What is your name and your current occupation?
Freelance Story Artist and Visiting Professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve never had any really crazy jobs because they’ve all been centered around art in one way or another. But I’ve had art jobs that seemed crazy because I was desperate and needed to feed my family. Spending hours on end doing photo retouch for a down and out wedding photographer only to barely make minimum wage comes to mind…
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Every show I get to work on is one I take pride in being part of. Getting paid to draw pictures and tell stories all day while taking care of my family is a privilege and a blessing! But one of the projects that I feel was the most rewarding wasn’t a client job. It was helping to create a multi-media limited animation for my church a few years ago—A stage size picture book where scrims doubled as snow covered rolling hills and movie screens that had the animatic projected onto them. The story process was much like the Pixar process. We had nothing more than a premise that we formed through improv until it rapidly congealed into a script. And when we coupled that with an original score and live music in between each Act it became a very powerful message. We came together as a group with such wide ranging abilities and developed a meaningful original story that spoke to over 5000 people in one weekend. I was very fortunate to be used by God and to blend so quickly with a handful of creatives in such a short time. Humbling, to be honest…
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from the Northeast Ohio area and I spent the first 12 years of my career working as a freelance illustrator for magazines and because that market was so Continue reading
