family, friends, fans and loved ones, we deeply regret to inform you of the passing of Cleve Hall or as he was lovingly known to many of his fans Monster Man. Cleve spent many many years as a Special makeup FX artist, foam fabricator, and horror movie actor. He was a family man, an adored father proud, grandpa and a beloved mentor,” Constance Hall wrote.
Cleve Hall
Call for Entries: Cinanima 2021
The 45th edition of Portugal’s oldest film festival — and the country’s only Oscar-qualifying competition for animated shorts — is seeking submissions for its international (shorts, features & student films) and national (Best Portuguese Film Young Portuguese Director Award) competitions. This year’s festival will be held November 8-14. Deadline: May 31 (general) / June 25 (students), 2021.
Call for Entries: Bucheon Int’l Animation Festival
The Academy Awards-qualifying Korean event is accepting entries for its feature, shorts, student film, TV/commissioned and VR competition categories. The 23rd BIAF will be held October 22-26. Deadline: June 30 (short, student, TV & commissioned) / July 31 (features, VR)
Call for Entries: KCET FINE CUT Festival of Film
SoCal’s flagship PBS station is now accepting entries from local film students in categories including animation for consideration for prizes and inclusion in a series of one-hour broadcast episodes airing and streaming on KCET this fall. Deadline: June 5, 2021.
***This article originally appeared in the May ’21 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 310)***
If you thought Disney+’s WandaVision was a wild ride, get ready for the delightful insanity of the new Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. series. Since his first appearance in the 1967 issue of Tales of Suspense, the frustrated, insane supervillain M.O.D.O.K. has left a big impression on fans of the Marvel universe. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) is always coming up with futile schemes to bring down the likes of Captain America, Iron Man, Deadpool, Ms. Marvel and The Hulk. The deeply insecure character is finally getting the respect he thinks he deserves when he appears in own show on Hulu in May.
Exec produced by the dynamic duo of writer Jordan Blum (American Dad!) and everyone’s favorite writer/comic/actor/awards show host Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille), not only is the show incredibly funny, it also features terrific stop-motion animation by the cool crew at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (Robot Chicken). “I always wanted to work in this world of subterranean D-list heroes and villains of the Marvel universe,” says Oswalt, who also voices the main character. “For me, the thing that was most exciting was being able to mess around in the weird side alleys of this world as well as make the main character somewhat human and relatable, as we also explore his home life with his wife and kids.”
Executive producers Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt
Blum says he had been wanting to work with Oswalt for a long time. The two had previously collaborated on a pilot for FOX, so when Blum had a meeting with the folks at Marvel, he jumped at the chance to get Oswalt involved again. “He has the perfect voice and spoke the language of superheroes,” says Blum. “They always say never meet your heroes, but in Patton’s case, it was the exact opposite. He is such an amazing and incredible collaborator. We both have this great love for comic books. In fact, we always ran into each other in comic stores around town.”
Let the Game Begin
Blum and Oswalt joined forces to develop and build their M.O.D.O.K. series and things got rolling when Marvel and Hulu bought their package two years ago. “After we wrote the pilot and show bible, we had to figure out the look of the show, so we got several presentations from different animation studios.”
The duo says they were blown away by what Stoopid Buddy put together. “They actually did two versions, the first one was standard 2D animation, and the other was stop motion,” says Blum. “Not only did their stop-motion version stand out, it also incorporated some native, hand-held, verité camera style that was unlike anything else I had seen before. It was cinematic, had great craftsmanship and made great use of depth of field and camera movements. It looked like something Laika would do. It’s a very crowded market for animation, and you really need to have a distinctive style that doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.”
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.
Fortunately, the production began before the COVID shutdown last year, so they were able to get a good part of the job done. Afterwards, health precautions were put into place at the studio. The dailies and post work was done remotely. “They had to bring in a safety specialist at the studio and everyone was tested weekly,” says Blum. “There are 30 mini-stages at Stoopid Buddy, and we had only one or two puppeteers working at the same time, and then the camera crew would check in. The work was slower, but everything was beautifully crafted.”
The design team had to build hundreds of elaborate sets that represented the wild universe of the main character and the Marvel superheroes. “A lot of the show was written before we knew it was going to be a stop-motion project, but the team at the studio really embraced the challenges,” says Blum. “The sets are really works of art. They had to build places like Asgard and Murderworld, and the scale of these worlds are unbelievable. You actually forget that you’re watching a stop-motion show.”
In addition to Oswalt, the series features a terrific voice cast that includes Aimee Garcia (wife Jodie), Melissa Fumero (daughter Melissa), Ben Schwartz (son Lou), Wendi McLendon-Covey (mad scientist Monica Rappaccini), Beck Bennet (young techy boss Austin Van Der Sleet), Jon Daly (snarky android Super-Adaptoid) and Sam Richardson (loyal henchman Gary). Blum mentions, “It was so much fun to see our main voice cast and guest stars’ take on the Marvel universe characters and to see the A-list Marvel characters in the same physical space as the M.O.D.O.K. players.”
Oswalt, who is a huge comic-book and animation fan, says he loved Stoopid Buddy’s attention to detail on the show. “I love the fact that we could pack so much in 3D in every frame, and we could hide things behind each other,” he notes. “We could use deep focus and have visuals that look like it was shot by a hand-held camera for a documentary film. Animation allowed us to have some massive set pieces with plenty of collisions. You can also bring out vocal performances that might get lost in a live-action piece.”
The writer/actor/exec producer says he got a big kick out of exploring the domestic side of M.O.D.O.K.. “He has this huge ego that thinks he can rule the world and enjoy a family life in his own twisted way,” says Oswalt. “He thinks his wife and kids are another way of showing off his might. But he really loves them, and he’s about to go through some serious ups and downs throughout the show.”
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.
A Relatable Floating Head
According to Oswalt, the toughest part of the job was keeping his inner Marvel geek in line. “I had this knee-jerk reaction to pack as many Marvel Easter eggs and fun references as possible in every episode,” he admits. “Luckily, Jordan was there to wrangle me when my brain was getting ahead of me. As an actor, the big challenge was to find these moments when M.O.D.O.K. shows his vulnerable human side — although he is this screeching half-robotic monstrosity!”
For Blum, the show was a chance to learn a whole new side of animation beyond the 2D world of American Dad!. “There was a whole new set of tools to learn,” he says. “In 2D TV animation, you have a lot of chances to change things during the animatic, reading, color stages, etc. but with stop motion you have to lock everything early on. It’s more like live action than animation.”
Blum says the show’s writers room was made up of a tight-knit group of eight who connected and bonded quickly. “It was a lot of fun to find the show with our diverse staff as they brought their own stories to the table,” he notes. “What’s surprising is the show has a ton of heart although it’s about a floating head! In a way, it’s a relatable story about a very driven person who has lost his way. He loses his business and his family in his 40s and has to rediscover what he wants out of life.”
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.
He adds, “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby infused all the characters in this universe with so much humanity and relatability. That’s why we are even able to see a lot of ourselves in M.O.D.O.K., who is this frustrated, ego-driven person who is essentially humbled. That’s the reason these characters have lasted for over 60 years.”
Both Blum and Oswalt are hoping that audiences will have a great time investing in the show’s offbeat characters. “I think they’ll have a great time with the comedy and the emotional relevance of the show,” says Blum. “We hope they go on this serialized adventure with M.O.D.O.K. and his family. Things are messy and don’t get resolved at the end of each episode, and in fact, the first season ends with a pretty huge cliffhanger!”
“Like all Marvel projects, we have this combination of fun and surprise: We hope the audience is surprised by all the human zigzags we put into it,” says Oswalt, sounding like a very crafty world dominator!
The first season of Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. (10 episodes) premieres on Hulu on May 21.
***This article originally appeared in the May ’21 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 310)***
Writer-director Mike Rianda has a lot of great memories growing up with his brother and sister in a tightly knit family in Salinas, Calif. He also loves dinosaurs, robots, apocalyptic movies and pop culture. You can find a lot of his favorite things in the hilarious and highly original new animated feature The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Although the theatrical release of the Sony Pictures Animation title (which was renamed Connected for a while) fell victim to the pandemic last fall, audiences can finally enjoy the feature when it premieres on Netflix on April 30.
Rianda, who was the creative director on Disney Channel’s acclaimed series Gravity Falls, recalls how he came up with the idea for the movie back in December 2014. “I wanted to make the kind of animated movie that my friends and I would want to see,” he explains. “I remember taking a long car drive from L.A. to Salinas, so I turned on my tape recorder and came up with the story that eventually became this movie. I love my own weird family, and I love robots. My own dad (who is the inspiration for Rick Mitchell, the father in the movie) is an outdoors person, and he hates technology so much. I thought it would be really funny if he was caught up in a robocalypse. I also know that every family is dealing with technology and how it can come between parents and their kids. So all these ideas merged together as I sat down to write the movie.”
Writer-director Mike Rianda
The film, which is co-directed by Jeff Rowe (writer on Gravity Falls and Disenchantment), follows the adventures of a typical suburban family who take a road trip to drop off artistic older daughter Katie (Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson) at film school in California. However, they find themselves in the strange position of saving the world from a sinister robot takeover. Danny McBride and Maya Rudolph voice the parents, while Rianda himself voices younger brother Aaron and celebrity pup Doug the Pug lends his snorting talents to the family’s pug, Monchi! The film also includes hand-held computer visionary Dr. Mark Bowman (voiced by Eric André) and his needy Alexa-esque personal assistant PAL (Olivia Colman).
