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Jean Claude de La Ronde

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What is your name and your current occupation?

My name is Jean Claude de La Ronde and I’m currently a freelance storyboard artist offering my pre-production services in the entertainment industry.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Acutally that would be my last job back in december 2011. I did storyboards for a horror film and the producer wasn’t really organized and it was just a big amalgam of confusion.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
My most favorite project was when I was working over at Makuta VFX in Hyderabad, India. I was contacted by one of the founders of the company back in 2010. They needed a freelance storyboard artist that could help them with their film project which was a film by SS Rajamouli. Rajamouli turns out that he’s the top Director in Hyderabad and I managed to go over there for a month and help him out with his vision for the “Eega” film. It was truly the best gig I had up to this day. The folks at Makuta were exceptionally welcoming and I made a bunch of friends when I was in charge of the Previz developpement.

How did you become interested in animation?
I’ve always been a cartoon fan since the day I discovered the

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Shaun Bryant

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Shaun Bryant and I am a character designer currently doing freelance work in Austin TX.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I had a gig as a sign holding Santa for a florist in upstate NY. Thankfully they had a warm greenhouse I could thaw out in.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
There have been a lot of fun projects, but the one that I think I am most proud of so far is creating a cast of fun characters for the Texas Dept. of Agriculture. They were used in television and print ads promoting healthy eating among school children.
How did you become interested in animation?
Comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, and Disney movies fueled my creativity as a kid and made me Continue reading

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Paul Griffin

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Hi, I’m Paul Griffin and I’m currently an animation director. When I was seven, I was planning on being a firefighting astronaut who flew jets on the weekends, but animation director is pretty close. There is an element of firefighting some days, I get to fly spaceships and puppeteer aliens to pilot them, but weekends I mostly just kick back around the house.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to work for this couple, one summer in Toronto, who ran a ceramics business out of their basement. They had a tortoise who would eat the leaves of the large marijuana plant growing in the back yard, then he would crash into the fence over and over as he stumbled around. That was entertaining. I guess the turtle was happy for the most part.  I also painted structural I-beams for a summer and had one job where we were working next to the Welland Canal and could look down the smoke stacks of ships as they were passing several hundred feet below us on the water. That’s how I developed my Kung Fu Grip©. Man, the crazy, dangerous stuff you’ll do for $9/hour…
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
That’s a tough one. My favorite project is usually the one I’m currently working on, but have to say some of the memorable ones have been, The Fly, Magnolia, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, King Kong, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, four Superbowl commercials and the cinematics for Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (VG). Working with the gang at Dr D Studios in Sydney on Happy Feet Two last year was really a lot of fun.

How did you become interested in animation?
Growing up in Ontario Canada, before the advent of cable TV, the town we lived in had one single broadcast TV channel from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Every Saturday at 5 p.m. my family would gather around the TV and we’d watch the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour and it was Continue reading

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Gary Blatchford

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What is your name and your current occupation?

Gary Blatchford. Owner and director of “illusion Animated  Productions”. I have lots of hats, I direct, draw storyboards, animate, create layouts, I used to slug and write x-sheets in the good old 2-D TV animation days. Increasingly I have been putting together teams of freelance artists to provide pre-production services to other animation companies.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I never really worked before getting into animation, I worked for Richard Taylor Cartoons after leavingSt. Martin’s School of Art in London. Dick was one of my tutors and became a major influence and mentor to me. While I was a student I used to draw portraits in my local pub to earn beer money. The craziest thing I did was, I was the singer in the worse pub band in the world. We were quite capable of emptying a busy bar in 10 minutes.  I taught animation at Dun Laoghaire college of art and design (now called IADT) in the mid 1990’s, but that is not really crazy is it?

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud to have been associated with just about all the projects I have been part of. Even the less successful were learning curves. I have also met some really talented people along the way. In 2004 I directed a seven minute short 2D animated film called “The Pope’s Visit”, with funding from the Irish Film Board, RTE and the Arts Council. The great Aidan Hickey wrote a terrific script and acted as producer for me. It is being shown at the Annecy Festival this June as part of the Irish Animation show. In recent years, I have been providing storyboards for the TV series made by Brown Bag Films, including: “Olivia”, “Noddy”, “Octonauts”, “Doc Mc Stuffins” etc. They have lovely projects and a fantastically talented team of creative people. For most of the 1990’s I was studio director at Murakami Wolf Dublin, which became Fred Wolf Films Dublin. Starting with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. We also worked on “Speed Racer”, “Sinbad”, “Zorro”, “Dino Babies” and I directed all three seasons of “Budgie the Little Helicopter”. In  2005/ 2006 I directed the “Slim Pig” series for Cheeky Animation. I have animated on a lot of commercial spots and music videos, for which you seldom receive a credit, but they are often the projects where you get to stretch yourself creatively.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
As a child I loved cartoons on the TV, particularly Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry shorts. I loved the Jerry Anderson “Telemarionation” puppet series, like “Thunderbirds” and “Captain Scarlett”. They were not animation but they showed that you could make a film without a cast of actors in front of the camera. The idea that Continue reading
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Mike Nguyen

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What is your name and your current occupation?

My name is Mike Nguyen. My main focus (have been for quite some time now) is directing an indie hand-drawn feature entitle- ‘My Little WORLD’. I also recently became a faculty member at Kaywon School of Art and Design in Korea, sharing thoughts in animated filmmaking for 1 year.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Tough one… the crazier jobs had been dishwashing, restaurant part time jobs during high school days…, (not too exciting here).

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’ve been through many films including Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’… but the only one I’m truly proud to be part of is- Brad Bird’s ‘The Iron Giant’ (where I was supervising animator).

How did you become interested in animation?
I’ve always been fascinated with the cinema and have desires to make things move ever since I was little. In 8th grade I was first introduced to Continue reading

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Mark Simon

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Mark Simon, Producer, director, story artist. I currently own 3 businesses: Animatics & Storyboards, Inc. (www.Storyboards-East.com) A&S Animation, Inc (www.FunnyToons.tv) Sell Your TV Concept Now, Inc (www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com) Currently boarding commercials, directing animated pilots and working on WB’s Hong Kong Phooey feature. Produced the animation on Fox’s Tooth Fairy 2 with Larry the Cable Guy which was just released on DVD.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve worked in Hollywood since I graduated college. I started off in live-action and still work a lot in live action.
Before that I designed and built my own line of skateboards for Schwinn when I was 12. I published a magazine in college called The Belligerent Beacon. I had a syndicated comic strip called Hollyweird, a parody of Hollywood with animals as the characters which is currently on www.sunnyfundays.com.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
seaQuest DSV with Spielberg was awesome. Biggest show on TV. Spielberg. Awesome food all day. Spielberg. Sci-fi. Spielberg. Did I mention Spielberg?  My series Timmy’s Lessons In Nature is always one of my favorites. That’s the one we won the first Grand Prize in the Nicktoons Film Festival and it also appeared in Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted and with Happy Tree Friends & Friends. I love that Timmy is too stupid to talk or to understand pain. Now that’s dumb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN3hp9QthQI
I’m also partial to anything I’m currently working on. I get totally stoked working out story elements and creating new projects.

How did you become interested in animation?
Loved it since I was a kid, like most of us. I was doing little animations at home. My dad found a studio in Houston and set up for them to show me around their studio. We took measurements from their discs and built our own Continue reading