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Craig Bartlett

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Craig Bartlett, creator and exec producer, Dinosaur Train, PBS Kids.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Matt Groening used to say that you need to do 10 years of awful jobs before you get to the good ones. I washed dishes, washed cars in the Northwest in winter, waited tables, worked in a pea cannery – that one was the worst. It was hot, steamy, deafeningly loud. And we were canning peas! Who eats canned peas?

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I worked for Bob Rogers on several special-venue films, for worlds fairs – I made two short 360-degree films, one for Basque Spain and one for a Korean worlds fair that shot in seven locations around the world. We also did permanent installations like Mystery Lodge at Knott’s Berry Farm, and the Shuttle Launch Experience at the Kennedy Space Center for NASA. Those jobs were always fun because they got me out of town and out of our little entertainment bubble. Also I got to get intensely into subjects I was interested in, like the space program and Northwest Indian art.

How did you become interested in animation?
I grew up wanting to be an artist, so I went to art school in Portland for a traditional art education. But it seemed to me that the whole fine art world was too serious. Then I saw the “Tournee of Animation” that played in our art museum’s theater, and the short films I saw there seemed to combine fine art with storytelling, and they were just weirder and funnier than the stuff I was studying. So….. Continue reading

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Valentina Tatti

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Hi! My name is Valentina Tatti and currently I’m working in a cinema set near Florence.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
In 2014 I’ve graduated in Animation 2d&3D and now I’M ending the specialization in Film Directing. Thanks to this, I’ve begun to work for film in live action, even if my destination is the Animation. The craziest experience that I’ve had has been when I worked as an character animator for a fiction. I’ve worked very hard for months and they disappeared without paying myself and taking possession of the rights of my jobs. I wanted to strangle everybody.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
All the projects to which I’ve been able to work make me proud. Do what I love is the most beautiful thing that can happen to me. That I’m to animate a character or to draw the cover of a book.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in Prato,Tuscany . My parents always took me to the cinema and I fell in love of ” The Lion King” . When I was 3 years I decided I had to do the cartoons to make Continue reading

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Way More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Animaniacs

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Mental Floss has an excellent article up about the development of Animaniacs after talking with Tom Ruegger, the shows executive producer and creator.

I was fortunate enough to work for Tom on Tiny Toons, Tazmania, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain as well as Histeria, first as a character layout artist and then as a director, and I still count them as some of my very best years in the industry.

We interviewed Tom Ruegger years ago and you can read that interview here.

From the site:

One idea Spielberg suggested was to make the popular Tiny Toons character Plucky Duck the star of the new show. Meanwhile, Ruegger had been developing characters based on the personalities of his three young sons. These two concepts were combined to create three brother ducks. However, the team soon realized that, between Disney’s Donald Duck, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Warner Bros.’ own Daffy Duck, there were already plenty of animated waterfowl on the market. Spielberg agreed, but said they needed to come up with “a big marquee name” to help sell the show.

Ruegger was inspired by the large “WB” logo on the water tower at the Warner Bros. studio. He proposed a group of siblings drawn in an animation style reminiscent of anthropomorphized animal characters from the 1930s, and called them the Warner Brothers. Although they have dog-like characteristics, the exact type of animal the Warners are meant to be is unknown. According to the show bible – a book filled with background information for the creative team on a TV show – their species is labeled as “Cartoonus Characterus.”

For a brief period, there were four Warner siblings—Yakky, Smakky, Wakky, and little sister, Dot. As the studio artists honed the designs, Yakky became Yakko, and Smakky and Wakky were melded into Wakko. After getting clearance from the Warner estate to use the family name, the show was off and running.

You can read the whole article on Mental Floss!

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We also interviewed the multi-talented Bob Doucette who did all those cool posters above (and in the article). Bob was my producer on Histeria while I was directing on it. Bob was one of our very first interviews on Animation Insider, and you can read his interview here!

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Hotel Transylvania 2 teaser trailer!

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LOVED the first one! This sequence was boarded by my buddy Keith Baxter who we interviewed back in 2011

Keith was coincidentally my very first boss in L.A. on a production called Tazmania where he taught me so many things about drawing that I’ll never be able to repay him.

You can read Keith’s interview here!

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Viewster Launches Largest Online Animation Festival

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VOFF5 launches with fully-curated animation edition and a new jury made up of leading industry talent

Zurich – March 12, 2015 – Viewster (http://www.viewster.com/), the only online video service with its own global film festival, is launching the latest edition of the Viewster Online Film Fest #VOFF5: Animated Worlds (12 – 26 March), with films that bring to life some of the finest animated worlds – from far-off galaxies to worlds within our heads (the trailer can be viewed here). The festival has been fully curated and has a new jury of leading industry talent, who have been recognised by the likes of BAFTA and the Emmys.

#VOFF5 is the world’s largest online showcase of animation content, with the hand-picked festival selection covering the best global talent, from students to award-winners. There are over 140 short films from 37 countries, all of which have been selected on the merits of production quality and for their imaginative scope. The films comprise of various animation methods across 2D, 3D, CGI, Stop-Motion and Cel Animation. Each film in #VOFF5: Animated Worlds is listed in the festival catalogue, available to view online http://festival.viewster.com.