“One of the reasons the movie really strikes a chord is because the material feels autobiographical,” says Kristine Belson, Sony Pictures Animation President. “Mike Rianda is a creative force, very much like Katie Mitchell, and the movie delicately handles that universal idea of the generational divide, which happens when parents and their kids don’t value the same things and fail to understand each other. We felt that The Mitchells was the perfect opportunity for us to explore this fresh world which was quite different from all the other movies we had done in the past.”
Belson also points out that Rianda and his artistic team wanted the central family to be unlike other animated clans of the big screen. “The families we often see in animated movies are often glossed over,” she says. “What we loved about Rianda’s vision was the way he and his team created a world that reflected how real people live today. The Mitchells live in a modest home in the Midwest. They don’t have time to make their beds every day and make sure everything is completely neat and organized. They shop at discount stores and the carpet in the house is threadbare. But they treat everything with love.”
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
The Lord and Miller Touch
Also helping out with the movie were producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who felt an instant kinship with the director after they met him at Sony as they were finishing work on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. “We were really inspired by Mike, his story and his ability to tell a joke, but also care about the emotionality of it,” says Lord. “It can make you laugh and make you cry. We thought, that’s an instant win. Someone who is really good at both things would be a good person to be in business with.”
Miller also praises Rianda’s team for really pushing the film in terms of its original visuals. He explains, “Mike’s goal was to bring a homemade, handcrafted feel to the project, so when we see things through Katie’s POV, he wanted it to feel like her mixed-media student films. That’s why the studio developed a watercolor style for the movie, so that every frame felt hand-painted and we see this story through ‘Katie Vision,’ which bursts with creative energy and dazzling colors.”
Kurt Albrecht, who served as a producer with Lord and Miller on the film, credits the studio with allowing young and talented filmmakers like Rianda and Rowe to pursue their original visions on this project. “Mike and Jeff come from the world of 2D television animation, and our production designer Lindsey Olivares and head of story Guillermo Martinez had never worked in leadership positions before this movie,” he points out. “There’s a lot of new blood on this team, and they are all incredibly hard-working. They are constantly coming up with new ideas and adding fresh takes and new jokes.”
Albrecht praises the work of some of the young members of the team such as production designer Lindsey Olivares, who was responsible for the quirky designs of many of the characters as well as overseeing the 2D pop-up animation for Katie’s POV (dubbed internally as “Katie Vision”). “Everyone really fell in love with her illustrations, recalls Albrecht. “Her work has this wonderful, hand-crafted illustrative quality, and we wanted to make sure we preserved that as we translate them to CG animation. It has been such a great and satisfying journey to see our technical team bring her paintings to life on the big screen.”
One of the stand-out qualities that sets Mitchells apart from other big CG-animated studio fare is its unique visual stamp. “Big studio animated movies are often beautiful,” explains Rianda. “Audiences are just accustomed to seeing a very high level of incredible artistry on the big screen. We were thinking that if we ever got to do our own movie, we would have the chance to do things a little bit differently. Our production designer Lindsey Olivares came up with these amazing early drawings for the movie, and we thought, ‘Wow, what if the movie looked just like your drawings?’“
Monchi character design and expression drawings by Lindsey Olivares (Sony Pictures Animation)
For Rowe, the movie stood out as a wonderful tribute to the characters that both directors knew and identified with. “I love that the movie is very observed and naturalistic,” says Rowe. “I mean, yes we have laser-shooting giant Furbys and a robot city, but at its core, it’s a very well-grounded movie. We pay a lot of attention to the details of the characters. They feel complex emotions and have flaws and wants that are in opposition to each other. We were hoping to offer more emotional depth than your average animated movie.”
According to Rowe, making the movie felt like walking on a balance beam, where you had to fall on the side of technology or humanity. “It felt it was too easy to say, ‘Oh, look, technology and phones are ruining the world. Nobody retains information anymore!’ But then, it just felt untrue. We felt like old men who were shaking their fists in the air and saying, ‘Put down your phones, kids!’ We didn’t believe any of that and didn’t want it to be the message of the movie. Technology can be amazing. You can meet like-minded people from all over the world. Katie Mitchell has tools that no other generations before had access to. She can shoot and edit movies on her own, etc. Both Mike and I want the movie to say that a good balance is what we need. It’s good to embrace the positive aspects of technology, but it’s wrong to use it to avoid dealing with the world.”
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
To get the details of the Mitchells’ car trek across America right, Rianda, Rowe and some of the key members of the art and design team decided to plan a road trip themselves. “I told them we could go to my family’s house in Salinas or we can go to Las Vegas, and they picked Vegas, of course,” says Rianda. “One of the storyboard artists suggested that we stop using our cell phones and see what happens. So as soon as we put our phones in a bag, we started having really great, intimate conversations. It was funny how we started connecting as soon as the technology went away!”
The director and his team have waited a long time for their labor of love to reach their target audience. But Rianda mentions that the extra time allowed them to fine tune all the jokes and nuances. “One thing we learned from working with Chris and Phil is the way we combed through the movie over and over again and made little adjustments and improvements,” he points out. “It’s really an evolution as we try these sporadic mutations based on everyone’s guts. You give birth to these changes: Some of them die and some flourish, so you hang on to the ones that are successful. As a result, we did a lot of screw-tightening.”
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
Worth the Wait
Looking back, Rianda says he’s very happy with the final results. “I can say that I don’t have any regrets as I watch the movie. As awful as the COVID year was, the thing that I was impressed with was how much we were able to connect with each other via Skype and Zoom, and we were able to finish the movie with relative ease. Without the technology, we wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
Technology also helped Rianda screen the movie with his family and the cast and crew. “I was more nervous showing the movie to my family than the rest of the world,” he admits. “They have always been tough critics to please, but they really loved this one. Our Zoom screening was amazing. My dad was showing all his hunting stuff to the crew and they were cheering him on!”
[dev art > MonchiPaint_closedmouth.jpg] cap: Concept painting of Monchi, voiced by celebridog Doug the Pug in a movie history first! (Sony Pictures Animation)
As we get towards the end of our interview, Rianda says, “As corny as it sounds, the pandemic really reminded us how important we all are to each other and how we go crazy when we can’t see each other. I’d run through a brick wall to be able to hug my parents right now. So, you find yourself grateful to technology because it lets you interact with your family and friends.”
“I really do hope that if a kid is watching the movie, he or she can laugh at the jokes, but also appreciate what their parents are going through,” he notes. “Also, I hope parents realize that maybe they’re not paying enough attention or encouraging their children enough. I guess we’re trying to bring families together. On a less grand scale, I hope families can watch our movie together, just like my family used to watch movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Uncle Buck together when I was a kid. That was always the best night of the month, because we’d all spend time together and quote our favorite lines from the movies.”
The Mitchells vs. the Machines premieres on Netflix on April 30.
***This article originally appeared in the May ’21 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 310)***
“At heart, I’m a story person,” says Ryan Crego, creator, writer and director of the animated musical feature Arlo the Alligator Boy. “And so a lot of ideas really come from sketches rather than words. I just tend to find that that’s where I build characters and start to create stories, so that’s where Arlo came from.”
When the movie premieres this month on Netflix, audiences will discover that Arlo is an unrelenting optimist. And his positivity is as infectious as the energetic, thoroughly modern pop tunes that propel his story through the feature and toward an upcoming follow-up series, titled I Heart Arlo.
Arlo’s arrival has been a long time coming for Crego, who first came up with the character more than 10 years ago. Crego says his initial pitch for an Arlo project was rejected back then and he shelved it for several years before returning to the optimistic little ‘gator from the swamp.
Arlo the Alligator Boy
A Pure Heart vs. the World
The character was inspired by Crego’s love for movies like Elf, where a pure-hearted character is thrown out into the world to see how they measure up. Crego says Arlo was his first attempt at pitching a movie, and looking back at it, he understands why his original version failed to gain traction. “I go back and look at that now and I just think I didn’t know what I was doing, and I get why no one wanted it,” he says.
When finishing his commitments for other projects, Crego says his wife suggested he revisit the project. “I was like, ’Yeah, but I can think of something fresh! I need something new,’” he says. But revisiting it with new skills and a fresh perspective revealed the project’s potential. ”I kind of realized I never really fleshed it out the way that it could have been fleshed out,” he says. ”And then I just fell in love with the world again, and the characters again, and really started to build the journey out.”
Ryan Crego
The movie kicks things off with Arlo, voiced by singer and American Idol contestant Michael J. Woodard, set adrift at birth in a basket that floats downriver until it delivers him to the swamps of Louisiana, where he’s taken in by kindly Edmée, voiced by Annie Potts. Arlo grows up happy until Edmée reveals the truth about Arlo’s origin and his parents, prompting him to leave home for New York City in search of his real father, wealthy Ansel Beauregard, voiced by Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Vincent Rodriguez III.
Along the way, Arlo meets friends and foes. The former include Bertie, voiced by singer Mary Lambert, a mountain of a girl with a heart to match; an oddball fur ball named Furlecia, voiced by Jonathan Ness of Queer Eye; cat girl Alia, voiced by Haley Tju; an elf with an Italian-American perspective on life, Teeny Tiny Tony, voiced by Tony Hale; and man-fish Marcellus, voiced by Brett Gelman of Stranger Things fame. Opposing them are Stucky, voiced by Jennifer Coolidge; and Ruff, voiced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Michael “Flea” Balzary — a pair of low-rent entrepreneurs out to exploit Arlo for their own benefit.
Arlo the Alligator Boy
Crego’s revised pitch drew attention from Netflix, which committed to both a movie and the follow-up series, set to debut later in 2021. “Obviously, once you have someone believing in your idea, then it becomes a whole other thing — and it is infectious,” he notes.
