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Andrew Farago

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What is your name and your current occupation?  
Andrew Farago, Cartoon Art Museum Curator, author and cartoonist

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Nothing too far into the “crazy” category.  My father’s a general contractor, and I worked with him every summer growing up.  I’ve probably put in a lot more time roofing than most people in animation.  Other than that, I’ve been a temporary office worker, library assistant, dishwasher…  I wish I’d spent some time as a gravedigger or daredevil stuntman so that I could give a more interesting answer for this one.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
I’ve worked on a lot of great animation exhibitions, including a retrospective of 40 years of Saturday morning cartoons, an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sleeping Beauty, the Totoro Forest Project (works inspired by Hayao Miyazaki) and a show spotlighting the art of Mary Blair.  The Mary Blair exhibition led to a huge retrospective of her work in Tokyo.  Studio Ghibli purchased a large collection of her artwork following that exhibition, and that’s touring Japan right now…and our exhibition in California helped get that all started.  As far as personal projects go Continue reading

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Patrick McHale

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What is your name and your current occupation?
my name is Patrick McHale, and i am currently employed by cartoon network as a freelance writer.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
i haven’t had too many jobs.  i worked as a babysitter at a jewish community center for a whole room full of kids.  we ate a lot of animal crackers.   but they weren’t the normal kind that come from a circus box.  they were crispier and tasted better.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
“the marvelous misadventures of flapjack” and “adventure time” were both amazing shows to work on, especially right out of school.  i’m unbelievably lucky.

How did you become interested in animation?
i watched disney’s robin hood about a million times as a kid.  and…. i watched saturday morning cartoons a lot with my dad.  i liked the ewoks cartoon show a lot.  that was probably my favorite show?  from what i remember it had really Continue reading

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Ken Davis

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Ken Davis, and I’m currently working on storyboards for Transformers: Rescue Bots destined for Hasbro’s Hub network, via Atomic Cartoons.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Way back………waaaaaay back I started in the cartooning biz by answering an ad for “staring artists” to draw on t-shirts in some guy’s basement. Actually drawing in pencil on cotton shirts, where some other young kid would airbrush some colour in. The shirts were then hawked by prostitutes to their john customers. I was 100% naive/oblivious to this sales technique until one day when a young lass came to the door with a handful of money for the “boss”. No, I did not stick around much longer after that.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Been quite a few: assisting Todd McFarlane on some comics stuff, my first solo gig storyboarding on James Bond Jr and having NO CLUE as to what I was doing, working on Ren & Stimpy with Bob Jaques/Kelly Armstrong/John Kriscfalusi . Storyboarding on Continue reading

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Thomas Starnes

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Thomas, and at the moment I am teaching online classes for the Academy of Art University (AAU). I also do freelance illustration and animation (and by animation, I mean 2D animation, as in the old fashioned hand drawn type of animation. I am strictly a novice when it comes to 3D animation).  My specialty is animation layout (basically, I design/draw backgrounds) and most of my screen credits read “Background Layout Artist”.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I can’t really say I had any crazy jobs. I worked in a number of different restaurants. The craziest thing in that regard might have been the prank calls into the pizza restaurant. Typical example: “Hello, Luigi’s Pizza, may I take your order?” “Yes, is your oven running?”“Uhmmm…Yes” “Well, why don’t you go chase it?” (Actually there were far worse prank calls than this, but assume we are trying to maintain a G rating here).

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I never know how to answer this question, because I have thoroughly enjoyed so many of the projects I worked on and the great crews with which I had the honor and opportunity to work. Of all the films I have been involved with, Disney’s Mulan is probably Continue reading

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Bill Perkins

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Bill Perkins, Visual Development, Walt Disney Animation Studio.  I also currently teach Color Theory at LAAFA, and Color and Lighting at CDA. I also host my own painting workshops that I announce through e-mail and facebook.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I wouldn’t say that my jobs were crazy, kinda normal really, Summer camp on Catalina Island (fun escape,) I had a sign business through high school into college (first entrepreneurial experience,) Chart House restaurant (crazy people, great fun!) Fine Artist (sold my artwork through galleries) Art instructor (drawing and painting various disciplines.)

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Pre-animation, having my work accepted into the Springville museum and national watercolor society shows.  Creating a group show at the Monterey Peninsula museum of art featuring mine and three other artist work based on or three month painting  trip through France, Italy, and Spain. As far as animation goes, I will never forget the buzz of energy around the studio during Little Mermaid.  On Rescuers Down Under, Dan Hansen, Razoul Azadani, and I changed the layout process while embracing new technology, and accomplished more with a smaller team.  I am proud of my work as well as the animators and clean-up artists on Aladdin, together we shared the pains that come with growth.  Space jam was another massive accomplishment, driven by a small crew of fearless renegades at Space Jam Animation.  I was fortunate enough to work with Continue reading

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Christian Roman

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Christian Roman, and I’m a story artist at Pixar.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
When I first moved to Los Angeles I did temp work at a medical supply rental company where I was put in charge of filing. Being a compulsive doodler, I couldn’t help but redraw all of their labeling on the file cabinets. One file was for “Dead Files”, clients that were no longer active. The sign I drew for this file cabinet was of tombstones and such, not making the connection that it was a medical supply company and that the files were probably for literally dead clients. I was let go a few days after drawing that.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m probably the most proud of being a part of Toy Story 3, which was the most collaborative and creative project I’ve ever worked on. It was thrilling to be involved in not only drawing the story, but helping to collaboratively craft the story as well. The second would be Disney’s Fillmore!, which was also very collaborative and creative, and probably the most indicative of what I personally can do cinematically and artistically. Third, when I was on the Simpsons I put together a handout called ‘Storyboarding the Simpsons Way’ which has taken on a life of it’s own outside the studio, and I’m pretty proud of that.   In fact, I once went to a lecture on storyboarding and the lecturer gave everyone a copy of it!
How did you become interested in animation?
As a kid, I always loved watching all kinds of animation, but I typically would draw superheroes rather than cartoony characters. It never occurred to me that animation was drawn by anyone, it just existed. Not until Continue reading