Tag Archives: Sheet Timer

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Eddy Houchins

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What is your name?
Eddy Houchins

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
My favorite project of all was the 2nd season CBS “Timon and Pumbaa” series that I directed for Disney Television Animation back in the mid-90’s.  At that time Judy Price still helmed CBS’s children’s programming division, and she called me in at the start of the season to “meet the new director.”
I got the word straight from her mouth tho take that show to the absolute limit, to the line of cartoon violence, innuendo, bad taste, potty humor, and sarcasm.
She said if I stepped over that line, however, she’d come down on me like a ton of bricks, but I’d better lean as far as I could over it because she was competing with a lot of
pretty “out there” stuff in those days from the competition.  Well, I knew what she wanted, I knew what Disney would accept, and I set about making those cartoons with an
energy and relish I had never felt before.  I remember calling a meeting of the entire crew after that meeting and telling them what she had ordered.  As far as we were concerned,
we now had carte-blanche from our client to make the absolute funniest, whacked-out cartoons we  could make.  I remember telling everyone, “Enjoy this, we will most likely never pass this way again.”  Prophetic words, because never again did I have the control or “hands-off” attitude from the Disney (or any other) execs and the network when creating or working on a show.
The closest thing was at Continue reading

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Phil Cummings

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What is your name?
Phil Cummings

What would you say has been your primary job in animation?
I was an assistant for a long time. Then I was an FX animator. The last twenty years I have been a slugger / sheet timer but at first went back and forth between FX and timing jobs.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Taking tests and ghost-writing papers for fellow students in college, doing deliveries for a wholesale coke dealer, panhandler, selling underground newspapers, harvesting pinion nuts.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Sometimes doing the job can transcend the project. I’ve been proud of work that I’ve done on projects that were awful. I slugged and timed whole episodes of shows like ‘GI Joe Extreme’ and ‘Samantha The Teenaged Witch’ that were not great series but I got to make the decisions and felt really good at the outcome of how I did my job. I did a lot in Michael Jackson’s ‘Moonwalker’ that were all Continue reading
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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.

 

 

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Juli Murphy

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Juli Murphy*, and I am a timer for “American Dad”, for Fox TV.*(For 14 years I also went by my married name, Juli Hashiguchi, or Juli Murphy Hashiguchi)

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was an assistant to the oldest practicing Magician in the Magician’s guild. I think he was in his upper 70’s, and he had been on the Johnny Carson show previously. I answered an ad when I was in college, and I fit the red sequined assistant’s leotard he had. It was a sad, depressing show. He couldn’t remember how to do all his tricks, and he caught the dove’s wings in the disappearing cage. I only lasted one show with him, because he was a really bad driver (going the wrong way down a freeway on-ramp) and he wouldn’t let me drive the Magic Van.
I also worked for Federal Express for 6 years. Besides loading boxes onto planes and trucks I also de-iced aircraft from a bucket extension on a gigantic truck, gave tours through the sorting facility, and radioed pilots in the aircraft. That was a great job, because one of the side benefits was free flights on cargo planes, exactly like Tom Hanks in the movie “Castaway”, luckily without the crashing part. I have ridden in the cockpit of 727’s and DC-10’s enough times to be sick of it.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I would have to say the best job I have had to date was at Cartoon Network on “The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy”. I was the Supervising Director for 5 years, and it was a really wonderful experience. I had the most challenging and Continue reading
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Kirk Tingblad

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What is your name?
Kirk Tingblad

What would you say has been your primary job in animation?
Directing/ Timing Direction/Storyboard Artist for Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Disney, and many others.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I ran the shipping department for my father’s publishing company.  I cleaned up the Dunkin Donuts.  I checked in medical periodicals in the University health/science library.  I was a courtroom artist.  I was a radio dj.  I was an editorial cartoonist. 
 
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I won an EMMY for directing on “Pinky and the Brain”,  I was nominated for an EMMY for directing on “Animaniacs”.  I wrote and boarded about a dozen gags that made it into “Space Jam”.  I probably had the most fun directing “Johnny Bravo”.
 
How did you become interested in animation?
When i was ten, I saw “Porky in Wackyland”.  That gave me the animation bug.

 Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in Sheboygan WI, and grew up through high school in New Richmond WI.  After high school I went to The Kubert School in New Jersey for a year and I studied under former Disney animator Milt Neil.  After that I went to the University of Minnesota in Duluth were as a senior in the graphic design major you had to do an internship at an ad agency.  One day a sales rep for Bajus-Jones Film Corp. came by and dropped off their demo reel.  I cold-called them an talked my way into an interview.  Owner Mike Jones liked by portfolio and had me do an inbetweening test, while he watched over my shoulder!  He liked that I could inbetween on paper with a fountain pen without doing pencil roughs and he hired me to be former Terrytoons animator Al Chiarito ‘s assitant.  Al was a great teacher.

 What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
Right now I am the Supervising Timing Director for “The Looney Tunes Show”  and “Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated”.   My work is divided between doing timing at home on a table made from an Indian palace door (kinda cool)  and working at Warner Bros. at the Burbank ranch going over the other timers’ work and  taking care of retakes.  The thrill is always when the show is done and on the air and it doesn’t suck too much.
 
What part of your job do you like best? Why?
Working on funny stuff.  As a teenager in Wisconsin my best friend and I would talk endlessly about getting the chance to work on movies and tv, all the while in the back of my head I never thought it would ever actually happen.  Whenever i get frustrated I try to remind myself that a lot of people would love to be doing what I do, so just get back to it.  I have also been lucky enough to work with a lot of really talented people

 
What part of your job do you like least? Why?
The hours can get kinda gruesome.  While its not “the Deadliest Catch”, you can get some painful papercuts.  Show business is not a stable business, just realize that when you sign up for this trip and the times you get fired or laid off  without any notice or good reason will suck just as much as it would in any other job.
 
What is the most difficult part for you about being in the business?
Gettin’ woken up by phone calls at 3am to rush into the hospital to do emergency arterial bipass surgery.  Oh, wait that’s not it.  I once told producer Jed Spingarn that there were thousands of tiny animals constantly cleaning his eyeballs, that was hard to watch.  My hand tends to get sore after 16 hours of work.  Insert your own double on entendre here.  Firing people and getting fired or laid off is never fun.

 
What kind of technology do you work with on a daily basis?
Cintiq  and laptop.  I have a very powerful pencil sharpener.  Don’t mess with the sharpener, okay.  I use a manual can opener to gain access to food.

 
In your travels, have you had any brushes with animation greatness?
I’ve met Bob Clampet and his amazing hair at the Minneapolis Comic-con in the late 70’s.  I’ve met Virgil Ross, Chuck Jones,
Ollie Johnson, Frank Thomas, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbara, and several other greats of animation.  John K once asked me why i would work for the big studios?  “Mostly for the money, mostly”, was all I could come up with.

 
Describe a tough situation you had in life.
I had to sue my kid’s school district a couple of times.  That was annoying.  Someone slashed the tire of my Jeep Wrangler in the Galleria Parking garage when I was directing “Pinky and the Brain”.  It took an hour and fifteen minutes for AAA to show up.  Oh yeah, I got shot at outside of Film Roman in 1994.  They missed, but left a hole in the window behind me.  I was told the woman who worked in that office refused to enter it again.

 
Any side projects you’re working on you’d like to share details of?
I’ve written a screenplay which every producer who reads it says it makes them laugh out loud  followed by a list of reasons why they aren’t going to buy it.

 
Is there any advice you can give for an aspiring animation student or artist trying to break into the business?
Work hard.  Learn why things are funny, and i don’t mean funny just to you, but funny to everybody.  Don’t just study animation, study as many things as you can.  A good understanding of music can go a long way.  Make your own animation, its fairly easy to do on your own now.  You learn more my doing than anything else.

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Majella Milne

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What is your name?
Majella Milne

What would you say has been your primary job in animation?
Animation Direction

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Back home in Ireland I worked in a factory doing injection molding for cell phones with some of the funniest and loveliest women I have ever known. Those were great days. A daughter of a publican in Ireland, naturally I have many bar stories to tell but the most enlightening days were as barmaid in Hayden’s Hotel during the Ballinasloe Horse Fair , the oldest fair in Ireland, where people come to trade horses from all over the world and from every nook and cranny of Ireland. This was my first glimpse  of how complex and varied us folk are, and how feckin’ strange you all are.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Chowder”,  Cartoon Network is one of the best studios to work for here in LA, plus, the crew were funny, friendly and good looking, ha ha!

How did you become interested in animation?
Disney’s  “Cinderella”… I think was the first movie that I went to, and was hooked on animation from there on.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from the village of Crinkle, outside the town of Birr, in County Offaly, dead center of Ireland.  I applied for an administration job in Continue reading