What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Stanley Somers, and I teach at Hawthorne Academy High School as their Art Teacher. What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? In Animation, I worked for twenty two years at; Disney, Warners, Hyperion, FilmFair and many others. My favorite projects were Rover Dangerfeild, The Little Mermaid, and BeBe’s Kids.   In art I with my ex wife Marsea open New Image Art gallery in 1994 in west Hollywood. The Gallery Initially juxtaposed Minimalist artist with performance art to create a new dialogue in LA. How did you become interested in animation? In the 70’s through to the beginning of the 2000’s it was the best way to draw and earn a living, the studios sought out artist that were schooled and loved drawing. Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? I’m from LA and in 1978 went to Disney after graduating college. There they put me under Eric Larsen to be Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Elroy Simmons and I’m a 2D Traditional Animator (and sometime Director/Designer). I’m also a part-time tutor on the Access to Motion Graphics course for adults at Tower Hamlets College, East London
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
 I’m not sure about crazy jobs, so much. When I was on my degree, I worked as a caricaturist – at local markets and for a company that organized swanky, massive Office parties in London. I’ve sold drawings (with varying success) since I was 12 (to schoolmates), but the first time I set up a ‘pitch’ and drew absolute strangers was, as I said, while I was ‘studying’ Animation at degree level.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? Â I’ve been relatively lucky – so far, in so much as a lot of the stuff I’m able to derive the most pride from, is work I’ve designed and directed – as well as animated; so though the budget may be small, the amount learned is broad and the fulfillment felt is massive (“A Haven In a Brick Jungle”, “No Search/No Entry”). I think the best time I’ve had professionally was working on a cartoon short called “George et Alfred”; it was a ‘souped up’ spin off from a series shown on TF1 called “Ca Cartoon”, and it was broadcast that Christmas. The Director – Mark Woods, wanted two Supervising Animators – and asked me if I wanted the role, and to know who I’d suggest as the other Supervising Animator. I suggested a friend/colleague – Rob Newman. The studio that made the series (and presumably still do) wanted British Animators to work on the cartoon (their thinking was that British and American cartoon animation had ‘compatibility’, and more importantly that British Animators work longer – and for less money. So, for about three months we worked on the short with a crew of French Animators, in Paris, being put up in a Hotel about five minutes from the studio, and the studio even paid for weekly Eurostar travel back to London. Believe me, this level of care is stuff of myth in London. We had a party for all of the crew – even the Producers – at the end of the job. I’ve worked as hard since, but I’m not sure I’ve laughed so much – and I’ve not had reason to be as competent at speaking French since, either.
How did you become interested in animation?  I remember seeing the workmen building the circus tents in”Dumbo” on what must have been “Disney Time” (a show that would pop up on the BBC) when I was very young. I was confused by how they seemed real, but were like moving sweets; I think I was ‘hooked’ then. I’d enjoyed drawing from very young, about 3 years old, but the time I was six, I’d said ‘out loud’ “I want to be an Animator”. My teachers at Primary School  (Mrs Sheffield at the time, then Mr Fairhall and later Mr Bandey) were all very aware and very encouraging (I was a bit of a ‘swat’, generally – so it never really interrupted my school progress), so I drew relatively often, regularly pestering my Mum for ‘Drawing Books’ to keep me entertained at home – and then by the time I was eight years old, I’d got into ‘flickbooks’ (Mum was a nurse, so there were thick Medical books that she didn’t mind me drawings on the corners of) – and it just went on from there, really. I remember thinking I could Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
Jason Meier - Fanboy and Chum Chum Supervising Producer at Nickelodeon Animation Studios
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? Bus Boy, Park Staff at Lake Casitas Recreation Park, Waiter at a mediocre Italian restaurant where I had to where a tie. Customer service is the pits.
 What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? I love working on Fanboy and Chum Chum, but honestly I was super excited to animate my favorite mass murderer, Jason Voorhees in Freddy Vs Jason. It was a childhood dream come true.
How did you become interested in animation? When I was a kid, Saturday mornings started at 6 am watching any and all cartoons. I would pretty much watch anything that was animated, The Flinstones, Jabber Jaw, The Snorks. Anything but Continue reading
Scott Thomas, I am currently completing school at Full Sail University, I just finished an internship with Full Sails Hard Surface Modeling Department, now I am freelancing as an animator, modeler and designer.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Night Club Manager at a 40,000 square foot multi level club, this job allowed me to have a lot of fun and see some of the craziest things.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
St. Baldrick’s fundraisers for Children’s Cancer Awareness.
