Tom Sito

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Tom Sito and I am an animator, storyboard artist and animation historian. My screen credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, and Osmosis Jones. I am the author of four books on animation. Currently I am a Professor of Animation at the cinema school of the University of Southern California.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from Brooklyn New York, the son of a fireman. As a child I always liked to draw cartoons and at first I thought I’d want to make comic strips. Then I attended the High School of Art & Design in Manhattan where I was shown how to make my characters move. I fell in love and Continue reading

Eddie Soriano

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Eddie Soriano Supervising Director at Big Bad Boo Studios in Vancouver, Canada
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Being a Draftsman in an Engineering firm that pays not even $6 bucks a day. Crazy, but this happened not in America, but back in the Philippines where I came from more than 20 years ago.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Projects from Nickelodeon: Angry Beavers and Catdog… I directed a few episodes.  Timing Director for Timon and Pumbaa, the TV series.  Atomic Betty, I directed a few episodes.

How did you become interested in animation?
It just happened by accident. I was working with a group of artists (painters) way back late 80’s. I saw them preparing Continue reading

Caue Zunchini

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Caue Zunchini, I’m a Freelance Animation Artist (Background Design and Painter, Character Design, Storyboard, 2D Digital Animation, Clean Up and Illustrator). And an art collector lover (action figures, books, dvds, posters and etc).

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Just one. When I was young I used to work in a gift company testing pens like an assembling line, checking the ink and testing on a paper. I used to test more than 1000 pens per day, It was really exaustive and boring hahahahah.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
All these shows are from Brazil, so probably many people from other countries don’t know Fudencio e Seus Amigos season 6 – MTV Brazil (2009  Popota – pilot (2010) Gui e Estopa season 3 (2011-2012)

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from São Paulo (Brazil), I always breathed animation since my childhood. I grew up watching cartoons and movies specially Continue reading

Sherm Cohen

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Sherm Cohen and I’m currently the storyboard supervisor for Disney’s Fish Hooks.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had  before getting into animation?
The craziest job I ever had before getting into the animation business was working as a psychiatric aide at a mental hospital. When I first got hired, I thought it picked me because I was a promising student in my psychology classes — but it turns out they hired me because I’m a pretty big dude, and one of the key job responsibilities was being able to tackle and restrain mental patients! I got a really grim view of the inner workings of the mental health insurance schemes, but I didn’t end up quitting that job until after I received a concussion from one of the patients in the isolation tank.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re  proud to have been a part of?
Of all the projects I’ve worked on in my cartooning career, I’m most proud of the work I was able to take part in when I was on SpongeBob SquarePants. It just makes me so happy when I can see that the cartoons that I wrote and drew have become favorites and bright spots in the lives of so many people all over the world. A few years ago, I was standing in line at the DMV when I noticed one of the office workers cubicles in the deep background; it was completely decked out with SpongeBob posters and cards and drawings and toys… and I decide it was really neat that somebody who was working in a dreary government bureaucracy, we have brightened our day by surrounding themselves with a cartoon that I worked on. I’m also enjoying the heck out of my current job on Fish Hooks. The show is pure cartoon fun and the crew is wonderful to work with. And it’s extra-special experience because Continue reading

Nadia Cano

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I´m Nadia Cano. I´m currently working on the Storyboards for an Animation Series on Paka-Paka Channel, a new Argentine animation channel. I´m responsible of creating the complete storyboard for 26 episodes of CUT-OUT animation based on children´s book. This TV show has three seasons and I have been involved in all of them. The first season is called “Taller de Historias”, the second, “De cuento en cuento” and the third one still hasn´t got a name defined.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I had only one job before getting into animation. I was working to embroider blouses for old women with an artistic design. I had a very low salary. I worked 12 hours per day without benefits. In that moment was a hard time to my country, everyone was unemployed. At least I was making art (in some way).

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I think every project leaves me something new. The project that makes me proud is: De cuento en Cuento. I made all of 26 episodes of 20 minutes for Paka-Paka Channel. Without any help and with a very tight schedule, I worked from scratch on the preproduction of the show: character design, layouts and storyboards. Thanks to all my work and effort, the team of production gain prestige and popularity.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I´m from Argentina. I got into animation while I was in third year of my career. All my family was unemployed and I got Continue reading

R.I.P. Gordon Kent

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Yesterday we lost another one of our own in the Animation industry in Gordon Kent who’d been in the business since 1977. I met Gordon many years ago at Warner Bros. on my very first job working as a character layout artist on the series Tazmania where he was the Story editor and have bumped into him off and on at studios and parties throughout the years. He was a kind and thoughtful man who had a dry sense of humor and he had a unique style of drawing which I really liked(and you can see above). Incidentally, we interviewed Gordon last year about how he got into the business.

I’ve been doing this since 1977… I worked on a show called CBS Storybreak for two seasons. I was associate producer – but my job entailed hiring character and background designers, storyboard artists and story editing (and some writing). I also was the voice director for most of them and worked with the composers and sound effects people as well as working with the engineers on the final mix. I got to learn and do a lot. That was for Buzz Potamkin at Southern Star. I also worked for him years later at both Disney TV and Hanna-Barbera. At HB I got to be Supervising Producer on a couple of movies for TV – Titles change in animation all the time – today that would be supervising director. The Flintstones’ Christmas Carol was my favorite project there. I’ve been an animation timing director since then and have been lucky enough to work on Kim Possible, Teamo Supremo, Billy and Mandy and Bob’s Burgers among dozens of other shows.

Rest In Peace Gordon Kent… you will be missed by many.

You can read the full interview here if you like.