Category Archives: Artists Interviews

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Zeke Ares

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I am Zeke Ares stop motion animator/director and T/A of Black Box Building animation studio here in Stoke on Trent UK.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Well I was a chef for 9 years of my career, which was pretty crazy. I know your thinking “what?” but Chefs are crazy! I have ended up in knife fights working in kitchens before, drunk lock-ins till silly o’clock and even naked frolicking. Like I said chefs are crazy, but that’s what working stupid amount of hours for bad pay in very hot circumstances does to you, Fun times but definitely crazy.

What are some of your favourite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I believe this is one question I love to answer and the answer is always the same, War of the Worlds SURGE. A trailer based animation, a short adaption of the novel by great British author H.G Wells.  I have always been a little bit obsessed when it comes to War of the Worlds. It’s something I have always dreamed of doing. So when my chance came along to do a film at university I jumped at the opportunity to create a stop motion version just like the late and great Ray Harryhausen in 1949.
So with an amazing team behind me (now known as the SURGE crew) we set out to create this intense animation, it became more of a tripod obsession in the end. Just animating tripods for weeks. One very intense interesting shot we did was after a few weeks of animating on the church set we had to destroy it But I had so much fun on this film I even had the symbol of the animation tattooed on my arm now everyday can I smile when I look at it.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from the very green city of Milton Keynes in the UK, I have always wanted to be an animator and after 9 years of being a chef I decided to chase my dreams and re-join education for 5 years to gain my BA HONS in stop motion animation & puppet making. From here I Continue reading

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Justin Hall

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Justin Hall / Animator
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
It was actually between animation jobs, but I spent a while as a bike courier (that’s on a bicycle, not a motorbike!). It’s an awesome job – outdoors, keeps you fit, get to fight with buses – just not really a career.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
With only a few exceptions, all my projects have been great and well received by the final audiences. Tiny Planets (Sesame Workshops) and OOglies (BBC) were great fun to work on and were loved by the kids (and college students) that saw them. Obviously getting the Oscar nomination for The Illusionist this year was nice. But the best project I have ever been involved with Continue reading

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Tony White

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What is your name and your current occupation?

My name is Tony White and I wear many hats.  My principal full-time job is as animation instructor at the new “AIE-Seattle” school.  At the same time, I and a number of top-drawer animation colleagues are developing several traditional hand-drawn movie projects through my virtual studio – “Drawassic Age”. Our most current project is “BAD PENGUIN”, an animated teaser for a full-length independent movie for adults. I also write. My latest book (and I believe my best book) is being published in September 2011… “Animator’s Notebook”.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I came straight into animation from art school in London. I worked for Fords once as an office paper-pusher, so I could support myself through college. It wasn’t crazy but it was sooooooo boring!

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Many. I did the opening title sequence for “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” movie for director Blake Edwards and the Richard Williams studio towards the beginning of my career. I won a British Academy Award for my short biopic, “HOKUSAI ~ An Animated Sketchbook”. I’m proud of many of the 200+ TV commercials I have made too.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
I stumbled into it by accident as I couldn’t get a job in the area I most wanted to work – illustration. However, Continue reading

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Adobe’s New App Turns 2-D Selfies Into 3-D Magic

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FastCodesign.com has an article up about a fascinating new tech from Adobe that turns 2d pictures into 3d. It’s cool, but clearly has it’s limits. I can’t imagine the practicality of it above and beyond, “Hey check out how cool this is.

From the site:

To be presented tonight at Adobe MAX Sneaks, the Photoshop maker’s annual peek inside their development labs, 3-D Portraits smartly recognizes faces, eyes, mouths, and hair, and then efficiently turns them into a usable 3-D model. This is actually already possible in Photoshop, but it requires a number of tedious manual steps, and the results can range in quality. Thanks to research by Menglei Chai, a PhD student from Zhejiang University, and a team of Adobe Research scientists, though, they’ve now figured out how to largely automate the process.

You can read the whole article here.

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Joaquin Baldwin

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Sebastian’s Voodoo: 
What is your name and your current occupation? 
I’m Joaquin Baldwin, I work at the Walt Disney Animation Studios as a CG Layout Artist, I’m currently working on the film Wreck-It Ralph that should come out in November of 2012. Here’s some more info on Wreck-It Ralph:
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I cleaned a ceramics lab and worked in the admissions office at my old college (CCAD). I was also a webdesigner for about 6 years, which is not a crazy job, but sometimes you gotta make porn sites 🙂
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
I made 3 short films recently while finishing my studies at UCLA: Sebastian’s Voodoo, Papiroflexia and The Windmill Farmer. They were incredibly fun to make, and getting a chance at going out to film festivals all over the place with them was a unique experience all filmmakers should experience at least once.
How did you become interested in animation?
I was a computer nerd and used to experiment with computer graphics while in high-school. I liked blowing shit up (in the computer, but also in real life making explosives but that’s another story). I learned a lot of technical things this way, but not much on the artistic side. I came to the US to study art and webdesign and decided that I kind of hated it, and doing animation was more fun. It wasn’t until that point that I embraced animation as a way to Continue reading
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Rocky Solotoff

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Rocky Solotoff-Producer.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Tour Road Manager for a Laser company for Rock Shows. Charter Flight Manager for Celebrities, Flight Attendent for Delta Airlines. Donut Maker.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
American Tail, Land Before Time and Mickey’s Prince and the Pauper and my Daughter.

 

How did you become interested in animation? 
Helped a friend shooting camera for Disney and said “that looks pretty simple”. The Camera Manager said if I could Continue reading