Each character has its quirks, and Crego says he tried to put a little of himself into each one. “I tried to follow what I think is right — for myself and for people around me — and try to treat people with respect,” he says. ”But also I feel like a lot of the other characters are fairly broken and have a lot of deficiencies.”
Crego, who was a story artist on DreamWorks movies such as Shrek Forever After, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots and Mr. Peabody & Sherman and went on to become supervising director on Sanjay and Craig and exec producer on Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh, says his personal experiences played into the creation of the characters. “I think a lot about my own life, growing up and going to L.A. and being in a big city and sort of discovering yourself and finding a home,” he says. ”I think it really is sort of a story about, can you keep your purity and your senses and remain good in the face of all of these things that the world throws at you — and beyond that, help people?”
Arlo the Alligator Boy
The relationship between Arlo and Bertie forms the core of the movie. “She needs him more than she knows,” he says. “She unfolds and lowers her barriers and lets him in, and he’s this character who just can’t not be good; he can’t not be positive. And then when he really needs her the most, when he’s the most damaged and broken, she’s there for him. And I think that kind of trade-off, of how friends and family members can really lift each other up, is a really special message.”
Casting also played a key role, with Crego saying he wanted to create characters with depth, while also leaving room for Lambert and Woodard in particular to find room to play versions of themselves, too. “I can’t really separate the people from the characters, in a lot of ways,” he says.
Crego early on pitched taking the animation production aspect to Titmouse, discussing with the studio’s execs Chris Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio and Ben Kalina the challenges of creating a 2D movie that looks like a feature and can be adapted to a follow-up series. “They kind of said, ’Look, if you really want the highest quality, if you want to make something that’s at a feature level, we’ve got to do it in house, because all of these departments have to talk to each other,” Crego says. “And the more we talked about it, the more that felt right.”
Arlo the Alligator Boy
With the movie having a production home, Crego’s list of collaborators grew, starting with Clay Senechal, who co-wrote the movie. “He was a great sounding board and also just a really fantastic wordsmith and dialogue writer and really helped me kind of keep everything on track,” Crego says.
Crego also tapped into collaborators for character design, admitting up front that as a designer, he’s a great storyboard artist. Crego connected with art director Israel Sanchez through Netflix. “I knew that the world would be 2D, and I wanted something that was going to be classic in a way, but not necessarily derivative,” says Crego. ”[Sanchez] just has a fantastic style. A lot of the background design is really his taste and his pen.”
He also credits concept designer Hae Jung Michelle Park, character designer David DePasquale and additional art director Margaret Wuller, who helped elevate the look of the movie to a feature level. “We had this core team of artists that were plussing each other’s work and just trying to find ways to make it feel really deep and rich without breaking the style,” he says.
Arlo the Alligator Boy
Getting the Band Together Again!
No discussion of Arlo the Alligator Boy would be complete without a dive into the musical element. The songs, written by Crego and Alex Geringas, propel the story forward with a modern pop sensibility and the kind of relentless, positive energy of Arlo himself. Crego drew on his past experience playing in bands around Los Angeles — a vocation he gave up as he focused on his animation career. At first, Crego asked Geringas, whom he’s worked with on the Home series for DreamWorks, to write all the songs, thinking he could just pitch the moments and serve as the bridge between Geringas on the music and Senechal on the script.
“That didn’t work, because he immediately, as we started talking about it, starts working in the room. And then we start talking and then we’re writing all of a sudden,” Crego says. ”He turned to me at some point in the process and said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to write the songs without you.’”
Arlo the Alligator Boy
Together, they wrote something like 30 to 40 songs, with 10 of them making it into the movie and becoming essential to its storytelling. “It became obvious, I would say, after the first screening that the music was just the best part of telling the story,” he says.
With the feature’s debut set, Crego and crew have moved on to working on the series, which will follow later this year. Crego says the ending of the movie leads directly into the series premise, which he describes as more like a sitcom.
”You’ve got all these really fun, extreme personalities, and now they’re at home in their little neighborhood making a life for themselves,” he says. All of this is new for the characters, and it gives the writers a lot to play with. ”My favorite episodes of the series so far are the ones where the least happens.”
Arlo the Alligator Boy premieres April 16 on Netflix.
***This feature originally appeared in the May ’21 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 310)***
One of the highlights of this publication’s regular coverage of the animation scene is our early spring spotlight on the year’s up-and-coming talent. The class of 2021 is certainly one of the most impressive, diverse and creative groups of shining stars in recent memory. It’s so encouraging to see so many brilliant artists exploring new ways of telling their stories and expressing their true visions in different media today. We can’t wait to see what they’ll share with us in the months ahead. (Don’t forget to visit our website for a special hour-long video spotlight on these 16 scene-stealers this Friday, April 9th) Drumroll, please:
Carlos Baena
Carlos Baena Director, The Tiger’s Apprentice [Paramount] Stats: 46, born in Canary Islands and raised in Madrid, Spain.
I knew I wanted to work in animation: When I moved to the U.S. in 1993 to study art. While growing up in Spain, I was not aware one could actually work in the field of animation even though I loved movies from a young age. It wasn’t until I watched the films Nightmare Before Christmas and Toy Story that I wanted to learn more about animation and film.
First job: I just finished a 2D short film and a bunch of 3D animation exercises in early 1998. For about a half year I was sending old VHS demo reel tapes and resumes to many places unsuccessfully. This was a challenging time because if I didn’t find a job, I’d have to return to Spain due to my visa status. Though later that summer I was lucky that I was hired by Will Vinton Studios to work on the M&M’s CG commercials. During the day, I’d work on the computer, and during the evening, once my day job ended, the studio allowed me to practice stop-motion animation on one of their unused sets. It was a great first job that gave me wonderful memories.
What I love about working on the movie: Many things. I feel fortunate I get to work on something unique and learn from my co-workers constantly. I’m also very thankful we have the support of Paramount Animation when pushing towards creating something different, as well as having a truly dedicated team around the world. It’s an important film for me because of personal reasons. The film is based on a beautiful book written by Laurence Yep, and also portrays an inspiring message that I love, especially in a time where there’s been so much division in our country.
Toughest part: Nothing comes easy in animation, that’s for sure! Even projects or shots that I thought at times would be simple, ended up surprising me. Additionally, I found things tend to take a lot longer in 3D animation to produce and not necessarily in the most affordable way, which makes it challenging to try things outside the box within our medium. But I personally have liked the challenge over the years. If it’s too easy, I feel like it’s missing something.
Favorite toons growingup: I wasn’t big into animation growing up. I remember watching the old versions of The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone as well as Takahashi’s Captain Tsubasa anime. It was definitely during and after college that I started studying it seriously. Since then I’ve really enjoyed and been inspired by films such as The Iron Giant, Spirited Away and the works of Satoshi Kon.
Best advice: I’d say, to not get ahead of yourself. Not to rush. I’ve made that mistake a few times, and it always makes me want to take a few steps back. So take your time learning different things at whichever pace feels right to you. Additionally, leave room for learning, even if you made it to your dream job. And lastly, don’t forget to have a life outside the computer screen. Those experiences will give you the best animation material you can ask for.
Future plans: To hopefully continue telling stories as well as pushing our medium forward. There is truly so much more we can do in this medium, so many different stories we can tell, that not only we get the kids to enjoy it, but adults can embrace the experience just as much. I want to tell stories that not only use comedy to hook audiences, but also have depth, substance and thought-provoking themes.
Alfonso Blaas
Alfonso Blaas Production Designer, Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans [DreamWorks] Stats: 42, from Granada, Spain.
I knew I wanted to work in animation: Back in 2001, I had the luck to visit my brother at Blue Sky Animation studios and meet some of the crew during the production of Ice Age. Blew my mind to see what a collective group of artists could achieve, that was my turning point.
First Job: I worked hard my last two years of Fine Arts creating a portfolio with my own artwork. At that moment there was an animation fever in Spain, producing several projects and demanding a lot of local talent. I was hired as a matte painter at Filmax Animation Studio.
What I love about working on the movie: Since I heard for the first time about Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters, back in 2012, I thought right away it was the type of show I loved to watch and experience when I was a kid. Being able to collectively give shape and form to this universe during the series has been wonderful. Creating this movie with much more visuals and creative ambitions with an amazing team is a dream come true.
The toughest part: Balancing the best visuals we can get and the time we have, both collectively and personally.
Fave toons growing up:Akira, Sherlock Hound, The Jungle Book, Batman: The Animated Series.
Best advice: Building your own reference library or tools to be able to understand what the creator wants and how to communicate that idea to others.
Future plans: Watching as many movies and shows as I can.
I wanted to work in animation when: I didn’t realize being in animation was my dream career until I interned in animation. As a film major at Cal State Fullerton, I needed an internship to graduate, and it just so happens DreamWorks Animation was posting for interns. With absolutely no knowledge in animation, I applied for the internship not knowing what that meant. When I was called in for the interview, I just knew they were going to ask me to draw and they’d find out I was a fraud! I was stressed. Spoiler alert, they didn’t. I was brought on as a production intern on How to Train Your Dragon 2 and that’s where I truly discovered that animation was my forever home. The people I met and interacted with during my first week were so welcoming and vibrant – I knew this was only an environment I could get in animation.
My first job in animation: I remember being on the set for So You Think You Can Dance when I got the call about an open position as a lighting production assistant on the movie Home. Fresh out of college, I knew it had to be fate because the film featured a young Black girl navigating a strange new environment.
What I love about the job: Being at DreamWorks specifically, it’s the culture, the people, the evolving landscape. Because animation is so collaborative, working together and helping each other just becomes a part of the culture. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of the most brilliant and talented people from all different backgrounds. Someone at DreamWorks said something to me, and it really stuck: “If you’re not having fun, you’re fired.” If you’re not having a good time making animated films, then you’re not doing something right.
