Tag Archives: Adobe After Effects

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David Rodriguez

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Hey, I’m David Rodriguez and I’m currently a Freelance Animator at Halon Entertainment.  Working on a “Shhhhh” project.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I haven’t had any real “crazy” jobs, I would say mostly jobs you typically get when your young looking for work.  My very first job was when I was 18 years old working at Toys R US.  I was running on the main “Boys World”  that was fun.  Then after that I worked in Shipping & Receiving for some wholesale company.  Very boring and physical work.  I didn’t last there too long.  I wouldn’t take a job like that again.  You do too much for too little.  After that, I landed a job at a doctors office as an office clerk while I was attending college.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
I would say my very first animation project I landed.  I got to work for Start Wars: Unleash The Force II.  That was lots of fun.  But I guess any animation project I work on I feel proud of.  Even now, working on Previs. makes me feel like I’m helping the director bring his ideas to life.   I also worked on Piranha 3D movie and some other small video game titles.

How did you become interested in animation?
I would say the very first time I saw Toy Story in theaters. Ever since then I wanted to know how 3D animation was made.  In some weird sense it felt like Continue reading

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Ashanti Miller

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Animation teacher and VFX artist

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Working in day care and retail. The job is so much easier without the parents and  customers 🙂

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?Sesame Workshop’s The New Electric Company and Mondo Media’s Piki and Poko’s Adventures in Starland. I love working directly with the writers rather than interpreting the writer’s vision through my director. The results are always peachy keen 😀

How did you become interested in animation?
Bugs Bunny. The instant I was able to draw him when I was 7 years old, I was determined Continue reading

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J.J. Sedelmaier

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What is your name and your current occupation?
J.J. Sedelmaier. This week I’m a filmmaker, graphic designer, cartoonist, author, curator. . .

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I don’t know if it’d be classified as “crazy” but in school and right out of school, I worked as a waiter/bartender/asst manager in restaurants (this best thing I could have done to prepare for running a business), and also worked as a furniture stripper/salesman.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In terms of longer form stuff, launching Beavis and Butthead for MTV, creating the Saturday TV Funhouse/Saturday Night Live cartoons with Robert Smigel (especially The Ambiguously Gay Duo !), the co-creation with Stuart Hill of Captain Linger for Cartoon Network, doing the Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law pilot for Adult Swim, and designing the Tek Jansen character and launching the cartoon series for The Colbert Report. In terms of our short form/commercial stuff, some of the highlights have been, Continue reading

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Matt Novak

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Matt Novak. Children’s Book Author and Illustrator. (Occasional animator)

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Can’t really say I’ve had any “crazy” jobs. In high school and college I was a puppeteer and an actor. Our puppet troupe was called “Pegasus Players” and we performed at amusement parks, birthday parties, flea markets, farmers markets and anywhere else that would pay us a few bucks to make kids laugh. Also, acted on stage and in a nationally syndicated radio show called “Willow Crossing.” I played the part of a freckle faced kid named Billy, which was very convenient since I was a freckle faced kid at the time.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I think my favorite animation project to have been a part of would hands down have to be “Beauty and the Beast.” To be part of the team that created the first animated film to ever be nominated for “Best Picture” That’s pretty cool. Of course, I’m proud of ALL the books I’ve created as well.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in the small coal mining town of Sheppton, Pennsylvania. (Population at the time, about 700) I was always interested in animation. Even before kindergarten. It was the closest thing to magic that existed in my world. As I grew up I watched a lot of cartoons and devoured any books about Walt Disney and the animation process. Tried making some Continue reading

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Paul Thompson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Paul Thompson and I’m a motion graphics artist.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Can’t say I had any jobs you would term as crazy, I was programming before motion graphics and that got a bit boring.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I quite enjoy doing assembly instruction videos and as far as I can find on the web it seems I have done more than anyone in the world. I’m quite proud of the fact that this is obviously the future and I was one of the first to be involved in this kind of thing.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
Since I was a child watching cartoons, especially Spiderman! I got a present for Christmas when I was a child which was a Disney projector that you held to your eye. You turned a handle and it Continue reading
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Chris Cookson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I’m Chris Cookson and I am currently a freelance animator, I work in Flash mostly but sometimes I get some AfterEffects and Photoshop work.  I’ve been lucky enough where everything I’ve done before animation has been some kind of visual based work. The first job I did out of high school was making animated assets for the LED sign demo room at Trans-Lux (yes, that Trans-Lux of the 1959 Felix the Cat cartoon). It was a uniquely fun experience, they had this old LaserDisc system that would trigger all kinds of signs to light up in cue to music and audio, the audio was very much a product of the ’80s but they wanted me to modernize the visuals and make some colorful stuff for their new centerpiece display.  Apart from that, I’ve done a good amount of web design work in my formative years. One of my clients was a Cuban percussionist who was really into anime and kung-fu movies. He even offered to pay me for making his site with a samurai sword, which to 15-year-old me, was the coolest thing ever. Though, if I were to ever come home with a samurai sword, my parents would probably kill me, likely with that very same samurai sword.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In terms of cool projects, a psychedelic TV ad for Linda McCartney’s line of frozen vegan foods has been really satisfying. What I loved was the ad had a different style than the usual aesthetic I get but had a lot of understated weirdness and quite a few distinct shots to work on. I got to meet Paul McCartney’s son-in-law and Rick Astley’s wife while on the project too which made me geek out pretty hard. A couple of months after I finished work on the spot, I started to see posts about it show up on sites like Motionographer, The Huffington Post and was linked by a lot of the sites I follow on Twitter, which made me feel real warm and fuzzy on the inside.  I’m also really proud of a lot of the smaller commercial projects I have worked on at Shoulderhill Creative. For those, it’s great to work with a couple of my classmates from art school and since it’s not a part of a giant team, I feel a lot more creative ownership over what I’m making. It’s absolutely wonderful to have a chance to work more within my own style and have more room to experiment with the colors and see what kind of little visual jokes I can put in to the advertisement.  Other projects like William Caballero’s documentary short film “How You Doin’ Boy? Voicemails from Gran’pa” were really great to be a part of. For that, he wanted me to make a squiggly text treatment based off of his grandfather’s handwriting to go up on screen in sync with actual answering machine messages left from his grandfather. Having the freedom to design the word treatment, as well as play around with text sizes was really fulfilling, the tone of some of the messages allowed me to really go crazy in some spots too, pushing the graphic element of it, trying to get it to match his grandfather’s own personal tone.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Stamford, CT and I’ve always wanted to either be a cartoonist or animator for pretty much my entire life. I taught myself how to use Flash when I was 12-years-old and would constantly look for an excuse to use it any chance I had, whether it be for making buttons or logos on the aforementioned web design projects I got or making short films whenever the opportunity arose. After making more and more stuff, over the years, my skills started to Continue reading