Jesse Aclin

What is your name and your current occupation?
Jesse Aclin. Freelance Character designer currently working on a project with Reel FX.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Crazy ey? well, working in the toy design field was a bit crazy for me.. I also had a gig where it was my job to create label art by moving around existing images and changing the layout based on where a certain stores price tag and logo go. That was fun!

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Working with Reel FX on “Turkeys”, as a character designer. It was my first real gig doing character design, so it was sort of like a dream come true for me and I got to design a lot of characters! Right now I’m fortunate enough to be working with them again on “Book of Life”. I’ve worked on some fun TV commercial spots with Nathan Love, designing characters. Those are cool because I get to have a heavy influence on the style. Working with Titmouse was a heck of a lotta fun and an amazing learning experience as it was my first animation gig. I was hired to work as a character layout artist on Disney’s Motor City. I ended up working on a bunch of projects there. Good folks there, and I learned what it is to be a professional working in the biz.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from a town called Goshen, NY. It’s about 1.5 hours outside of city. My path into the animation biz is a bit of a strange and round about one. I always drew sort of well and I knew I wanted a career in the arts. So, taking my fathers advice I went into college for advertising because Continue reading

Rob Davies

 

What is your name?

Rob Davies

What would you say has been your primary job in animation?

I don’t know that I’ve had a ‘primary’ job in animation to be honest. My longest stint is as one of the founders/owners of Atomic Cartoons in Vancouver. However, I’ve worn many hats in and out of Atomic.
I started as a traditional animation layout artist. Anyone who’s been around for awhile (pre-digital) knows what that is…
Other titles include character designer, art director, storyboard artist, storyboard supervisor, director, producer, series creator, and presently VP of Development at Atomic Cartoons.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?

Before I broke into the ‘toon biz, I worked as a sign painter, dishwasher (lasted one night), construction laborer, duty-free store clerk, T-Shirt designer, political cartoonist, silk screen printer, art supplies store clerk, even worked the camera counter at Kmart…
Can’t say there was anything that was particularly ‘crazy’ (like juggling flaming chain saws at kids’ parties) although the duty-free store at the BC-Washington State boarder was strange. It required I run down the highway to just past the nearest exit to the boarder crossing and then hand customers their shopping bags. This was to prevent Canadians from loading up on smokes and rye whiskey at the duty-free and then hanging a quick right just before customs. I ran in all sorts of weather. It is Canada after all. Eventually they just closed off the street. Easier.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?

I’m grateful to have been a part of anything, to be honest. But I’m most proud of Beetlejuice the Animated Series, Asterix Conquers America, Eek The Cat, Pinky and The Brain, The Zeta Project, Captain Flamingo, and Atomic Betty.

How did you become interested in animation?

It was pretty obvious, especially in math class, that I was destined to do something with a Continue reading

Neal Warner

What is your name and your current occupation? 
I’m Neal Warner and I am currently directing a live stage show called Rock & Roll Rehabwhich features a live band playing in sync with animated music videos projected on a large screen above the stage. It’s been an ambition of mine since I was in Junior High School and saw the re-release of Walt Disney’s Fantasia. It recently finished a run at the Hayworth Theater on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Before I went to work as an inbetweener at Hanna-Barbera during my summer vacation between graduating high school and starting college I was a published cartoonist in the “Free Press” and in “underground comix”. Ironically, the only job I ever had after creating the underground comic character Pizza Fella and starting full time in the Animation Industry was as a pizza delivery guy while attending San Diego State.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I wrote and directed the John Lennon themed stage show, A Day In His Life, which was represented by the William Morris Agency and followed that with the Rock & Roll Rehabshow, both of which include a lot of animation as part of the multimedia projection. I published PaperCuts, The Illustrated Lyrics Magazine in the 80s which included a two song record insert and featured the songs’ lyrics in comic book form, I produced several animated music videos, one of which won the Gold Plaque in Music Video at the Chicago International Film Festival and was included in a screening of “The World’s Best Animated Music Videos” at the First Los Angeles Animation Celebration and I produced The Tooner’s Trip Disc enhanced CD and The Tooners’ Rocktasia CD (available on iTunes). Those are my favorite “pet” projects but I’m also proud of my work on The Heavy Metal Movie, Ducktails The Movie, the two Rugrats Movies, The Puff The Magic Dragon TV special and some of the many TV commercials and series I’ve worked on either as an animator, an assistant animator, a director or as a timing director for studios such as Disney TV, Klasky-Csupo, Marvel, Murakami-Wolf, Filmmation, Film Roman, Sony, Universal, Fred Wolf Films and many others.

How did you become interested in animation? 
I was a cartoonist whose work was published in my junior high school newspaper, the cover of the yearbook and animated my first film, The Jogger, in the ninth grade. In high school I was the school’s staff “political” cartoonist as well as a paid contributor to professional underground comics and in college I was elected into Sigma Delta Chi, the Society Of Professional Journalists for my political cartoons in the CSUN campus paper. Although Continue reading

Alan Foreman

http://vimeo.com/42168143

 

What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Alan Foreman and I’m a freelance animator and director working out of Brooklyn, NY.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I don’t know if I would label any of my previous jobs as crazy. I got into animation right after graduating from college. Before that it was mostly your run-of-the-mill highschool jobs… working at a movie theater, a children’s museum, basic manual labor jobs… things like that.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
There are a lot to choose from. Home Movies (Adult Swim) was a lot of fun. Directing Three Delivery (Nicktoons) was very challenging and satisfying. Recently I finished a music video for my band that is on the festival circuit that I’m very proud of. Doing that has gotten me excited about producing independent films again.

How did you become interested in animation?
All I ever wanted to do all my life was draw. While a freshman at the Rhode Island School of Design I had Continue reading

Sandra Ní Chonaola

http://vimeo.com/43397083


What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Sandra Ní Chonaola and I am an Animation Supervisor at JAM Media in Dublin, Ireland.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Hummm… I don’t know if I’ve had any ‘crazy’, jobs, but I did start out studying Fitness Instruction only to go onto a career in accounting to finally find my way back on track with animation.

 

What are some of your favourite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The current one, ‘Tilly and Friends’. Its not only mind-blowing to work with such talented, enthusiastic seasoned animation directors every day, but to get to work on such unique project is truly inspiring. Based on a series of books by author Polly Dunbar, the show is heavily traditional, though it is drawn digitally. We aim to honour the books as much as possible, when a shot is approved in animation it put through After Effects and given a paper texture and a boiling line, that allows it to look just like the books. Its so beautiful, I love it! It’s a pleasure to look at eight or more hours a dayJ

 

How did you become interested in animation?
I have been a huge fan of Warner Bros for as long as I could remember. The likes of Daffy Duck giving out about his lines etc… persuaded me that these characters where alive… so the concept of becoming an animator happened fairly late for me. I was probably about nine years old, when I got Continue reading

Billy Burger


What is your name and your current occupation?
Billy Burger _ Assistant Director – Media Arts and Animation – AiCAsf

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Neon Artist … Photographer … Bartender … Dad!

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
James and The Giant Peach … I wish Henry Selcik had gotten to do Toots and the Upside down house like we were all hoping for.

How did you become interested in animation? 
In 1965 my folks bought a Continue reading