The festival winners will get a share of the $50,000 USD prize fund, making #VOFF5 the biggest prize fund in the world to reward purely animation talent. The final films will be chosen by the jury from the shortlist, following the public voting period when fans will watch, discuss, share and vote for their favourite entries.
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The new jury for #VOFF5 consists of:

  • Prolific voice-actor Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto and Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, numerous video game credits such as The Prince from The Prince of Persia series)
  • Athena Yvette Portillo (Lucas Film producer of Star Wars Rebels and line producer on Clone Wars)
  • Samantha Youssef (Toronto International Film Festival award-winner for La Fuga Grande and character animator and director, with credits for Disney, Ubisoft and Filmax International)
  • Two-time Emmy winning animator Christophe Vacher (credits include work on Transformers: Prime,Despicable Me, 9, Enchanted, Fantasia / 2000, Hercules and Beauty and the Beast)
  • BAFTA-nominated animator Michael Schlingmann (credits include work on Corpse Bride,Paranorman, Alice in Wonderland)

Kai Henniges, CEO, Viewster, said: “#VOFF5 cements our festival’s position as a global fandom destination, where fanboys and fangirls can connect with each other and interact with the filmmakers around the content. The films in this edition of the festival are truly impressive and are a testament to the amazing talent out there, and the imaginative variety of styles and subjects in animation. Viewster is a global first-stop for fresh Anime content, and our catalogue has a wealth of complementary content across sci-fi and fantasy, so #VOFF5: Animated Worlds will play directly into our audience’s tastes.”

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The fifth edition of #VOFF hosts a number of award-winning creations and talent, including:

  • Posthuman (USA) – Screamfest ‘Best Animated Short’-winner starring the voice of Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica)
  • The Silence Beneath the Bark (France) – Oscar nominated short which was also nominated for the Annecy Cristal and won the best animated short at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
  • ARK (Poland) – SIGGRAPH ‘Best of Show’-winner which was also accepted into official selection at Cannes, from director Grzegorz Jokajtys (animation/digital arts credits include Star Trek, Iron Man 2,Captain America: Winter Soldier, Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth)
  • Golem (Germany) – Won Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival and Audience Award at the Creative Arts Film Festival, and is from director Tobias Wiesner (animation/digital arts credits include Game of Thrones, The Hobbit trilogy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Hugo). The soundtrack is from renowned film composer Cliff Martinez (Drive, Solaris, Only God Forgives, Spring Breakers)
  • Way Home (South Korea) – directed by Oscar-nominated Erik Oh (Brave, Monsters University and the upcoming Pixar films Inside Out and Finding Dory, Oscar-nominated for his latest film The Dam Keeper)
  • The Gift (Chile) – crowd-funded film screened at over 90 festivals and has received numerous animation awards

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About Viewster

Viewster (www.viewster.com) is a worldwide online video service connecting passionate audiences. We are the first stop destination for anime lovers, featuring an ever-growing line up of the latest shows directly from Japan. Our wider catalogue brings the best of specialist shows and movies, with more than ten thousand titles across anime, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy. Viewster is free, supported by advertising and available to stream on desktop, mobile and smart TV apps.

The Viewster Online Film Fest brings millions of visitors together with the creators. Each festival we feature the best up and coming filmmakers and invite our online community to help select the finalists. But we don’t stop there. We believe so much in fan culture, that we have created a global platform for fans to interact with each other, and we invite anime enthusiasts to join our translation community to create subtitles on a professional level. Meet with us – both online and at international conventions throughout the year.

Viewster, and its network of partner sites, serves an 18-24 year old audience of more than 20 million unique users per month across the U.S., U.K., Germany and Australia alone – the ideal advertising platform for all brands looking to bring cool stuff to awesome people.

All entries and voting: http://www.viewster.com
Official Trailer: https://vimeo.com/121808400

For more information, please visit: http://corp.viewster.com.
Find Viewster on www.viewster.com, in iTunes or Google Play

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Jobs: LA Sr Character Animator

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Zoic Studios is an Award winning VFX company made up of accomplished artists and producers who understand story, process and relationships. Partnership, integrity and enthusiasm are our key founding principles. Some of our recent credits include, Gangster Squad, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Once Upon a Time, Fringe and Falling Skies.

“Visual Evolution” is our mission. We invest in constantly improving our technological and studio processes so that our artists can focus on being creative even in the lightning fast paced world of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Episodic Television. We apply these principles to our work on some of the most VFX intensive film and television projects out there. We like a challenge. Do you?

Our LA office is currently interested in Sr Character Animators with immediate availability for our commercial department

Summary of Position
Works under the CG Supervisor to create realistic creature and character animation for commercial productions. Animators at Zoic may be asked to animate anything from an alien slug to a 6 legged chimera so strong visual understanding of anatomy and physics is a must.

Responsibilities:

  • Realistic creature and character animation
  • Ensuring animation meets production deadlines
  • Ensuring animation meets quality standards
  • Knowing and following all pipeline and studio policies and procedures

Qualifications

  • Experience working as a 3D animator within television or commercials, a must.
  • Proficiency animating in Maya from reference, with the ability to take animation to final.
  • Ability to work within a fast-paced team environment.
  • Positive attitude, hard worker, flexible schedule.
  • Strong attention to detail and follow through.

You can apply for the job on their website.