What is your name and your current occupation? Spartaco Margioni- freelance artist/animator.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? sold water purifiers door to door.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? Well, many, but working on SpongeBob Squarepants was extremely fun. I was primarily responsible for main characters and some of those sound files, would really make you laugh. Also, working on Dr.Seuss books and making old classics into multimedia projects was very eventful and fun.
How did you become interested in animation? I have always been able to draw since I was small and just truly enjoyed the old animated classics growing up. Once in school, I started to gravitate towards animation after trying Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation? My name is Danielle Powers and most recently I’ve worked on a freelance project doing visual development and before that I worked at Nickelodeon as a texture artist apprentice.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? Nothing too crazy. I’ve worked at Taco Bell, Albertson’s, and my college library to name a few.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? The Penguins of Madagascar was my favorite project to work on. I was on the show for nearly a year and I’m proud to say I was a part of it and I worked on it from the very beginning, before there was even an art director. I painted A LOT of textures for the character’s habitats which were used in the pilot episode and I see them show up in many current episodes and even Penguins toys at Toys R Us.
How did you become interested in animation? When I was five, the Little Mermaid had just been released and I was obsessed with it. I remember bringing the video tape to kindergarten to watch in class and feeling very proud that I was the first kid to own the video. As a kid I was always drawing characters from animated movies and shows and making up my own stories and characters. In junior high I had the opportunity to Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
David Concepcion. I work as a Flash Animator and Graphic Designer for a Web Company in White Plains, NY
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? I was a flower delivery boy at one time. I also worked in a steel mill on a lathe turning out nuts and screws.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? I started at Don Bluth as an animator straight out of art school. They were in the middle of “An American Taleâ€.  Since I started late on it I didn’t get full animators credit but I did receive Additional Animation credit.  I also enjoyed working on various TV shows like Mighty Mouse, Doug and Dora the Explorer. You can see more samples of my work at my blog.
How did you become interested in animation? When I was a kid, I saw Jungle Book in the theater for the first time. I was mesmerized by it.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? I’m from Newark, NJ and was told by a friend about a school in Dover, NJ called, The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. After graduation I Continue reading
What is your name?
Starr Allen Shaw What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
“I once made a 3D pre-vis film for Nextel that ending up making a multi million dollar sale. I help design the Nascar Car of Tomorrow inspection platform that is still used in Nascar today. But, by far one of my most favorite… and proud of projects is a game my brother, a friend and I made together in just a little over 2 months for the Apple iPad & iPhone called BattleNoidz (Available on iTunes) LOL. ”
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.
How did you become interested in animation?
“I remember when I was young I was lucky enough to meet Don Bluth at a mall in southern California. I think it was the mall. He was sketching there and I was able to walk away with a signed sketch of Dirk from Dragons Liar. I do not remember where the hell that sketch ran off too… I lost it. But, anyway, I remember going to the art warehouse somewhere in Pasadena, and getting my parents to buy me tons of Cels, Pegboards and Cel paint for my next animated feature film. 🙂
My dad made me a Rotating Light Table for painting cells and I somehow got a 8mm film camera with a stop motion trigger for doing animation. I can not remember if I actually even finished any animation…. but do remember working allot on my own kid version of the next dragons lair. LOL”
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from Southern California. My first CG job was in Hollywood. I started making little animated banners for websites, and Shockwave Director applications. Now I am a bit of a CG nomad and really move to where there is work to be done. I have travel and worked from coast to coast.
What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
These days I work in the game industry. I am a CG generalist, so I will do a lot of Tech Art, Rigging, 3D Modeling and Animation.
What is your name and your current occupation? My name is Elliot Cowan.My main gig for the past year or so has been Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philly and other teaching appointments around Manhattan.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? One summer I worked for an accounting firm moving all their paperwork from one style of manila envelope to another.It was deathly boring.I spent most of my time making barnyard animals out of Acco fasteners and shooting them off the top of the photocopier with rubber bands.This is the only job I’ve ever had outside of media (I directed live action television commercials for about 10 years).
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? Uli Meyer Animation in London were working on an animated feature project called Monstermania! Uli brought me on board initially to design a nightmare sequence but soon I was doing all kinds of great stuff.My proudest moments have been
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
