Monday, September 30, 2013

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE 2 SCREENING


One of the benefits of being a member of
is the plethora of
free screenings!

Like this one:


It's a good thing I get to bring two guests
because these guys follow me wherever I go:


And while the gremlins 
like animated movies
they don't like
Q and A sessions.
So I missed out on hearing director
Cody Cameron 
talk about making the movie
afterwards. 

BOOOOOOOO!

But we got goodie bags!

YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!











Personally, I thought the first movie was much better.
But the kids 
LOVED
all the animal/food creatures 
and are 
STILL
talking about them.

That can't be a bad sign.

Thanks Sony Pictures
and 
Thanks ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD!


Thursday, September 26, 2013

BYE-BYE FISH HOOKS VOICE ACTORS


The last couple weeks have 
been filled with good-byes.

We knew 
Fish Hooks 
was coming to an 
end so
back in March
we brought all the 
voice actors in
to record the
final episode.

We even had a little party
and handed out diplomas:


Here's the ever swaggable
Kyle Massey
(aka Milo)


Steven Christopher Parker
(aka Jumbo Shrimp)


Atticus Shaffer
(Albert Glass)


Kari Wahlgen
(Shellsea)


Vanessa
Marshall
(voice of Mouse)


Kimberley Mooney
(Finberley)


and best friend forever
voice director
Kris Zimmerman


We didn't
REALLY
say
goodbye,
though.

We still had
MONTHS
of smaller
to record after we got the shows 
back from being animated.

But then 
August and September 
crept up on us.
And one by one,
the actors 
came in for those last
couple lines:


Milo


Oscar
(rocked by Justin Roiland)


and of course,
Bea
(played by the always deliciously carbonated Chelsea Kane)


Shellsea came in for her last
"Giiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrl":



Albert gave his final turn:

 


Ironically,
the very last line of dialogue 
to be recorded
was a
"HELLO!"
from Clamantha
(by Alex Hirsch)
(of the Gravity Falls Hirsch's)


And then there were none.

Except that big dummy Maxwell Atoms.
(he played Bo Gregory)


I know every show says they
had the 
BEST
MOST TALENTED
cast
EVER!

But 96% of them are lying.

That honor
goes
to the
FISH HOOKS
cast.



Monday, September 23, 2013

FLOATING TO THE TOP

I've done something terrible.


Last Friday I helped deliver the
final
episode
of
FISH HOOKS.

Yes,
after three seasons,
and 60 half hour episodes
we're done.

It may come as a surprise to you,
but we've known for a long time
that the third season would be our last.
Disney Channel decided not
to renew us any further
than that.
So...
The writers left last fall.
Then the storyboard artists.
The designers.
Even show creator Noah Jones
left to make a new pilot for Disney XD.

And then it was just me and my
 merry band of post production people.
Over the last couple months
I've often described myself
as the hospice nurse 
making the show more comfortable 
before it passes on.

I owe it that.

Fish Hooks
has been nothing but
wonderful to me over these 
past three years.
But every show ends
at some point.
We had a great run.
Some shows never make it this far.
But it's time for
new adventures.
Can't wait to tell you about them!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

GUIDE TO JAPANESE ANIMATION


Two hundred years ago
(in 1985)
nobody knew
nothin' 
about
Japanese animation.

Sure,
there was 
Speed Racer
and 
Star Blazers 
and stuff.
But there was also this 
MASSIVE
hidden world of 
movies and TV series
from Japan
that had no way of 
getting to the US.

And then one day I was at
a teeny tiny comic book convention in
Valley Forge, PA
and I stumbled across a table
where a bootleg VHS copy of this
was playing:


Macross: Love -  Do You Remember?

I immediately bought a copy and watched it 
over and over and over again
even though
I HAD NO 
IDEA WHAT THE HELL
WAS GOING ON!!!

It was completely in Japanese with
NO SUBTITLES!
And there was
no such thing as
internets
to help me find out
WHAT THE HELL
WAS GOING ON!!!

But there were giant robots 
shooting lasers and missiles.

I can understand that
and
I soon bought other movies:

Black Magic M-66
Vampire Hunter D
Angel's Egg
Area 88

All of them were incredibly cool and
incredibly different from American cartoons

AND I HAD INCREDIBLY NO 
IDEA WHAT THE HELL
WAS GOING ON!!!