Toughest part: As a production manager, I am overseeing the whole production, so I am involved in every aspect of pulling the film together. As challenging as this is to juggle being involved in all the little details day to day, it has also been the most gratifying to be the person who knows where everything is at. Production managers are constantly challenging the theory that “you can’t be everywhere at once.” Since I am naturally the middle woman between the creatives who are driving the look and story and the crew who has to carry out the execution of making the film, I’ve really been able to enhance my bartering skills! It’s all about finding creative solutions to make everyone happy.
Favorite toons growing up: I loved animated films that were a bit edgier because I always thought I was more grown than I was. That’s why I watched more DreamWorks movies like Shrek and Megamind, which I felt were rooted in wholesome underlying themes with just a touch of subtle adult humor. My after school series regulars were shows like The Proud Family. It was a perfect coming of age show because I literally was Penny Proud — trying to juggle school, my nagging family, hanging with my friends, boys!
Best advice: Stay on top of your game. This industry is ever changing and evolving. Find ways to stay ahead of it by studying new softwares and techniques and sharpening your soft skills. A lot of what makes you successful in this industry is your interpersonal skills and your ability to communicate and work on a team. Although there is a severe lack of representation in animation, don’t be intimidated by that. Use that to propel you forward and motivate you to break into this industry so that you can open doors for other people who hadn’t been given the opportunity because they didn’t fit the mold. Just because the space isn’t filled with people who look like you, doesn’t mean you don’t belong in that space. And lastly, bring yourself fully and authentically to everything that you do. Being you is what makes you unique. Don’t ever feel like you need to fit into a cookie cutter mold.
Future plans: Although I’ve been in the animation industry for six years, there is still so much I have yet to learn. Every role is different, every film is different. As I’ve progressed in my career, each role has been more fulfilling than the last. I am not limiting what I can achieve and I know this is just the beginning.
Wendell Dalit
Wendell Dalit Art Director, Vivo [Sony Pictures Animation] Stats: 32, from San Jose, California
I knew I wanted to work in animation: When I was in college I spontaneously decided to take a 2D animation class. The assignments were incredibly challenging, and I had no idea what I was doing but I truly enjoyed the projects. Towards the end of that class I came to the realization that I’ve put more time and effort into these assignments than anything else I’ve ever done — and had a great time doing it. I changed my major to animation the next semester.
First job: I was very lucky to connect with Jana Day, the recruiter for Sony Pictures Animation at CTN animation eXpo. I was able to keep in touch with her, and towards the end of my time in school she got me going on my first project as a visual development artist on Smurfs: The Lost Village.
What I love about working on Vivo: Music and dance have always been a passion of mine, and to be able to work on a project that embraced the two was an amazing experience for me. Additionally, this project was a great opportunity to explore a variety of visual styles that enhance the emotional beats for each musical number in the film.
The toughest part: The toughest part about working in animation is … animation! It never comes easy, and I feel like I struggle every day but it is also what I love to do. One of our biggest challenges on Vivo was to make each musical number feel unique in its own way. It is an incredibly challenging task — to try new things in a CG animated film — but there’s a feeling of accomplishment and pride I get once things start to click into place. Seeing how all the amazing artists working on the project executed the cool new ideas on screen is truly a rewarding experience for me.
Fave toons growing up: Dexter’s Laboratory, Doug, Hey Arnold!, Toy Story — all favorites from my childhood.
Best advice: Be open-minded and don’t stop learning. There are always going to be new things to learn that you can add to your animation toolbox.
Future plans: I would love to kick my feet up on a hammock and retire somewhere by the beach … but in the meantime, I would love to art direct another project.
Megan Dong
Megan Nicole Dong Creator, Exec Producer, Centaurworld [Netflix] Stats: 35, from Diamond Bar, Calif.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: One of my earliest memories involves repeatedly pausing The Little Mermaid on VHS and trying to figure out how to draw Ariel on my Magna Doodle. I always loved watching Behind the Scenes footage and thought it would be amazingly cool to draw cartoons for a living.
First job in animation: I interned at Titmouse studios and then went on to work there for a couple of years. I got to touch a lot of projects and learned a ton from my peers (a couple of whom went on to work with me on this show!).
Inspiration for Centaurworld: I grew up in an academically competitive community. My freshman year of high school, I was supposed to play violin in my school orchestra, but I had a schedule conflict with one of my honors classes. The only extracurricular that fit my schedule was show choir and it completely changed my life. It really made me fall in love with theater, music and performance, and it cemented the idea that I wanted to pursue an arts-based career. I wanted to tell the story of a character who truly believed she had to live her life one way dropped into a silly, strange new place that fundamentally changes her. I am passionate about a lot of different things, and I wanted to make a show that melded genres together, but most importantly, it had to be a musical series with songs interwoven with the narrative.
Toughest part: There are so many moving parts and so much to juggle! Maintaining a clear creative vision is extremely important, but knowing how to clearly communicate that vision to those around you is also huge. It’s also important to know what to prioritize, how you’d like to spend your time creatively, and where to step back and really trust those around you. Trust is a big deal for me and I believe people do their best work when they are given a bit of breathing room and more agency to bring themselves to a project. It’s easy to get tunnel vision, but it’s important to remember that human beings are working with you to make your idea a reality!
Fave toons growing up: I consumed a lot of Disney and Miyazaki movies. The Little Mermaid and My Neighbor Totoro were probably the two films I watched over and over again during my formative years. I also loved all things Looney Tunes, Dragon Ball and most Saturday morning cartoons.
Best advice: I think a lot of artists err toward being shy and self conscious. Find some way to get used to sharing your work with others, being collaborative and putting yourself out there! I’m naturally a shy person, but for Centaurworld I pitched the storyboard for our first episode to a lot of the people we brought onboard. It generated a lot of productive conversation/ideas early on and even though it was a lot of work, I wouldn’t have done it differently. I’m a big believer in hitting things hard up front, so that things are easier as the process goes on.
Future plans: I have no immediate plans, but I’ve learned so much from the experience of making Centaurworld. I’ve been working in series for the past few years, but I’d love to direct a feature someday.
Megan Ferguson
Megan Ferguson Assistant Director, Hilda [Mercury Filmworks] Stats: 35, from British Columbia, currently living in Ottawa.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: To be completely honest, I didn’t really ‘know’ I really wanted to stay in animation until I had already worked on a few shows. Animation was something I followed as a career because I felt like drawing was my strongest skill, and while I did enjoy it as an audience member, I really struggled with understanding it. I knew enough to get through and hired, but I had moments where I questioned my choices. It wasn’t until I got more experience with it did I start to find more joy, and then the passion grew from there.
First job in animation: Mercury Filmworks happened to be hiring when I graduated. I handed them in a demo reel and got in. Completely standard! Ha!
What I love about working on Hilda: I love that I’ve had the ability and space to really grow, make mistakes and take ownership of my choices. We have a lot of creative voices on this show but none of them are so strict there isn’t room for flexibility. The trust I get from my crew to make hard decisions or implement new structure has been invaluable, and it’s really shaped what kind of director I want to be if the chance comes up. The creative aspect of the show has been huge, but what I really get my energy and joy from is just seeing everyone around me on this journey and having us all grow together.
Toughest part: Knowing how much I affect the crew is a tough thing to wrap my mind around sometimes. I want to feel like I’m just an individual, but the reality is how I react and act on a day to day basis can really trickle down. It costs nothing to be patient, address something more thoughtfully and not let a bad mood get in the way of how I communicate with my crew. I’m better at it now than I was when I started, and making those mistakes right away helped me realize that I play a huge part in overall team morale.
Fave toons growing up: Watching ReBoot was a tradition in my childhood. My mom was into 3D animation, and it was something we watched together all the time. She encouraged my hobbies, so a lot of my early teenage years were spent consuming random anime subtitled VHS tapes she found at Blockbuster or from her friends. Just random genres and series that were probably aimed for an older audience than me at the time.
Best advice: Advocate for yourself and be confident, the deadlines are fast, budgets are tight and pressure can get high. It’s easy to tie up our sense of self-worth in our job, so when there are so many factors out of your control in TV animation, it’s easy to burn out. Keep one foot out of the whirlpool by keeping your health in check and having a good support system outside of your studio role. Community and relationships keep us from losing our identity to this job.
Future plans: I generally always roll in the direction of whatever gives me the biggest chance for learning something new. My only solid plan is to continue to work on my community group O.A.T.S [Ottawa’s Animators Talking Socially], which some friends and I run to connect artists in our city. We do skill sharing, live talks and charity events and being able to grow it has been something that’s kept my feet out of the whirlpool for about two years now.
Valtteri Heinonen
Valtteri Heinonen Art Director, Moominvalley [Gutsy Animation] Stats: 37, from Helsinki, Finland.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I’ve been drawing and making little animations ever since I was in third grade, but the first time I felt a serious inclination towards working in animation was probably when Toy Story came out. Before then, I just enjoyed watching animated films, but after seeing Toy Story, every time I watched an animated film, I spent half the time enjoying the story but the other half trying to figure out how they did every little thing.
First job: In school we were required to do a four-month internship in a company of our choosing, and I actually applied to the biggest animation studio in Finland but didn’t get in. Instead, I found a placement in a production company that worked in advertising. I came from a 3D graphics school, so at first they gave me 3D animation work, but after completing a digital painting assignment, they felt I was much more valuable as an illustrator — after the internship they actually hired me in such a role. I then spent 10 years working in advertising until Marika Makaroff asked me to join Gutsy Animations on the Moominvalley TV series.
