#mediaroles

I had the pleasure of talking to Max Alessandrini, creator of Tommy and Oscar, and asking him about his work through an e-mail interview. 

Q: How did you acquire a job in a studio? I was just lucky. Some common friends told me about a new animation studio that was looking for ideas. I got in touch with the CEO through common friends

Q: Did you always work in your respective field or did you previously assume a different role? (i.e.: Character Designer —> Animator) And if yes, then how many roles did you assume? I was doing may things...  Story editor, script editor, scriptwriter, art director.... I even play saxophone is some scenes 

Q: Which department did you work in and what other departments were you closely linked to? Creative department , but I was also working closely with video games technical department Q: How big was the team you worked with and were there others who shared the same role as you? I was managing 5 scriptwriters, 10 illustrators, 3 software engineers

Q: How much of your work was present in the final product? 99%

Aliki Theofilopoulos Grafft

Roles: Animated series creator, director, story artist, writer, character designer, Emmy nominated songwriter, voiceover actor 

Paper Wings show #31 Interview notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgB2Escc9qc

Where did the dream begin?

Loved drawing for as far as she can remember

Loved cartoons 

Didn’t have a prejudice towards anything (cartoons)

Was moved by the beauty and artistry but also the humor and emotional quality of the stories

“There was something really attractive to me that drawings could do that”

Majored in art at USC, there wasn’t an animation program yet, there was one animation class 

Got an internship for college credit at Hanna Barbera - turned into a PA job upon graduating

Took classes at the animation guild at the same time - specialized training + life drawing

“‘At the moment I am terrified’ is the signal that I have to go do the thing I’m terrified of” - on taking risks (time stamp 21:54)

She went to talk to John K despite being scared - took the chance to speak to an animator - that conversation led to an internship

Focused on life drawing so her portfolio stood out by asking recruiters to have a second look on it - ended up working at feature animation

Life drawing - focused on character animation - did a lot before actually animating 

Kept signing up for creative classes - found that she loved ‘story’ - discovered that this was what she was meant to be in all along

Character Design class - important moment for her - redesign characters from the wizard of Oz at the moment (work in class) - felt like she lost herself because she focused on study so she lost her sense of a goal 

Nickelodeon was looking for new talent and was recommended by a friend who worked on Spongebob - character design drawings were given - was told to come up with a show for these drawings - didn’t know anything about pitching at the time - was told to base a character on herself to make her more interesting - actually made that cartoon in a short later on - got hired as a story assistant afterwards “Girls on the Go” and “Yaki and Yumi” (these shorts inspired Adventure Time and Funboy and Chum Chum)

“Who are you and what do you have to say?” - Be yourself 

Even though her shorts didn’t get picked up at first, through that experience she learned how to “make a film from start to finish and writing and post” etc.

“Failing upward” - Not letting disappointments break you because you gain experience and you develop your ideas 

Phineas and Ferb - could storyboard AND write- outline-driven show (not just drawing) - Dan Povenmire wanted female writers because of the key female characters in the show - Storyboarding is writing and drawing at the same time as you think 

A lot of trial and error - stacks of work were thrown away - don’t be too attached to something - busy schedule and constant changes to the story as the show was getting released 

What do you think when you’re making a story? 

From a script - critical - constantly asking “why” - “every scene should matter” - if it’s not entertaining/pushing the story/adding to a character then it shouldn’t be there - how is character A different from character B? How does A pick up a book that is different from B? - Index cards and Post-it notes that say in one word what each story beat is about - building a structure for the characters and story in advance helps set everything for when you develop the story as you go on 

Directing - having a clear vision for the project - technical + story-based side

Knowing your strengths and putting them on the table - being open to collaboration - not having to have perfect drawings yet being able to contribute to a project (even if your ideas aren’t all picked up)

“Many paths to the same place” - no right or wrong way - pay attention but you may not end up where you expect 

Heartbreak of a pitch that’s rejected - how do you deal with it? 

You have to pour your heart and soul into things but you should keep going despite the disappointment - You should continue to have the drive to create - Pitching is valuable even if your ideas don’t get picked up

I decided to research into Rebecca sugar as she's someone whom I look  up to. Though she’s not a full time animator but rather more of a director I wanted to research into her background a bit more as she’s the creator of Steven universe and storyboard artist for adventure time.

Rebecca went to SVA an art school in new York city and then progressed on to pitching her own show as you can see from the clip above.

