Tag Archives: Warner Bros.

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Ron Yavnieli

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Ron Yavnieli – Creator of “Gorillaville” currently airing on DreamworksTV.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a professional Horse’s Ass – Once as teenagers, my brother and I were hired to be part of a 2 man “Horse” costume at a birthday party. Y’know, where one guy is the front legs and head, and the other guy is the hind legs and back. Since I’m the younger brother, I had to be the ass.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well I’m most proud of my current project – Gorillaville.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in Miami Fl. My first real job in animation was in 1997 at a Miami studio called Continue reading

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Pat Giles

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Pat Giles, and I am a Creative Director and co-founder (with Manny Galan) of Pat-Man Studios in New York City. We have several big Agency/Advertising clients. We currently run the creative assignments for several General Mills kids brands like Lucky Charms, TRIX, GoGurt and Honey Nut Cheerios for Saatchi & Saatchi. We partner with animation houses like Calabash and Laika, and cartoon gods like Sergio Aragones and others to make commercials, video games, short films, etc. We are also working on several series projects with Classic Media that aren’t announced yet, and we are in production on a project called “Captain Cornelius Cartoon’s Cartoon Lagoon” that will be out by the end of the year, whether it kills us or not.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I worked in children’s clothing for many years (not wearing it to work, but designing it). I designed tons (literally) of licensed products for Disney, Lucasfilm, Marvel, DC and Warner Bros., among others. The oddest was the line of “Hunchback of Notre Dame” pajamas I designed. While I am not knocking the artistry behind that film, Quasimodo made for some very odd pajamas.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to work on a lot of awesome projects. Back in the day, I started out as a designer on “Disney’s Doug,” art directed the Disney Channel series “Stanley,” was the Design Supervisor on MTV’s “Daria,” and worked on several other series in various capacities. I started a comic book company called “Monkeysuit Press” with Chris McCulloch (aka Jackson Publick), Mike Foran, Miguel Martinez-Joffre and Prentis Rollins. That was really fun and liberating. Several years ago everyone thought I left “animation,” but taking an ad agency assignment only got me deeper into it, since all of my assignments were for these beloved American brands with animated characters like Lucky, the Trix Rabbit, Buzz, and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird. The craft applied to these commercials is magnificent. I get to work with animators, directors, CG artists, painters, composers, orchestras, engineers, voice actors, and a lot of live action/animation combos with great directors, actors and cinematographers. It’s been a blast.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
“At Conception,” hahaha…I was just hard wired for animation and Continue reading

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Luis Gadea

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Luis Gadea. I’m currently a freelance animator/concept artist and I’m gonna start working as a Flash animator for TV series.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I only had one real job before starting in animation. I was a salesman in a call center for a telephone company from Argentina, then thankfully I was hired really young in an animation studio for commercials.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I really don’t have one specific favorite. I think I have learned from every project and each one has given me new skills for the next one. I do have to say that working on commercials was a great experience because each one was very different from the other.

How did you become interested in animation?
At first I didn’t quite know about animation. Since I remember I’ve liked drawing. I remember as a kid I loved Disney, Warner, Hanna-Barbera, UPA and all the classics. I have a good friend older than me who started in Continue reading

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Kevin O’Neil

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Kevin O’Neil and currently a freelance special effects animator.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Being a bank courier, picking up bank checks from all the big banks in downtown Chicago, for Jet Courier services in Chicago, back in the 80’s. I worked at Midway and O’Hare airports in the middle of the night, 1 am to 5 am. Also before that, I taught guitar for 6 years, and played in a few bands in Chicago. I was a full time musician before going back to art school at age 28. So I don’t know if they were exactly crazy, just jobs.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
One of my favs was Iron Giant at Warner Feature, and Hercules and Mulan at Disney Feature. Working at Disney TV on The Tigger Movie was also a lot of fun, and working with Jun Falkenstein was a great experience. I was glad I got to work at Disney if even for a short time. Brad Bird at WB, John Musker and Ron Clements at Disney. Great people if you ask me. Proud to be a part of those films. The caliber of artists at these places is just great. Actually the caliber of artists at most of the studios is great, it’s just too bad a lot of the stuff we saw in the studios is art that never makes it to the screen.  I also worked at Warner’s Classics back in the 90’s as a character animator. We did a lot of commercials. I worked with Keith Baxter, Jeff Siergey, Spike Brandt & Tony Cervone. The place was fun and I got to draw Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. How could that not be great?  More recently I had a lot of fun on the Priest animated prologue for Genndy Tartakovsy. I did most of the effects on that except a couple of shots. It was fun because it wasn’t your normal efx, there was a lot of blood and guts and I got to blow things up. I finally saw an unedited clip of the whole thing online. I guess for the movie, it was tamed down.

How did you become interested in animation?
I guess just watching and growing up with the usual cartoons like everyone else. I leaned towards Warners. But I got into rather late, in my late 20’s. I was undecided in art school whether to pursue Continue reading

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Jennifer Harlow

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Jennifer Harlow and I’m an animator at DreamWorks Animation SKG, where I’m currently working on “The Croods” which is due out March 2013.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Prior jobs have included working at Subway with the job title of “Sandwich Artist”—a fancy name for the not-so fancy job of making the customer’s order. I was also an assistant manager on Sundays, so I kept the business running from 6 a.m. until almost 9 at night when the other manager would take over. I also worked for 2 years at Target as a cashier, but I also spent time in the photo lab and behind the customer service desk. I have a lot of wild stories from my time there, ranging from encountering a homeless woman who was convinced Target employees like myself were stealing her freshly purchased toilet paper, the chaos that is Black Friday, to random strangers pulling my curly ringlet-like hair because they thought I was wearing a wig. A slightly crazier job was during the summer after my second year at CalArts, while staying at my home in Oregon I worked as a freelance caricature artist and this led to one memorable event where I was hired for a wedding. Nothing stranger than drawing tons of already self-conscious strangers for about 4 hours. Everything went very well though, the crowd was extremely nice, and I had a fun time—though I made it a point to make the caricatures a little more flattering than my usual style.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
It’s still pretty early on in my career to be able to state a specific project. I’m really enjoying working on my first feature project, “The Croods.” It’s been a really wonderful experience, and the crew is very supportive and awesome. But I’m proud of everything I accomplished during my time at CalArts and while my students films are less than perfect, I’m glad I have them. They were each a huge learning experience.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
I always drew as a kid, even before I can really remember, my Mom likes to tell this story about how she found me in the living room drawing with a big red crayon on Continue reading

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Chris Deboda

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Chris Deboda. I’m currently a freelance concept artist/illustrator for the film and gaming industry.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
None really. I’ve been a sales associate at a department store where the only crazy things there were a few of the customers on occasion. The real craziness didn’t begin until once I got into the industry.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m proud of almost all the projects I’ve been a part of in some form or another as long as I was able to learn and grow from each one. The most notable project I’ve been a part of to date would probably have to be the video game called “Red Dead Redemption” which has won an award or two.

How did you become interested in animation?
Growing up on 80’s cartoons, I’ve always been interested in animation ever since I could remember. I was also a huge fan of the old Warner Bros. Chuck Jones and Tex Avery shorts. And of course classic Disney Animation as well. It wasn’t until the 1990’s era of Disney Animation when Continue reading