What I love about working on the show: I love my working relationship with production designer Sarah Hauldren. I think she’s exactly the kind of counterpart that I needed to elevate my work to a new level. I feel like I act as a sort of bridge between her traditional ways of working and the digital world, and so I get to dip into both sides. It’s also great that I get to do lots of different things on the show, including set design, character design, texture painting and animation.
Toughest part: The biggest challenge is to paint images to serve multiple purposes. I mostly work on images that are primarily meant to show the animation studio what is in the scene and how it looks in flat lighting. This means there can be no interesting angles or lighting to make it artistic, yet they will be used as part of the show’s marketing and brand licensing activity, which means they can’t be completely sterile either.
Favorite toons growing up: Oh, I had hundreds of favorites. If I were to choose ones that really shaped me, they’d be The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Alfred J. Kwak, Starzinger, The Secret of NIMH, The Sword in the Stone and Aladdin.
Best advice: My advice, apart from endless practice, is to try and find a person you can develop ideas with. A lot of the time it’s out of your hands and down to a little bit of luck, but generally just trying to work with people rather than for them is a big step in the right direction.
Future plans: I’ve actually just been promoted to an art director at Gutsy Animations, so I think one of my plans has already come true! Now I think my plans are to focus on making some great visuals, and hopefully someday remove the ‘art’ from my title and becoming a director.
Manny Hernandez
Manny Hernandez Exec Producer, We Baby Bears [Cartoon Network] Stats: 35, from San Diego, Calif.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I’m not totally sure, but there was this one time in second grade where the assignment was to draw a frog. I remember this little girl sitting next to me and when she saw my drawing she said, “Wow! That looks just like a frog!” That might have been the first time I got recognition for being an artist. It made me happy.
First job in animation: I was accepted into the Pixar Animation Studios internship program. I must have made a good impression because they hired me right after I finished the internship. In fact, I was told that I wasn’t hired for my artistic skills. They said that my personality and sheer gumption is what got me hired.
What I love about working on We Baby Bears:There are too many reasons to love working on the show. First off, I couldn’t ask for a better crew. Seriously. Second, is that I love being challenged. And nothing challenges me more than having to explain my vision to a bunch of people within an incredibly limited time frame.
Toughest part: Having to explain my vision to a bunch of people within an incredibly limited time frame.
Favorite toons growing up:The Simpsons is my favorite American TV show. Dragon Ball was the first anime I ever thoroughly watched (in Spanish). Looney Tunes was my childhood therapy, and One Piece will always be my favorite anime. Animated movies: The Lion King (basically I watched every Disney movie religiously). Princess Mononoke was my first Miyazaki film — I chose it from a Blockbuster shelf because the movie quote on the cover said “the animated Star Wars“! Toy Story was the first film I ever watched that made me feel like the movie knew more about what I was like than I did.
Best advice: The best advice I can give is to learn how to keep yourself motivated. Start a project, do it, then finish it. The more you do the more you learn. In my opinion, I would say to start by trying to copy a master you look up to. Then once you’ve mastered that, go beyond that said master.
Future plans: I plan on continuing to make animated films. Lots of them I hope. And to keep pushing myself and my amazing peers to our artistic limits.
Dou Hong
Dou Hong Model Supervisor, Young Justice: Phantoms [Warner Bros. Animation] Stats: 31, from Cincinnati, Ohio.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: It was a relatively late decision; I was already a junior in college, working as an intern. My boss mentioned that my work would easily fit into the animation world, which I had never seriously pursued. His words made me re-evaluate my trajectory and in addition to my automotive design major, I began to take the animation career seriously with personal side projects.
First job: Social media was a burgeoning platform around the mid-2000s, and I began posting my art online. I communicated with a few people in the industry who were able to help point me in the right direction and promote my work. My big break was during college. Cartoon Network hired me to work on Ben 10 Omniverse, which was an absolute blast. What I learned on that show and networking allowed me to eventually move to other studios like Nickelodeon and Warner Bros. Animation.
What I love about working on the show: I love working on YJ because I was allowed to be more involved than just design. I was able to sit in during episode handouts with overseas as well as ink and paint meetings. Working with the showrunners Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti to establish the current season’s design and hearing their ideas on developing stories and motivations was amazing. It constantly blows my mind that I’m the model supervisor for a show that I loved to watch in college. My connection to the show went full circle, and I am so proud to be here.
Toughest part: The toughest part about animation for me is actually not the job itself. I use a lot of creativity when I’m working, and sometimes I don’t have the energy to work on personal stuff after. It’s a bit difficult to work on fun side things if the time and energy are not there. It’s a fine balance of making sure you’re doing the most for your current project but also maintaining the passion that got you there in the first place.
Favorite toons growing up: Anything related to superheroes is my jam, and I have a special affinity for anything related to DC comics (Teen Titans, Justice League, Green Lantern the Animated Series). Musical films (anything Disney, Swan Princess, Quest for Camelot, Anastasia) are also a favorite of mine, as well as shonen anime (Ultimate Muscle, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)
Best advice: Embrace your passion and be proud of your work. My passion for art led me into a career that I love and an industry that’s always innovating. Don’t be afraid to post your work online and be open about what you like. Animation is a visually-based medium, so opening yourself and your art to others will give you greater chances of being seen. Loving what you do definitely helps.
Future plans: I would like to one day become a showrunner for either my own original series or one of my favorite IPs. While I’ve helped develop looks for shows over the years, I’ve found that working on world-building and bringing these characters to life through storytelling is where I’d ultimately want to focus my energy. The animation industry is a fun, exciting, and challenging industry, and I’m going to stay as long as I can.
Grace Kum
Grace Kum Visual Development, Stillwater [Gaumont/Apple TV+] Stats: 28, born and raised in L.A.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: It was quite early on. I joke about how I give fault to my dad for buying me hundreds of VHS tapes and the coveted Black Diamond Disney collection for me since I was a wee kid. Including things like Candy Candy, Future Boy Conan, The Rose of Versailles, Sherlock Hound, Wolf’s Rain, and so much classic anime, I was fed a lot of different kinds of media as a kid onward (I was a Lord of the Rings nut). First job: I was surrounded by some of the best and kindest instructors and an all-star group of best friends during my time at Art Center and we were in a very giving group setting where we would update each other with advice and news on different gig openings. My instructors had also helped us so much in updating us on any places that were looking. I ended up landing a storyboarding/prop design test for Disney TV’s Big Hero 6 series.
What I love about working on the show: I got to draw so many animals. Who doesn’t love drawing cute animals in cute clothing?! I believe the biggest plus for me was the team and people I had gotten to work with on this production. Alex Soto, our executive producer, and Tommy Kim, our art director, were such a huge support and guidance to the team work. Every production is a small family so it was a blessing to be able to have people who were willing to check in on each other. Sunshine and rainbows would be ideal, but it’s fun to have people you can sprint with together down Sunset Blvd. with a Cintiq pen in one hand and a cup of boba tea in the other. Toughest part:Probably tackling the sheer number of characters along with cultural and animal research that had to be applied. We were on the clock, as is the state of most series productions. I cannot stress how grateful I was to have had my character assistant, Sophia Chen, come on to help keep me afloat and wailing with me on the cushy beanbags of our offices. Lin Huang, a visual development artist, was my officemate and partner in crime in this journey and we were there to witness all of our ups and downs on the job. Fave toons growing up:Of course I grew up with the usual Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks, but I do have to say that I have a special place and memory for all the Ghibli films and all the work that had come out of Studio Bones. I was the kid who would stay up past bedtime to watch shows on adult swim such as Detective Conan, Wolf’s Rain, Paranoia Agent and Ghost in the Shell. I highly doubt kid me could understand what was going on fully, but I did manage to recognize early on the diversity of what film is capable of. I have the trifecta of nerdiness with Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings burned into my DNA as well! Best advice:I would advise everyone to go at the pace that suits them the most. Have fun with the work. Just like how we take different supplements and vitamins to keep us healthy, we need a balance of study, hobby, self-care, art and leisure to keep yourself going for as long as we can. Don’t worry at all about having to nail a style that will emerge over time based on the things you like and enjoy. You can always grow out of a method and style and that is how you build yourself up to create work that suits you the best.
Christina LaFerla
Christina LaFerla CG Supervisor, Big Nate [Nickelodeon] Stats: 36, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I have always been passionate about cartoons, games and technology. As a kid, I was either making movies with my friends or playing on the computer. Being good with computers allowed me to put my passions together and get into CG animation.
First job in animation: Thanks to a college alumni, I was able to intern at Nickelodeon Movies on the Paramount lot in 2006. I used every opportunity during my internship to work hard, network, learn and tour other studios to meet with recruiters. Before graduation, I was sending Nickelodeon recruiters monthly emails letting them know I was open to any opportunity that was available in order to get my foot in the door. My persistence paid off and I was hired on as a production assistant for one of Nick’s first CG TV shows, Tak and the Power of Juju, shortly after graduation.
What I love about working on Big Nate: Adapting a 2D comic into a CG world is a group effort. I love that I get to be a part of each step in the CG animation pipeline. We have an awesome crew and I’m able to work with writers, designers, board team and directors, modelers, look development, animators, lighting and compositing teams as well as our vendor studio teams in India. It’s great to see a script come to life in CG after months and months of teamwork.
Toughest part: Building a team and starting a brand new show from home during a pandemic brings new challenges. I have found that communication with my team as well as with our team in India has been essential in keeping our show moving forward.
Favorite toons growing up: I never missed an episode of The Simpsons after school. I loved Disney classics, like Sword in the Stone and The Lion King, but once Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. came out, I knew I wanted to work in CG.
