![]() We knew that we loved stop motion, but with the ascendancy of the computer, stop motion was on its way out as a viable movie making medium. We got out of the work for hire business, focusing all of our attention on feature films to become the captains of our own destiny. I thought it was worth saving, and so out of the ashes of that community we formed what became Laika with a completely new perspective on filmmaking. What I believed is that this artistic community I met working at the shop, around the area, is that they were really special. Through a combination of circumstances, some mismanagement, a turbulent economy, the worst ad recession we’d seen in a generation, Will Vinton Studios went insolvent, it couldn’t make its payroll and it couldn’t pay its bills. At the end, I was animating full-time, then I started working on commercials in CG animation as well as stop-motion animation. I got a ton of professional experience in a short time. The best thing about working TV and commercials is that you have to crank through a lot of footage quickly. The producer I was working with saw I had talent and gave me a shot just doing a simple bit for the show. I got a job as an assistant, then I started co-ordinating, I started doing scheduling, working production management, but what I really wanted to do was animate on the show. It was called The PJs, it was a primetime stop motion show, the first of its kind in America. I knew it could be something I could do alone, as a hobby, but not something I could devote my life to.īut once I graduated from college, I got a job as a production assistant at the studios on the TV show had just gotten going at the time. Growing up outside of Portland, Oregon, I didn’t know anybody who was a professional artist so the idea that I could make a career, a viable living from doing this, seemed outside of the realms of possibility. Like so many animators of my generation went down into their parents basements, completely self taught, as an artist, as an animator. I think the thing that made me a little bit unusual is that I wanted to learn how to do it. I loved the Rankin Bass holiday specials, like Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, but above all, I loved the Ray Harryhausen creature features. When I was a kid, I adored it, specifically stop motion animation. It’s been quite the journey, much like the unlikely stories of our characters. How did you get from outside, step by step, to where you are now, steering the flagship and being in charge of the whole fleet all at once?
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