Here you can see how the team works as a whole on making the Steven universe film and I just love the way they all work so smoothly together. I think this cartoon is really unique as the backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous and the story covers some really important topics like same sex relationships, non-binary characters, dealing with loss, PTSD and lots of other really important topics too that you don't often see cartoons talking. 

There so many imteresting poses in this animation its so faced paced and crazy, its really interesting to see a side comparison of the animatic. I’m also impressed by the fact that Rebecca Sugar rights all the songs too as its a huge piece of steven universe. 

Originally I wanted to look at Rebecca sugar as her carreres so interesting but to be honest im more interested in Steven universe its my dream to be able to work on a TV show like this one as it has an amazing story and some really beautiful shots like this one for example that won awards.

As part of my Media Roles work, in the process for finding lectures to watch, summarise and learn from, I initially became interested in this video from Kenny Roy

I watched this video (titled Advice For Getting A Job With...Animation Studio Blue-Zoo Productions) speaking to Oil Hyatt, hoping to get a more ground level addendum to the lecture with Tom Box I have surmised in my Media Roles summary. I did not exactly get that (Oil is Creative Director and another founding member), but I did get some interesting information: . Beginner Showreels tend to feature selections everything the creator has done over the course of their time at Uni, from unpolished work in the first year to much more impressive work in the third year. Oil advises that if third the creator has 5 seconds of animation that will really impress their client, it is better to go with that. . Oil describes Blue Zoo as a large studio which maintains a local feel, who complete work in every discipline in which animation might be featured; films, TV, commercials . Oil started with A-Levels in Art and Theatre studies, followed by a GNVQ in Art and Design. Oil believed that Animation seemed to provide a more stable work environment than Fine Art . He believes the image of animators is changing, and becoming more diverse. Oil feels a number of animators are ultimately “shy actors” . Feels there is no right or wrong way to get their portfolio shown. Creative methods are always impressive; one applicant provided a jigsaw with Blue Animals with an image of themselves in the middle, and titled it “where Alex fits into Blue Zoo”. This made a very immediate impression . Blue Zoo like to take chances on employees; one employee was unable to get in anywhere, but from Blue Zoo went on to work with Aardman and now Pixar . Blue Zoo try to use more opportunities for staff to be directors and lead animators . Oil described his proudest moment as Blue Zoo’s receiving production company of the year in 2012

FIn the September 2008 issue of Animation Magazine , they spoke to a number of artists in the industry about work as an Animated Prop designer

Key advice includes: -  Chris Battle (The Mighty B!) notes that newcomers can break in to the role by passing the studio’s test, and that newcomers often have a range of skills and knowledge that studios appreciate -  Lance Falk (Loonatics Unleashed) noted that prop designers can come from a variety of backgrounds, but  regardless of background they “should have a decent grasp of mechanics and a head full of stored visual information about common objects and their use” -  Darrel Bowen (The Simpsons Movie, Rugrats) has designed props for both film and TV, and noted that prop designers are generally afforded much more time to design the props, although TV producers are still keen to have high quality props, albeit smaller is size because of the size of TV screens compared to cinemas - Falk adds that showing you can draw objects from different sides is a very good idea. All note that, while a studio may express interest in you because of your portfolio, you may still need to take a test - Falk notes that much of the work he has learned on the job - Bowen notes it as a good entry level position for animation, explaining; “Prop Design is a good way to kind of cut your teeth or break into animation because it's teaching perspective and learning to draw perspective. Later on, if you desire, you can move on to character design and storyboarding”

This is a good article highlighting the potential of an animation job role I was not aware existed within animation (Prop Designer) as an individual role. Although being from 2008, the article could be considered dated in some ways, it seems to broadly be still relevant, as evidenced by the links to related blogs, including one by Andy Chiang which is still active, with posts showing his designs for current shows such as Harley Quinn

http://acvegan.blogspot.com/

The June/July 2019 issue of Animation Magazine features an interview with Sarah Smith and Julie Lockhart, founders of London-based Animation Studios, Locksmith Animation

The key points of the interview for me are: - The company was born out of their ambition to start a high-end CG feature in the UK, to take advantage of, among other things, the UK’s “World Class” VFX industry and generous Tax Credits - They were inspired by the incredibly successful and long running UK VHS company Double Negative, who have been creating high quality effects for a number of very high profile Hollywood pictures for a number of years