Best advice: I was probably obnoxious, calling people, writing people, emailing companies I liked for any opportunity they’d give me. If I watched a cartoon I liked on TV, I’d go to their website and email them about an internship. I was annoying, but it got me to where I am today.
Future plans: I’d love to run my own CG animated show one day. Until then, I will continue to learn, grow and make a difference while at work.
Katie Lyons
Katie Lyons Development Designer, Odo [Sixteen South] Stats: 28, from Dublin, currently living in Belfast.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I honestly don’t think I ever wanted to do anything else! I was basically born holding a pencil — drawing and creating is just something I’ve done my whole life. As a kid it was always going to be a toss-up between becoming an artist or becoming a professional biscuit-taster … My uncle also works in the industry and it’s definitely thanks to him that I’ve always been kind of immersed in animation
First job: Coming out of college I worked on a variety of short projects before ever setting foot in an actual studio. It was a really helpful way to build up my portfolio while also applying to any animation jobs I came across. I actually count working as a background designer on Claude for Sixteen South, as my first ‘proper‘ animation job where I was on the whole series as a designer from start to finish.
What I love about my job: My favorite thing about Odo is that it’s basically a soup of all of the best things — wholesome stories, stunning artwork and the sweetest cast of characters you could ever ask for! When I was in college, I worked for two summers as a camp counselor up in Maine and there are so many moments in the episodes that remind me of my own little campers. All I’ve ever wanted is to be a part of a show that does good, that helps bring goodness to the world. There’s something kind of amazing about helping to create a show that will hopefully instill such a special message. The toughest part: The toughest part is also one of my favorite parts — working on so many different projects at the same time (usually around five or six!) you really have to learn how to juggle between a variety of design styles and stories. Favorite toons growing up: Growing up in a house without a TV, cartoons were a treat saved exclusively for summer holidays and the occasional sick day spent on the couch down at my Nana’s. As a child of the ’90s, we were completely spoilt for choice with animated shows — TheRugrats, The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Hey Arnold!, Recess and As Told by Ginger are a few favorites. We also had the odd VHS tape lying around, my absolute favorites being The Brave Little Toaster and (even though it scared me silly!) Disney’s The Black Cauldron. Best advice: Absorb everything! Working in development is all about ideas. It doesn’t matter if those ideas are beautiful backgrounds you draw, or scenes that you write — the most brilliant ideas come from what we know best! Read things, watch films, go for walks, observe those around you. Take in the art of the every-day. Write down or sketch-out your ideas as they come and capture even the tiniest things that you find interesting. You never know what is one day going to be useful! Be kind, make nice art … that’s all you really need. Future plans: I’m so grateful we’ve been able to continue our work remotely this past year because there are so many fun projects coming through the development pipeline at Sixteen South, including the first show I’ve ever written: Spaghetti Sisters, which isall about siblings, summertime, spaghetti and a last-ditch attempt to save the failing family pasta restaurant.
Beatriz Martin
Beatriz Martin Character Animator, The Snoopy Show [WildBrain Studios] Stats: 39, born in Madrid, currently living in Vancouver.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I do not remember a time when I was not drawing and inventing my own stories, but fine arts (or anything creative really) was frowned upon as a career, so since I was also interested in science, I ended up attending medical school. In the U.S., I also discovered improv theater and was immediately drawn to the thrill of instant collaborative storytelling and acting, and the (crazy) idea of mixing story with drawing and pursuing a career in animation started to take shape.
First job: After finishing animation school, I was unable to find an entry-level job as an animator or get a story internship. One day, my school organized an industry night for recent graduates, and although I did not feel motivated to attend, I did, and had the opportunity to meet Nadine Westerbarkey, animation director of My Little Pony: The Movie. She had seen my student short film but what she enjoyed the most and we ended chatting about the animal sketches and studies I had been drawing around Maplewood Farm, Granville Island. Because of my on-locations sketches, I was invited to take a test and shortly after, I joined WildBrain.
What I love about working on The Snoopy Show: I did not grow up with Peanuts, so I have been enjoying a second childhood. The stories are engaging, super fun and witty, and the characters are simply endearing. I particularly love the friendship between Snoopy and Woodstock and how much they express with no words. I like how honest and sincere the stories are, with no hint of sarcasm nor cynicism. I feel very fortunate that I can work with super fun, creative and supportive people.
The toughest part: I often find myself overcomplicating things, but I think this is just how I am as a person. Being on model is very important for such an iconic show. I am very fortunate to have an incredible supervisor and team, so every struggle feels like a learning opportunity.
Favorite toons growing up: I grew up watching (and singing along to) Disney animated films on VHS and wanting to be a mermaid with long hair. I also loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit and All Dogs Go to Heaven. Some animated TV shows I remember fondly were: The Littles, Captain Tsubasa, Once upon a Time… Life, David the Gnome and Around the World with Willy Fog.
Sound advice: When I was younger, I was very worried about choosing the right path, and did not know where to even start. Today I worry less, because I know there is time for everything. Every single experience adds up and will make your portfolio and artistic style unique. Luck happens, but hard work, perseverance and passion eventually lead to new opportunities.
Future plans: I feel I still have a lot to learn as an animator and visual storyteller, so I continue learning about story, sketching outdoors, attending life drawing and challenging myself. I am developing workshops for young people on nature illustration to support their creativity and artistic development. I hope it helps debunk the myth among young people that art and science are not compatible.
Antoine Rota
Antoine Rota Director, Billy the Cowboy Hamster [Dandelooo] Stats: 34, from “a little village in the fabulous mountains of Switzerland.”
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I’ve always wanted to draw, but to my family drawing is not a profession. They still don’t understand what I’m doing.
First job: It was at Cube Creative on the French TV series Kaeloo. I started at Cube Creative as a storyboarder and a few months later I became co-director of the show. I think I only got it because I looked like a nice guy (and maybe also thanks to just a little bit of hard work).
What I love about working on the show: Our team is great! It’s always nice to work with people you can have a laugh (and a beer) with. When Dandelooo presented me with the project, I loved the touch of absurdity that Catharina Valckx (author of the books) wove into the tone. On the graphic part I also love that her skies are pink not blue, the grass is yellow not green, etc. – it’s different from the norm. And though I didn’t really care much about hamsters before (they’re too small), I do love cowboys. So, I hope my nephews will watch Billy and his friends in the mornings, eating their cereal, just as I watched my favorite shows as a kid.
Toughest part: The fact that we must have planning. And, we do have to respect it. The job of a director comes with a lot of work, and it can sometimes be hard to do everything in the right timing.
Fave toons growing up: Mickey Mouse cartoons.
Best advice: Regarding the storyboards, many newbies tend to think that they have to deliver something perfectly clean. I think it’s better to give and put in as many intentions as you can, rather than having clean drawings. One thing for me that is important to remember is that we’re doing animation projects! With mostly great and nice people! There’s no point in stressing out too much.
Future plans: Developing many other great and fantastic projects, especially adult animation projects (shorts and series).
Eastwood Wong
Eastwood Wong Art Director, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder [Disney+] Stats: 32, born in San Francisco, raised in L.A.
I knew I wanted to work in animation: When I watched Sailor Moon and found out that someone’s job was to draw her.
First job in animation: When I graduated from Art Center College of Design, I was lucky and had the opportunity to intern at Pixar. After the internship was over, they hired me as a sketch artist to help with various Toy Story and Cars shorts.
What I love about my job: It’s so exciting to work on a show I grew up watching and love! I get to work with a fun, collaborative and diverse crew and also contribute to the meaningful storylines that are being told on the show. It also feels super surreal to work with [series creator] Bruce Smith. During meetings, we get to watch him give animation notes and do draw-overs and it’s like attending a master class for free!
The toughest part: The schedule of TV animation can be very demanding and it is important to check in with yourself mentally and physically. If things get too much it’s okay to ask for support from your production.
Favorite toons growing up:Sailor Moon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Little Mermaid, Pokémon, Ratatouille, The Incredibles.
Best advice: Draw and paint what you like, stay true to your aesthetic and your true self and your art will follow.
Future plans: I would love to get a chance to tell my own stories in a form of an animated show, comic or video game. These are my favorite media, and I would love to channel my own stories through them.
Michael Yamada
Michael Yamada Production Designer, Back to the Outback [Netflix Animation] Stats: 41, from Pasadena, Calif.
I knew I wanted to work in animation when: I was studying industrial design in college and saw Lilo & Stitch in theaters. I really connected with the heart and emotion in that movie along with all the cool spaceships, and beautiful backgrounds. It flipped a switch in my brain — “I want to work on something like that!”
First job: I was lucky enough to be taking a visual development class my last term of college. Both my teachers were art directors at DreamWorks and we all idolized them. Breaking into animation was my five-year goal and I was surprised when one of my teachers asked for a copy of my portfolio and I started working on his movie a month after graduation.
What I love about the job: Australia is such a diverse and beautiful place. It’s like a mini-vacation each time we design a new set or learn about a new location in the movie. We’ve done such a deep dive that google thinks we live there!
Toughest part: For me, it’s balancing out short-term and long-term goals. There’s always a lot to do every day, but you really need to know where your input can make the most impact on the project. Moviemaking is tough, but it works out if you plan for those difficult days.
Fave toons growing up:Robin Hood, The Secret of NIMH, DuckTales.
Best advice: Invest in learning about all the different parts of filmmaking as well as your skills as an artist. Making a movie is definitely a collaborative process and that broad understanding helps you best communicate the vision and intent of your director(s).
Future plans: I’m always excited when I get the chance to do this role and I hope I get the chance again. I love all the potential and excitement as the movie takes form as well as seeing the art being realized. It never gets old seeing everyone’s art come to life.