How did you become interested in animation?
After visiting Disney Studios as a small child I always dreamt of Continue reading
Today Toon Boom announced our new release, Storyboard Pro 5! Storyboard Pro is recognized as an industry standard in storyboarding, and the studios and artists who use it to create stories are passionate about what they can do with its toolset.
Storyboard Pro 5 is available for free as a benefit for customers who own a Desktop Subscription or Perpetual license with Support. Simply go to the Toon Boom site and download your new software today.
You can buy Storyboard Pro 5 for as low as $38 per month on a yearly subscription or $999 for a perpetual licence. A full breakdown of pricing can be found here.
If you haven’t tried Storyboard Pro yet, download our free trial of Storyboard Pro 5 here. There are loads of free learning materials available to help get you started.
What’s New
The new release of Storyboard Pro streamlines the workflow with new creative tools for artists, adds improvements to the 3D workflow, and provides better integration with editorial.
With a new more neutral UI colour scheme that reduces eye strain, Storyboard Pro 5 makes it easier for artists to accurately see the colours they are working with. Of course, for artists who prefer the original look, the traditional colour scheme is still available.
A better 3D Workflow
The 3D toolset in Storyboard Pro lets you integrate 3D models, block out camera shots and create scenes with depth. Storyboard Pro 5 includes several new features that provide better integration between 2D and 3D.
There’s the new Snap to Surface that makes it easier to position and animate 3D models on a 2D plane like a floor or wall (this feature works with 2D artwork as well). You can create layers on surfaces when you want to draw on 3D models, which is a powerful way to add 2D artwork to your 3D scenes. The 3D camera is much more responsive making it easier to position, do tilts, pans, rotations and camera rolls. And Alembic and Collada can now be imported (added to existing support for FBX and 3DS), making it easier to bring in CG content.
Here you see a 2D prop being positioned inside a 3D spaceship. Positioning and animation controls let you easily place your artwork, which will maintain contact with the surface no matter what changes you make.
Enhanced Bitmap Drawing Tools
Storyboard Pro has both vector and bitmap drawing tools that interact seamlessly. This provides the flexibility that artists are looking for when developing artwork from sketch to cleanup. New in Storyboard Pro 5 are customizable tips for bitmap brushes. These enable more artistic freedom and control over the look and feel.
Change the roundness, hardness, and angle of tips as well as add randomness to affect the resulting lines. Brush tips can be customized, and you can create your own in Photoshop, Harmony or Storyboard Pro.
Better Organization with Layer Groups
In Storyboard Pro, artists can break out their artwork into an unlimited number of layers in a single storyboard panel – for example, character line work and shading can be drawn on separate layers. This enables artistic freedom and makes it easier to edit drawings. For an even more fluid creative development process and exchange between artists, Storyboard Pro 5 features the ability group layers of drawings – making it easier to organize and share content.
When you select a group of layers, all the layers move together. With Layer groups, artists spend more time being creative and less time searching for artwork, which is especially important when projects need to be turned around quickly.
Faster Revisions with Shared Drawings
Some drawings, like a background, are regularly reused in a storyboard. To make it easier to update this kind of artwork, you can now share drawings – use a single drawing across multiple panels. When you make a change, the artwork updates everywhere so you can move on more quickly to the next creative process.
Qt Application Scripting
New Qt Application scripting support can help you save time by creating scripts that automate manual tasks, or you can create new tools that can be accessed at the click of a button.
To get you started, a number of example scripts are available in this release – delete hidden layers, export the camera path, change the timing of multiple panels simultaneously, and others.
Better Integration between Storyboard Pro and Editing
Added support for 23.976 NDF timecode enables the seamless transfer of animatics from Storyboard Pro to the editing suite making it even easier to collaborate with editors. Storyboard artists can now work with this frame rate, directly exporting animatics and timelines with panels, sound, transitions, and timing to editing suites via EDL, AAF, and XML.
For those who haven’t tried Storyboard Pro yet, now is a great time. The new features in Storyboard Pro 5 add to an already great blend of creative tools and technical capabilities that help customers increase pipeline efficiency and creative output. Try it out!
