Author Archives: Mike

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Ashraf Ghori

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Ashraf Ghori. I am an artist and animation director. I also run my own digital design agency Xpanse CGI in Dubai UAE as its CEO.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was an artist at Six Flags Astroworld in Houston doing caricatures, I also worked for a year as a laser show animator doing some outrageous events in the UAE.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud of my comic books and fantasy art that I made in Houston, and of my first short film ‘Xero Error’ which also happened to be the first CGI Sci-fi Film produced in the UAE.

I love the projects I get to do while traveling to different countries. I did a TV commercial for Lux Progress in Cape Town, where I had to create a blob of green liquid shooting through dirty plates and cleaning them in its wake. I could’ve easily done this back home in Dubai, but the client preferred to take the whole team there, No complaints from me!

I was the art director for Malal which was also the first Indo-Emirati film. We got to shoot this in a picturesque green hill station in Kerala, India. It was a wondrous week of very satisfying work while dodging blood sucking leeches from the forest!

How did you become interested in animation?
Prior to ’94 I was only into comic book & fantasy art. Then games like Continue reading

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John Losacco

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is John Losacco and I have been a game animator for the last three years.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I worked mainly retail before getting into the industry.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
My first project in the industry was the coin-op game “Terminator: Salvation”. It was extremely intimidating to start out on such a high profile title. Since then I have worked on several coin-op games and am really proud of them all.

How did you become interested in animation?
I’ve always been interested in animation, seriously. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t excited about animation. It wasn’t until I was 16 or so that I realized animation was an actual job. I dropped everything and concentrated on nothing but getting a job in animation.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from Chicago. When I realized I wanted to be an animator, I was 16 and I had absolutely no art background, I had never even taken an art class. So I started frantically drawing everything I could. Cartoon characters, life drawing, still life, etc. Until I got a portfolio to apply to Continue reading

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Louis Fagenson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Louis Fagenson. I am a Composer/Orchestrator/Arranger.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
In High School I sold Fuller Brush products and delivered pizza. I have a horrible sense of direction ( hey, my people spent the better part of forty years looking for the promised land in a place about the size of Reseda), so the pizza thing didn’t last very long. During and after college I played electric guitar with various bands in addition to solo guitar in different clubs and venues. One day I recieved a phone call from the late and great Don Murray Continue reading

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Todd Myers

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
Todd Myers (L. Todd Myers on IMDB)  Just completed work designing characters for a special, animated Christmas episode of Eureka on SyFy for Curious Pictures.  I’m currently designing characters for two other projects at Curious.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 

Not counting working with Bill Cosby on the Captain Kangaroo Show (that was eye opening and crazy), I’d say I’ve had the usual.  As a kid during the mid-70’s I worked for Jim Kovacs who wasone of the first nationally known comic book dealers.  He was the guy who cornered the market on Howard the Duck #1.  Everyone remembers that, right?  I later worked in a record shop after being turned down by Burger Chef.  Burger Chef!  Burger Chef wouldn’t have me.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 

Starting a studio with Gav Gnatovich and producing 3 pilots for Cartoon Network in (of all places) Cleveland, OH.  Working with “Mr.” Tom Warburton for 5 seasons of Codename: Kids Next Door.  Contributing to the development of Dragons vs Robots.  Doing boards on Venture Bros.  And even though it was canceled after Continue reading

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Spencer Ockwell

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I currently make cartoons for Red Bull campaigns at an ad agency called Kastner & Partners. I recently animated the end title sequence for Mr. Popper’s Penguins (starring Jim Carrey). In the near future, I hope to be storyboarding and/or writing on an animated TV show.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to make pastrami sandwiches in the CIA cafeteria. Before that, I trained at-risk spider monkeys how to tap dance in Indonesia. I also worked at a Hilton, but never saw Paris and did construction, but it wasn’t constructive for my career.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m proud to have directed a few music videos and be signed with The Masses on their Masses Lab roster of directors. I’m also proud to be a Writer/Producer on a promising TV pilot for a kid’s puppet show, called Imaginus Zoo. You can get a taste of it atwww.imaginuszoo.com . The pilot is now represented by Continue reading

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Leisha-Marie Riddel

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name’s Leisha-Marie Riddel, and I’m currently an Animator on a Music Video.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Crazy? Not so much, but I was a Prep cook at a local Restaurant, and a Receptionist during the summers at school. Prep cook was 14 hour days, so that kind of prepared me for animation’s work hours – but I was a lot more physically active back then.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
So far since graduating, I’ve worked on several mediums all of which I’m pretty proud of, but I think my favorite two so far would be the Music Video I’m animating right now – and the feature film that I worked on earlier this year.

I’m extremely honoured to have been a part of both of those projects and to have my name on them.

How did you become interested in animation? 
I was about four years old when I watched Continue reading