***This article originally appeared in the May ’21 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 310)***
While Los Angeles begins to loosen its COVID-19 restrictions, the organizers of this year’s Annie Awards are planning an unforgettable virtual edition of the annual event which honors the year’s best animation. The recently announced first batch of presenters promises a lively ceremony, with Josh Gad, Matthew Rhys, Philippa Soo, Eva Whittaker, Michael Giacchino, Sergio Pablos, Jill Culton, Nora Twomey and the cast of Critical Role set to take the “stage.”
“Shifting our awards ceremony to a virtual format has been challenging, but exciting,” says ASIFA-Hollywood president Sue Shakespeare. “It’s given us the opportunity to reimagine how we recognize the fantastic talent intrinsic to our industry and the amazingly creative projects produced by so many.”
Jerry Beck, Sue Shakespeare, Frank Gladstone
Shakespeare, who is also the president of L.A.-based Creative Capers Ent. design and animation studio, promises a virtual ceremony that will be different and new. “It will likely be shorter than a live ceremony, and while there won’t be the terrific parties before and after, it will be heartfelt, funny, moving and representative of our community. A great benefit of going virtual is that more members of our worldwide community will be able to participate.”
As ASIFA-Hollywood exec director Frank Gladstone tells us, “The virtual show will be about 90 minutes long. As anyone who has attended the Annies knows about half an hour of the live show is just people walking to the stage, so that’s why the taped presentation will be shorter.”
Gladstone points out that all 154 of the nominees are sending in recorded acceptance videos while only 31 will actually get the award. He adds, “I have seen some of them already and they are terrific. We also have some animation produced for the show by Six Point Harness and some great graphics by Russell Frazier who helps us out every year.”
Adds Jerry Beck, ASIFA-Hollywood’s vice president, “The Annies will be particularly special this year because we all spent our working hours in our little home studios. The virtual Annies this year give us all a reason to come together to raise a glass of champagne and welcome the return to normalcy.”
Actor Bill Farmer (voice of Goofy) and actress Margaret Kerry (model for Tinker Bell) charmed the audience with their anecdotes at the 2020 Annie Awards. [Photo: David Yeh]
Since the world came to rely on animation more than ever in 2020, ASIFA received over 2,000 submissions for Annie consideration — a number much higher than previous years. “Early on, we worried that we could see a serious reduction in our voting numbers this year, but that was not the case at all; our membership numbers have remained on par and even nudged up a bit,” Shakespeare points out. “This exemplifies ASIFA-Hollywood’s resilience and strong support from the animation community. This is something we never take for granted.”
One thing that sets the Annies apart from other awards shows is that it has two different best animated feature categories — one dedicated to “studio” releases and the other to indies. Shakespeare says the organization had to re-evaluate how to make this determination this year, because in previous years the distinction was made by the size of theatrical distribution.
“Last year we began accepting streamed-only productions in the independent category, so this year we expanded that to the feature category as well,” explains Shakespeare. “We identified several distinguishing characteristics that would facilitate this determination. Our key parameters included: production budgets, financing ratios and initial language the film is produced in. How we approach this next year and beyond has not been yet codified. It may take a few more years’ experience of what’s going on in the industry, before we can establish our finely adjusted guidelines.”
This year, ASIFA relied on the studios and distributors to submit in the category they felt was most appropriate, with the proviso that the org would have the right to move a project if they thought the submission belonged in the other category. “I’m happy to be able to report that, while this certainly was not an exact science, it worked out well,” says Shakespeare.
Both Shakespeare and Beck point out that it has been a surprisingly good year for animation, despite the fact that theaters were closed for the most part. “It turns out we have a real race, which I admit I wasn’t sure we would 12 months ago,” says Beck. “All the Annie (and Academy) nominees are truly worthy of an award. Who will win? I can’t wait to find out myself.”
Klaus director Sergio Pablos received the Annie for Best Animated Indie feature in 2020. [Photo: David Yeh]
Outreach, Preservation, Scholarship and More
Despite the pandemic, ASIFA-Hollywood has had a very busy year, presenting 60 events, including screenings, panels and Q&As for its members. As Shakespeare tells us, “While continuing our charitable initiatives through our Animation Aid Foundation, we established a special COVID relief fund to assist our members in need. The Animation Educator’s Forum (AEF) awarded in excess of $50,000 in student scholarships and faculty grants, and we’re currently initiating a new round for 2021. Through our preservation initiatives, we saved a lost Betty Boop short and were instrumental in facilitating the donation of a major collection of Akira production art into the (AMPAS) Academy Archives. We are also starting a new endeavor with the UCLA Film & TV Archive which will save at least four films this year.
“Finally, as this pandemic year has revealed some of the systemic problems simmering beneath the surface in our country, it has also brought about a recognition of these problems within our own industry. We are considering ways ASIFA can help address these problems, in some tangible, concrete, sustainable way. One early effort was to open our Annie Award nomination judging applications to members outside of ASIFA, inviting Women In Animation, Black N’ Animated, LXiA , Native American and Asian organizations to participate in the process. This year, more than half of our nomination judges were industry members from outside of our general membership.”
For more info about the event, visit annieawards.org.
48th Annie Awards Best TV/Media: General Audience nominees.
Best Feature Onward (Pixar) Soul (Pixar) The Croods: A New Age (DreamWorks) The Willoughbys (Netflix/BRON/Creative Wealth) Trolls World Tour (DreamWorks)
Best Indie Feature A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (StudioCanal/Aardman/Anton Capital/Netflix) Calamity Jane (Maybe Movies) On-Gaku: Our Sound (Rock’n Roll Mountain/Tip Top) Ride Your Wave (Science SARU) Wolfwalkers ( Cartoon Saloon/Melusine/Apple/GKIDS)
Best Direction: Features Calamity Jane (Rémi Chayé) Over the Moon (Glen Keane) Ride Your Wave (Masaaki Yuasa) Soul (Pete Docter, Kemp Powers) Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Best Special Production Baba Yaga (Baobab) Libresse / Bodyform – #WombStories (Chelsea Pictures) Nixie & Nimbo (Hornet) Shooom’s Odyssey (Picolo Pictures) The Snail and the Whale (Magic Light Pictures)
Best Short Subject Filles Bleues, Peur Blanche (Miyu) KKUM (Open the Portal) Souvenir Souvenir (Blast Production) The Places Where We Live: Cake (FX Productions) World of Tomorrow Episode Three (Don Hertzfeldt)
Best TV/Media: Preschool Buddi,“Snow” (Unanico) Muppet Babies, “Wock-a-bye-Fozzie” (Oddbot/Disney Junior) Stillwater, “The Impossible Dream/Stuck in the Rain” (Apple/Gaumont/Scholastic) The Adventures of Paddington, “Paddington Digs a Tunnel to Peru”(Blue-Zoo, Nickelodeon) Xavier Riddle and the Secret Movie: I Am Madam President (9 Story/ Brown Bag Films)
Best TV/Media: Children Hilda, “Chapter 9: The Deerfox” (Silvergate, Netflix) Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “Finale Part 4: Rise” (Nickelodeon) She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, “Heart Part 2” (DreamWorks) Star Wars: The Clone Wars, “Shattered” (Lucasfilm Animation) Victor and Valentino, “The Lonely Haunts Club 3: La Llorona” (Cartoon Network)
Best TV/Media: General Audience Close Enough, “Logan’s Run’d/Room Parents” (Cartoon Network) Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, “Coven of the Damned” (Cartoon Network) Harley Quinn, “Something Borrowed, Something Green” (Eshugadee Prods, Warner Bros.) Rick and Morty, “The Vat of Acid Episode” (Rick & Morty LLC) The Midnight Gospel, “Mouse of Silver” (Titmouse, Netflix)
Best Student Film 100,000 Acres of Pine (Jennifer Alice Wright) Coffin (Yuanqing Cai, Nathan Crabot, Houzhi Huang, Mikolaj Janiw, Mandimby Lebon, Théo Tran Ngoc) La Bestia (Marlijn Van Nuenen, Ram Tamez, Alfredo Gerard Kuttikatt) Latitude du Printemps (Sylvain Cuvillier, Chloé Bourdic, Théophile Coursimault, Noémie Halberstam, Maÿlis Mosny, Zijing Ye) O Black Hole! (Renee Zhan, Jesse Romain)
Juried Awards The Winsor McCay Award:
Willie Ito, Sue Nichols and Bruce Smith.
The June Foray Award:
Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi.
The Ub Iwerks Award:
Epic Games for its Unreal Engine
Special Achievement Award Howard (Directed by Don Hahn)
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (the Canadian Academy) has announced the nominees for the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards in 141 film, television, and digital media categories. The awards will be presented as a seven-part genre-based series of presentations streamed live on Academy.ca — as well as the Canadian Academy Twitter and YouTube channels — from Monday, May 17 through Thursday, May 20.
While the sixth and final season of live-action comedy hit Schitt’s Creek leads both the television and overall Canadian Screen Award nominations with 21, it’s also a big year for Canadian animation. Corner Gas Animated and Hotel Transylvania: The Series tied for most nominations with five each, followed by PAW Patrol with four, Abby Hatcher and The Magic School Bus Rides Again: The Frizz Connection (three each) and double nods for Esme & Roy, Snoopy in Space, True and the Rainbow Kingdom and Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum.
The awards will culminate in the Canadian Screen Awards main event — featuring a curated selection of prominent awards — streaming live on Thursday, May 20 at 8 p.m. ET. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Visit www.academy.ca for more information and the complete lists of nominees.
