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Jennifer Ruiz

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
Jennifer Ruiz – Freelance Filmmaker/Photographer/Stop motion Animator.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? After graduating collage I had to work several summer jobs to save up for my move to California.  One job was a Digital Media Summer Camp.  I had to teach kids ages 7-12 how to write, shoot, and edit (on final cut) a movie.  Some children were so young they didn’t even understand what editing was!  Not just imagine explained final cut to a 7 year old.  I get a headache just thinking about it. What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?  I through a fake wedding for Polaroid in a backyard a few years ago.  They never ended up using it, but we spent months setting it up and it was a blast to make.  The day of the “wedding” people who wanted to be in the wedding party all were randomly assigned secret roles that only they knew (groom, father of the bride, drunk ex, bride, etc).   The rest of our friends were wedding guests who sat back and watched as someone was proposed to and “married.”  It was full of improvised speeches, vows, a live band, dancing, a bouncy castle, a photo booth, flame throwing, guitar smashing, you know…the usual.
How did you become interested in animation? 
A friend in high school did a simple stop motion with toys for a class project.  I was so impressed how Continue reading
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David Stephan

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is David Stephan and I am currently a story artist for live action and animation. My real passion is writing and trying to get my own projects made. I started B Positive Fims with another writer/artist (after our blood type) We are working with producer Max Howard on a film project and have interest from the studios on a horror film.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Maybe not crazy but I washed dishes, pumped gas, worked construction just get by through college. Once I got started in the film business I haven’t had to look outside for work but the last couple of years have tempted me to seek other opportunities.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud of my career at Disney. I was lucky enough to be part of Disney Feature Animation and the 14 year arc from Black Cauldron through Lion King.  I also was part of Sam Raimi’s first Spiderman. It was such an unknown. I credit that film’s success with the glut of super hero movies today. But I would have to say story boarding “Simple Plan” is my most rewarding. It was my first live action film and learned so much about film making.
How did you become interested in animation?
I kinda fell into it. I was graduating from highschool and I really wanted to be a painter and go to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. My highschoolart teacher Ms Venebles was very encouraging me to go into art as a career. Coming from a working class family I was going against the grain. My Dad wanted me to get a “trade”.  On my way to OCA I stopped at Sheridan College outside Toronto to interview with the Illustration faculty but they were unavailable but the Animation course director agreed to see me. Knowing nothing about animation, he showed me a clip of student samples. I was blown away by the level of animation. I was hooked. I can make my drawing come alive. I never made it to OCA. I registered that day in the Sheridan College Classical Animation program. At the time it was a little know program, now Sherdian College Animation and its graduates are know all around the world equal to Cal Arts program.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am originally from London Ontario Canada. My goal from the beginning was to go and work at Disney in California. At the time in the early 80’s it was impossible to get a green card and almost impossible to get into Disney Feature. It didn’t stop my determination. My first job was with Steven Lisberger in Boston which was relocating to Venice California. It was a show for NBC called Animal Oymplics. It was my first professional experience as animators Bill Koyers assistant. I was thrilled. After that show ended I Continue reading

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Vannick Douglas

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Vannick Douglas. I’m a Flash and 3D animator, Cartoonist, and Wed Designer

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Marine Corps, lol. From 2000 to 2004, I was enlisted and it was a crazy time as I was still coming of age.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The two I’m currently apart of, Lead animator and creative Director of Little Luis and 3D animation Intern at Prevalent Inc. These two jobs gave me the opportunity to showcase my abilities as an animator from the moment I moved to LA.

How did you become interested in animation?
The movie”Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was my inspiration. I’ve been drawing since the age of seven.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
New Orleans, Louisiana. While being raised in the South, I grew up without guidance. I wanted to explore a career in art since its the only thing I know, but I had no idea how I would get money for school. Joining the

military not only helped pay for my education at the Art Institute of Phoenix, they also gave me the guidance I needed.

What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
Completely wired into my Wacom Cintiq and Macbook Pro, lol.

What part of your job do you like best? Why?
The Completion of a project. To spend hours after hours going frame by frame on a project and to see the end results is truly a milestone. Its like building a rocket ship and watching it soar threw the sky.

What part of your job do you like least? Why?
SInce I work digitally, the worst is when my work gets corrupted. I’m extremely careful to backup everything but they are some occasions when a file you spend all day on gets corrupted and the last backup was hours ago. There’s no empty feeling when animation you’ve crafted beautifully gets lost forever.