My growing fascination with anime
eventually led me to a Japanese book store
in Philadelphia called
Books Nippan.
That's where I found this:



It was originally the program guide for 
a Japanese animation festival at
Baycon '86.
But this edition was distributed
by Books Nippan
as a primer for people
like me that needed to 
know what the hell was going on
in their bootleg anime VHS tapes.


If you like anime,
you should really find
and thank him since he's one of the 
original pushers of anime on the
American public.

The book is filled with
basic synopses
of over 50 
old-school anime titles.

Like Urusei Yatsura:


Lupin:


Lensman:


Crusher Joe:


Nausicaa:


Area 88:


Vampire Hunter D:


And my first love,
Macross: Love - Do You Remember?



Since Japanese storytelling is often 
a bit wonky compared to what we're used to,
the synopses were often only marginally helpful.

In the case of
Angel's Egg,
which is just a moody,
stream of consciousness story,
there wasn't much to explain:


But in the pre-interweb
days this book
was a life saver!


If you're into old-school anime,
see if you can find a copy of this book!



Monday, September 16, 2013

MTV B WORLD I.D.

While browsing through my
old journal 
from 1992
I remembered an old
MTV id 
I worked on.
Everybody loved
the id's that ran 
between the music videos on 
MTV
way back when.
They were a
hot steamy incubator
for style and talent
and created in every 
conceivable technique.
This one,
called
"B WORLD"
was produced by
a small company called
Gorilla Animation
(at least I THINK that's what they were called)
I was an assistant animator
on a good chunk of it,
inbetweening and inking
my heart out.
It looks and sounds 
incredibly dated now
but it was pretty cool
at the time.
After B
there are a whole bunch of 
old MTV id's
you should totally watch.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

IT'S 1992 ALL OVER AGAIN!


After some NYC animation friends
posted a couple old school
Jumbo Pictures
pics on Facebook
I felt the need to dig out a couple
of my own.

Back in 1992
there weren't no 
or
or

We just had these:






I didn't draw in it much.
It served as more of a diary
of my early animation career.

Most of it's boring
production stuffs:




Occasionally a xeroxed cartoon
would find it's way in.
This one was of 
JJSP
Production Queen
Irene Cerdas:


Bryon Moore 
(one of my earliest mentors)
and I
spent way too much time
drawing
attempting to murder us:


Here's an entry regarding the
short we did for
Saturday Night Live.

After we were done animating on
an INSANE deadline
we were told we needed to change
Clucky's eyes so that they were 
GOOGLY
instead of looking at camera.
Which would have been fine
except for the fact that it
was already painted on cel
AND
we had to still have the project done
so it could air on Saturday:


And yeah...
we got it done
in time!

Too bad it got bumped from that week's 
show at the last minute.
Grrrrrrrrrr...

The next two were from
a Burger King commercial that
designed called
"Wallet"
and some
Fido Dido
stuffs:




Sometimes there was nothing
but laundry
and 
passport photos:


Nice hair, dude.

But here's the real reason I
was digging through the book:

THE PHOTOS
TAPED IN THE BACK!

This group shot of the
ASIFA-EAST EXECUTIVE BOARD
really brought me back.

'

Here I am hanging out
 in the luxurious Jumbo Pictures bathroom
during a party with NYC animation royalty, from left to right,
Dave Concepcion, Simon Deitch, Bryon Moore,
Drinky McBeerstein and Miguel Martinez-Joffre


Master decorator
Jonathan Royce 
found the best use for 
some ugly curtains:


Not sure who that is with me
defacing the walls:




The mighty Buzzco Associates
triumverate
Marilyn Kraemer, Vincent Cafarelli and Candy Kugel:


Working
with
Sue Rose
at the lofty
West Village
office 
of
Fido Dido:


Me on my 24th birthday at
J.J. Sedelmaier Productions:


This was taken shortly after JJSP
added studio space on another floor:


Me and the honorable
Ben Price working on
Cluckin' Chicken:


I'm so glad I
kept these
journals,
if only to prove
that I've only 
become
MORE
handsome
as the years go by.

I hope you're keeping your own.

Seriously.