FILM
Best Animated Short
4 North A | Jordan Canning, Howie Shia, Annette Clarke
The Fourfold | Alisi Telengut
The Great Malaise | Catherine LePage, Marc Bertrand
Hot Flash | Thea Hollatz, Kristy Neville, Matt Code, Morghan Fortier, Brett Jubinville
I, Barnabé | Jean-François Lévesque, Julie Roy
Achievement in Visual Effects
Blood Quantum | Joshua Sherrett, Barbara Rosenstein, Ibi Atemi, David Atexide, Juan Carlos Ferrá, Alex Flynn, Andrei Gheorghiu, Felix Sherrett-Brown, Ali Hamidikia, Tony Wu, Carlo Harrietha, Jean-Mathieu Bérubé
Code 8 | Brian Huynh, William Chang, Steven Huynh, Sophia Jooyeon Lee, Justin Perreault
French Exit | Liam Neville, Kenneth Coyne, Piers Larchet, Rob Murray, Shane Browne, Dave Thomas, Mihail Dumbravestu, Allen Sillery, Christoph Gaudi, Michael McCarthy
Funny Boy | Peter McAuley, Michael Bishop, Derek Gebhart, Armen Bunag, Luke White, James Marin, Marco Polsinelli, Andrew Rolfe, Davor Celar
Laughter | François Trudel, Cynthia Mourou
Canadian Screen Awards 2021 Animated Program nominees
TELEVISION
Best Animated Program or Series
(Sponsored by Sheridan College)
Corner Gas Animated | Brent Butt, Virginia Thompson, David Storey, Andrew Carr, Marilyn McAuley, Robert de Lint, Jonas Diamond, Jensenne Roculan, Randy Lennox | Verite Films, Sparrow Media, Aslan Ent. / CTV
Hotel Transylvania: The Series | Jane Crawford, Suzie Gallo | Nelvana / Teletoon / Corus Ent.
The Magic School Bus Rides Again: The Frizz Connection | Vince Commisso, Iole Lucchese, Jocelyn Stevenson, Blake Tohana, Michelle Awad, Nora Keely | 9 Story Media Group / Netflix
Snoopy in Space | Josh Scherba, Anne Loi, Stephanie Betts, Paige Braddock, Craig Shulz, Mark Evestaff, Kimberly Small | WildBrain / Apple TV+
Wild Kratts | Chris Kratt, Martin Kratt, Vince Commisso, Blake Tohana, Cheryl Knapp | 9 Story Media Group, The Kratt Brothers / TVOKids
Best Preschool Program or Series
(Sponsored by Corus Entertainment)
Abby Hatcher | Jennifer Dodge, Ronnen Harary, Rob Hoegee, Jamie Whitney, Laura Clunie, Frank Falcone, Toni Stevens, Jonah Stroh, Dan Mokriy, Cynthia Taylor, David Watson | Spin Master Hatching Prod. 2 Inc. / TVOKids
Dino Dana | J.J. Johnson, Blair Powers, Christin Simms, Matthew J.R. Bishop | Sinking Ship Ent. / TVOKids
Esme & Roy | Pam Westman, Amy Steinberg, Dustin Ferrer, Scott Dyer, Kay Wilson Stallings, Doug Murphy, Jane Crawford, Melanie Grisanti, Oliver Kane, Pamela Slavin, Melissa Graham, Rick Ritter | Nelvana Ltd. / Treehouse / Corus Ent.
PAW Patrol | Jennifer Dodge, Ronnen Harary, Keith Chapman, Ursula Ziegler-Sullivan, Laura Clunie, Toni Stevens, Jonah Stroh, Dan Mokriy, Shayna Fine, Jason McKenzie, Pascale LeBlanc, David Sharples, Damian Temporale, Sarah Williams | Spin Master PAW Prod. 7 Inc. / TVOKids
True and the Rainbow Kingdom | Frank Falcone, Mary Bredin, Jeremy Larner, Bill Schultz, Mimi Valdés, Pharrell Williams, Dominique Bazay | Guru Studio / CBC
Best Direction, Animation
(Sponsored by 9 Story Media Group)
Abby Hatcher “Fuzzly Beach Day” | Kyran Kelly
Hotel Transylvania: The Series “What Lycidias Beneath” | Robin Budd
The Magic School Bus Rides Again: The Frizz Connection | Rich Weston
PAW Patrol “Dino Rescue: Pups and the Lost Dino Eggs” | Charles E. Bastien
True and the Rainbow Kingdom “Friendship Day” | Mark Thornton, Todd Kauffman
Best Writing, Animation
Corner Gas Animated “Pact Rat” | Andrew Carr
Corner Gas Animated “Pink Flood” | Brent Butt, Jennifer Goodhue
Corner Gas Animated “Remembers Only” | Brent Butt, Jennifer Siddle
Hotel Transylvania: The Series “What Lycidias Beneath” | Mark Steinberg
Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum “I Am Harriet Tubman” | Desmond Sargeant, Meghan Read | 9 Story Media Group / TVOKids
Best Sound, Animation
Abby Hatcher “Fuzzly Beach Day” | Brendan Quinn, Julian Rudd, Kevin Chamberlain, Scott McCrorie, Sebastian Biega
The Magic School Bus Rides Again: The Frizz Connection | Dan Kuntz, Jack Carter
Ollie’s Pack “Ollie in the House / The Ollie Files” | Ryan Araki, Simon Berry, Sue Robertson | Nelvana / YTV / Corus Ent.
PAW Patrol “Dino Rescue: Pups and the Lost Dino Eggs” | Richard Spence-Thomas, Kyle Peters, Patton Rodrigues, Ryan Ongaro, Timothy Muirhead, Mitch Connors, Luke Dante
Snoopy In Space “Mission 6: Space Sleepwalking” | Jeff Davis, Fanny Riguidel, Stefan Seslija, Melanie Eng
Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series “The First Time We Smoked Weed” | Brian Power, Matt Dawson, Jeremy Van Slyke, Zander Rosborough, Graham Colwell | TPB A2 Prod. / Netflix
Best Visual Effects
(Sponsored by SPINVFX)
A Bee’s Diary | Greg Marshall, Karl Reichert, Mark Wong, Jordan Alaeddine, Amanda Grabenstetter | Handful of Films / CBC
Cardinal: Until the Night “Robert” | Tom Plaskett, Lara Osland, Pavan Veeramaneni, Igor Garanovschii, Kevin Buessecker, Terence Krueger, Mohsin Kazi, David Rezek, Ramin Pournavab, Sawyer Tomkinson-Hunnef | Sienna Films, eOne / CTV / Bell Media
Trickster “Episode 104” | Tom Plaskett, Tracy Grant, Dayna Pearce, Matt Philip, Mercedes Delgado, Janis Cudars, Chris Doe, Adam Smith, Sawyer Tomkinson-Hunnef, Jay Stanners | Sienna Films, Steel Films / CBC
Utopia Falls “The World Is Yours” | Greg Behrens, Winston Lee, Dani Wall | Sonar Canada / CBC Gem
Vikings “The Best Laid Plans” | Dominic Remane, Bill Halliday, Becca Donohoe, Leann Harvey, Tom Morrison, Ovidiu Cinazan, Jim Maxwell, Ezra Waddell, Warren Lawtey, Maria Gordon | Take 5 Prod. / History / Corus Ent.
Hotel Transylvania: The Series “The Song Remains Asleep” | Asher Lenz, Stephen Skratt
Let’s Go Luna! “Monster Park / Meet the Strongs” | Ari Posner, Amin Bhatia, Kris Kuzdak, Chris Tait | 9 Story Media Group / TVOKids
The Remarkable Mr. King “Mr. King’s Machine / Mr. King’s Concert / Mr. King’s Turnip” | Neil Parfitt | Nelvana / Treehouse / Corus Ent.
Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum “I Am Harriet Tubman” | Meiro Stamm
Best Performance, Animation
Alien TV | Julie Lemieux | eOne / Netflix
Corner Gas Animated | Lorne Cardinal
Esme & Roy | Patrick McKenna
Hotel Transylvania: The Series | Bryn McAuley
PAW Patrol | Lilly Bartlam
DIGITAL MEDIA
Best Immersive Experience
The Book of Distance | Randall Okita, David Oppenheim, Anita Lee | National Film Board of Canada
The Holy City | Nimrod Shanit, Sean Thomas Evans | Holy City VR
In the Land of the Flabby Schnook | Francis Gélinas, Francis Monty, Catherine Cyr, Saule Gélinas, Lileina Joy, Monique Thomas, Daniel Judson, Michèle Paquin, Natasha Vallée-Martin, Olivier Rousseau, Maude Paré, Anne-Marie Robert, Christina Robinson, Gabrielle Leblanc, Marc-André Paquin, Mathieu Dufresne, Éric Guérin | couleur.tv
Space Explorers: The ISS Experience | Felix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphael | Felix & Paul Studios
Best Video Game
Later Daters | Miriam Verburg | Bloom Digital Media
LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories | Jim Squires, Shane McCafferty | Rocketship Park
Spiritfarer | Nicolas Guérin | 9300-2665 Quebec Inc. (dba Thunder Lotus)
Star Renegades | Ken Seto | Massive Damage Inc.
We Happy Few: We All Fall Down | Alex Epstein, Lisa Hunter, Mark Slutsky | Compulsion Games
![Actor Bill Farmer (voice of Goofy) and actress Margaret Kerry (model for Tinker Bell) charmed the audience with their anecdotes at the 2020 Annie Awards. [Photo: David Yeh]](https://www.dev.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Bill-Farmer-Margaret-Kerry.jpg)
![Klaus director Sergio Pablos received the Annie for Best Animated Indie feature in 2020. [Photo: David Yeh]](https://www.dev.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Sergio-Pablos-2.jpg)