What kind of technology do you work with on a daily basis?
The Heardware is Macbook Pro 17″ with a Wacom Cintiq 21UX. I render with a desktop Gateway with Tri Core Processor. My software, in the order I use the most, Adobe Flash, Maya, Photoshop, AFter Effects, and Illustrator.

What is the most difficult part for you about being in the business?
Uncertainty. Animation can either hit or miss. It blows when

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Elliot Blake

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Elliot Blake, and I’m an animation producer and sometimes writer. I just wrapped up a lengthy gig with the fine people at Six Point Harness.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve kind of been lucky in that I haven’t had to do a lot of crazy jobs before getting into the animation business.  Certainly the most unusual job I had was helping to wrangle pigs one day when I was a p.a. on a low budget family feature called “Gordy.” And when I was in high school, I worked at a Cinnabon for two or three weeks. To this day, I can’t eat those things.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, I got to work on the original run of Futurama, all 72 episodes, as the design coordinator; that was fun, and I’m definitely proud to have been a part of it.  Working on that series was really the foundation for my animation production education, and it was great to get to see it all come together, from the initial design phase, all the way through to the final original episode.  I think my favorite projects were two I produced: Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider and Re\Visioned: Activision, both of which were web series
for GameTap, which was originally owned by Turner Broadcasting.  I won an Emmy for the Tomb Raider series back in 2008, which was a thrill, and also got to voice-direct Minnie Driver, who played Lara Croft. For a web series, the Tomb Raider project was obscenely well-funded, but unfortunately, not as widely-seen as we would have liked.  A few episodes are up on my website now , but at the time, the management thought putting the videos on YouTube would mean no one would come to watch them on GameTap.  The videogame company that publishes the Tomb Raider games recently put the episodes on YouTube, so now Continue reading

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Scott Heming

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What is your name?
Scott Heming

What would you say has been your primary job in animation?
For most of my Computer Graphics career (Since the early 90’s) I have been a 3D artist. I have done my share of animation, video, short corporate films,  and web media. The smaller the company I work for, the more animation I seem to do.  I often have to wear an Animators hat when its called for. So, I would say I primarily do 3D Pre-Visaliaztion Animated films, well at lest I did for many years before I started working in the game industry.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (DIC-1999?) – mostly because it was early 2D/3D mixing on a project that was supposed to be another cheap DIC p.o.s. The show was typically short handed but everyone involved really got into it and I think it shows. It was Emmy nominated and still gets airplay 10 years later.

Curious George (TV series Universal 2006-2010) Kids and adults like it despite PBS’s educational mandate. Fun crew to work with. It’s a character I remember fondly from my childhood, so it’s been a privilege to ‘play’ in the world.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Fred Wolf Films – early 90’s) It was my second job in animation. A real trial by fire because of the insane schedule that first year. I had to learn a lot fast to survive, so I guess the pride comes from that…survival. We did something like 95 1/2 hours of animation in one year – Turtles, James Bond Jr., Toxic Crusaders… it wasn’t all pretty – but it got done.
How did you become interested in animation?
I was assisting doing comic books – which meant spotting blacks, doing backgrounds…doing grunt work. It didn’t pay shit but it got me out of the vacuum I’d been drawing in. One of the guys at the little studio we worked at was doing freelance props for DIC. I asked him how well it paid. He drew a quick ellipse  inside of an ellipse and said, ʺ See that? That’s a plate. That’s $35.ʺ Continue reading

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Mark Kennedy

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Mark Kennedy, head of story at Disney Feature Animation

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
An overnight shift putting “The New York Times” into newspaper machines

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Tangled, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast

How did you become interested in animation?
It didn’t hit me until I was in junior high school. It was when I first saw the “Dragon’s Lair” video game. I never thought about animation or drawing until then, so I had to try and catch up fast in order to go to art school by the time I graduated high school.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Cupertino, California USA and I went to The California Institute of the Arts right after high school, then started working at Disney feature animation after 3 years at CalArts.

What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
Every day is different. It depends on where the film is in the production cycle. In the beginning of the cycle, I spend most of my time in the story room with the directors and the other story artists (and writer, if there is one) talking through the story and writing it out on Continue reading