Tag Archives: Cal Arts

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Jeff Liu

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What is your name and your current occupation? 

My name’s Jeff Liu and I’m an animator at JibJab Media Inc.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I actually started pursuing animation in high school so I haven’t had many jobs before I got into it. I used to teach private Karate lessons for younger kids at the dojo I went to haha.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I really enjoyed working on the opening for the 2011 CalArts Producers’ Show. I came up with the idea to have everyone (who was interested) animate something coming out of a box. We then put everyone’s animation together and it turned out to be really cool! It was also a cool representation of the wide range of styles among the students.

How did you become interested in animation? 
I remember seeing Flash at my friend’s house one time when I was in middle school. I thought Continue reading

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“Dogtor” by Rhea Dadoo

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A cute and realistically acted piece from second year film student Rhea Dadoo at CalArts.

It’s about friendship and reflecting on personal journeys–also dogs! Making this film definitely got me out of my comfort zone and proved to be a great learning experience! Thank you to faculty and classmates for all your guidance and support–couldn’t have done it without you!

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Mark O’Hare

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Mark O’Hare, story artist, Illumination Entertainment.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Served coffee, cleaned dorms rooms, bused tables, stocked shoes. No crazy here. All average.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Citizen Dog comic strip, Rocko’s Modern Life, Spongebob, Dexter, Powerpuff Girls, Despicable Me, Lorax – I’ve enjoyed all of these.

How did you become interested in animation?
A classmate of mine at Purdue University gave me a Continue reading

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Kevin O’Neil

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Kevin O’Neil and currently a freelance special effects animator.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Being a bank courier, picking up bank checks from all the big banks in downtown Chicago, for Jet Courier services in Chicago, back in the 80’s. I worked at Midway and O’Hare airports in the middle of the night, 1 am to 5 am. Also before that, I taught guitar for 6 years, and played in a few bands in Chicago. I was a full time musician before going back to art school at age 28. So I don’t know if they were exactly crazy, just jobs.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
One of my favs was Iron Giant at Warner Feature, and Hercules and Mulan at Disney Feature. Working at Disney TV on The Tigger Movie was also a lot of fun, and working with Jun Falkenstein was a great experience. I was glad I got to work at Disney if even for a short time. Brad Bird at WB, John Musker and Ron Clements at Disney. Great people if you ask me. Proud to be a part of those films. The caliber of artists at these places is just great. Actually the caliber of artists at most of the studios is great, it’s just too bad a lot of the stuff we saw in the studios is art that never makes it to the screen.  I also worked at Warner’s Classics back in the 90’s as a character animator. We did a lot of commercials. I worked with Keith Baxter, Jeff Siergey, Spike Brandt & Tony Cervone. The place was fun and I got to draw Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. How could that not be great?  More recently I had a lot of fun on the Priest animated prologue for Genndy Tartakovsy. I did most of the effects on that except a couple of shots. It was fun because it wasn’t your normal efx, there was a lot of blood and guts and I got to blow things up. I finally saw an unedited clip of the whole thing online. I guess for the movie, it was tamed down.

How did you become interested in animation?
I guess just watching and growing up with the usual cartoons like everyone else. I leaned towards Warners. But I got into rather late, in my late 20’s. I was undecided in art school whether to pursue Continue reading

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Jennifer Harlow

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Jennifer Harlow and I’m an animator at DreamWorks Animation SKG, where I’m currently working on “The Croods” which is due out March 2013.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Prior jobs have included working at Subway with the job title of “Sandwich Artist”—a fancy name for the not-so fancy job of making the customer’s order. I was also an assistant manager on Sundays, so I kept the business running from 6 a.m. until almost 9 at night when the other manager would take over. I also worked for 2 years at Target as a cashier, but I also spent time in the photo lab and behind the customer service desk. I have a lot of wild stories from my time there, ranging from encountering a homeless woman who was convinced Target employees like myself were stealing her freshly purchased toilet paper, the chaos that is Black Friday, to random strangers pulling my curly ringlet-like hair because they thought I was wearing a wig. A slightly crazier job was during the summer after my second year at CalArts, while staying at my home in Oregon I worked as a freelance caricature artist and this led to one memorable event where I was hired for a wedding. Nothing stranger than drawing tons of already self-conscious strangers for about 4 hours. Everything went very well though, the crowd was extremely nice, and I had a fun time—though I made it a point to make the caricatures a little more flattering than my usual style.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
It’s still pretty early on in my career to be able to state a specific project. I’m really enjoying working on my first feature project, “The Croods.” It’s been a really wonderful experience, and the crew is very supportive and awesome. But I’m proud of everything I accomplished during my time at CalArts and while my students films are less than perfect, I’m glad I have them. They were each a huge learning experience.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
I always drew as a kid, even before I can really remember, my Mom likes to tell this story about how she found me in the living room drawing with a big red crayon on Continue reading

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“Nightmare in the Morning” by Yonatan Tal

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Yonatan Tal’s  3rd year film at CalArts, “Nightmare in the Morning” is a music video about the way he feels in the morning.
It was an honor to work with the amazing talents who created the original song for it:
Song writer: Abby Lyons
Singer: Natalie Perez
Music production: Daniel Markovich (danielmarkovichmusic.com)
Sound design: Ron Cohen