Tag Archives: Chuck Jones

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James McDermott

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What is your name and your current occupation?
James McDermott, currently I’m the Character Design Lead on a newPrimetime FOX series being produced at Bento Box called “AllenGregory”.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting intoanimation?
My first job, I worked as a kids counselor at a summer camp when I was 14. I was incharge of twenty 6 year old kids every week. Looking back on it I’mnot quite sure how I did that but I did it with joy. I once was asked to dress up as a feltfilm strip character in front of a boardroom full of people, selling itas a brand hallmark for a movie theater chain, I forget which one, for$100 while in art school. Needless to say it was very embarrassing atthe time as a teenager.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been apart of?
Well even though it was cancelled, my time on “Neighbors from Hell” was probably one of the better experiences I’ve  had in production. I loved the style of the show, so much fun to draw. I had the opportunity to work with Continue reading

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David Boudreau

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What is your name and your current occupation?
David Boudreau, Animator/designer for Other Ocean.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I scooped ice cream and did peoples laundry at a ice cream shop/Laundromat called the “Dairy Clean”… I’m not lying … it was actually called that. Needless to say I did not last at that job for very long.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, first off, I would have to say Kroyer films, “Ferngully, the Last Rainforest” in Toronto back in 1991. It was my first job and introduction to the business where I met and worked with some of the best animators, such as Darlie Brewster, Charlie Bonifacio and Chuck Gammage to name a few, as well as working for Bill and Sue Kroyer, who I eventually worked for in California, two years later. Years later, in 1998, I animated for Dreamworks on such films as “Prince of Egypt”, “Eldorado”, “Spirit” and finally “Sinbad”. I cherish my experience on all of these films and worked along side of some of the most talented artists. I’m very proud and humbled to have worked among them.

How did you become interested in animation?
To be quite honest, I was never really interested in animation as a career. It wasn’t until a family friend suggested I consider it because of my love for drawing (plus I had very little options that I was interested in).  As a kid, I dreamed of Continue reading

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Timothy Bjorklund

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Timothy Bjorklund – writing/designing some series/feature premises that will never see the light of day.

 

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

My crazier jobs were in animation. But outside of animation, I had one job when I was 15 stapling fiberglass sheets to a warehouse ceiling and I fell about 20 feet off of a scaffold to a concrete floor and lived. My back still hates me for that though.

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

Roger Rabbit, They Might Be Giants “Istanbul” music video, Teacher’s Pet feature and Brandy & Mr. Whiskers was a lot of fun.

How did you become interested in animation?
My High School Art teacher brought in a 16mm Betty Boop cartoon one day and that was it – I thought, “Why the hell aren’t they making cartoons like this anymore?” So I set out to do some Fleischer-esque animation whenever I could. I eventually became a fan of Clampett and Jones and all the Disney guys. But Betty is what got me into animation.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from San Francisco and there are a hell of a lot of good animators around the Bay Area. After I left CalArts, I got my first job as an assistant animator at Colossal Pictures (where I learned how to flip five drawings, a skill I somehow never learned at CalArts). I worked my way up to Continue reading

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Johan Anton Klingler

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Johan (Jonathan) Anton Klingler and I am presently a FullTime Faculty Instructor with the Art Institute of Dallas. I also am a writer/illustrator in partnership with my wife, Norma Rivera-Klingler, for a series of 15 children’s books. We run our own very small freelance production business, Double Exposure Productions, from our home.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a factory worker working for a company that built vender machines and in that job I saw some things one would think are only seen in war times. We used machines called break press machines which are simply machines that bend very large sheets of metal or punch holes in them. You would know them if you saw the movie “Terminator”. The machine that crushes the Terminator is a machine like the ones I’m describing. When you stand in front of it, it is massive. When you walk by others using one, the first thing that strikes you is the “tethering” lines from the machine to the wrists of the workers. It looks like some futuristic and yet dark ages contraption for torture. The purpose of the tethers is to keep people from getting their arms crushed under a ton of metal as the machine lowers its die-cut block and hydraulics press even further to cut through the plate of metal placed under the press by human hands. No hand or arm stands a change if your to slow so these lines are attached to a pulley system so that when the block comes down, your arms and hands are pulled out. To Forman this means the job can only be done at one speed, the speed of the machine. Often Forman will tell workers to not use the tethers so as to work faster that way as the press starts to come down a worker can already be getting the next sheet of metal ready for loading. If a worker is too slow pulling his or her arm out or is distracted then they lose a limb as it will be crushed or severed depending on the type of die-cut. I saw this happen a few times. I even had to pack a couple of some individuals fingers in an ice chest for reattachment so that when the paramedics came we could give them the parts to the individual. That wasn’t the craziest area there though. There was a room called the stripping room were metal sheets were lowered into a solution of cyanide based liquid formula of some kind. I was told that if a single drop of water got into it then it would produce enough gas to kill a quarter of the building’s occupants. I was a janitor on the night shift and it was my job to clean that room with water based cleanser. Now that job was crazy.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
All the productions I was given the privilege of working on at Disney were incredible but I think working on Continue reading

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Ed Anderson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Ed Anderson, CEO Mongadillo Studios

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a Caricature artist at a Six Flags amusement park, did that for five Summers in a row.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m personally really proud of our original cartoons “Shawks” (The Web Series) and “Holiday Force”, they still make me laugh.

How did you become interested in animation?
I did my Junior year in college as an exchange student at Sheffield Hallam University in England, where I was studying painting. A friend of mine told me that there was a 16mm Bolex camera and Rostrum set up in the Photography building that no one was using. I immediately set out to Continue reading

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Mucci Fassett

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Mucci Fassett, that is to say, I am Mucci Fassett, and I’m currently Directing ZHU ZHU PETS, a low-budgeCGI ANIMATED dvd movie for Moonscoop Productions.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Well, when i was 16 years old, I was a busboy at The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Diego. I had a secret-affair with the head waitress. The boss found out, he had the hots for her too, so he fired me.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
As far as the one thing that I’mproud of?  I suppose I am proud of a little DVD movie I made for MGA calledDesert Jewel. It was a ”Bratz” movie, and yes everyone vomits when they hear the word Bratz! that’s because they immediately think of those bawdy little dolls in their hoochie-coochie hot-pink skirts, and I really can’t blame them, I feel the same way too, but the films I did for the Bratz Brand aren’t of that content at all, and this little ”Bratz Desert Jewel” film is mighty for what it is: we had 9 months to make it (and that’s from script-premise all the way to the final Mix) so we really had to haul ass, as that’s a tight little hustle for a 3-act 72 minute film. But we did, we pulled it off, me and my superb crew of Joe Scott, Vill Cruz, Javier Secaduras, Clay Christman and my editor at the time Michael Bradley who made some real great contributions. The design-look of the characters was not my thing at all, I couldn’t do anything about elevating that, (as that is the brand of the dolls, etc.) but the Storytelling is very cinematic, the editing, the mood, the score, even the Continue reading