Kids Entertainment Professionals For Young Refugees Fundraiser

Animators and actors, writers and composers, game designers and YA authors, producers, board artists, agents, studio and network executives – the entire international children’s entertainment community is coming together June 18-24 in an unprecedented grassroots fundraiser via Crowdrise. Help spread the word! PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO with friends and colleagues and SIGN UP FOR THE FUNDRAISER NOW at: https://www.facebook.com/events/114556855770817/
More information at our home page: https://www.facebook.com/kepyr/
Thank you – and Keep the Love Coming!

Dagan Moriarty

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name is Dagan Moriarty, and I am currently an Asst. Art Director at ‘Sesame Workshop’ in NYC.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I worked a few different jobs back in the day, before I graduated from HS and shipped off to Art School. My favorite was working in a skateshop, but that’s a gimme. There were definitely a few interesting and offbeat gigs peppered in there as well… I worked in a Bagel Store for 2 weeks for a really mean and cranky boss.  I accidentally burned an entire batch of bagels one morning, and I thought she was going to take my life right in front of the cream cheese case. She was so mad! That’s probably when I decided that a life in bagels wasn’t for me…Though I still find them delicious.  Back in High School, I had a friend who’s father was a Real Estate Agent. He sold a lot of foreclosed properties.  Often times he would need to completely gut the homes and clean them up before he could put them on the market… So he would pay us 100 dollars a piece to go into a house with a baseball bat or a table leg and just demolish the whole interior… It was amazing!  Cabinets, furniture, literally everything except for load-bearing walls. I still remember the roaches scattering as we wreaked havoc on everything in our path. Best summer job in history!  It was a great way to work out our teen angst while making some loot!

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
The two things that jump right to the top of my head are ‘The Mr. Men Show’ for my friends at Renegade Animation and the ‘Skunk-Fu’ animated series that we worked on for the mighty Cartoon Saloon over in Ireland. (Worked with the team over at Fat-Kat
Animation Studios on that one.) Both of those shows were a cut above in terms of quality and craftsmanship, and they were a lot of fun to be a part of. We’re also working on some really cool stuff right now over at Sesame that I am excited about… but I’ll keep those cards close to my chest for now.  🙂

How did you become interested in animation? 
First, through my grandfather. He was a wonderful artist who really loved to draw, and he imparted that passion to me very early on. I have a vivid memory of sitting with him when Continue reading

Edward Ernest

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Edward Ernest. I’m an associate flash designer at Sony Pictures Interactive.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was working at Home Depot doing early morning shifts as a freight package handler. There’s nothing like getting up at 3am to unpack and stock products and being unappreciated for your work…(sarcasm).

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’ve worked on a social game called “Island paradise” and Sony Picture’s first facebook game “Hotel Transylvania Social Game”.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in New York, I’ve lived in Philadelphia, but I’ve spent most of my life living in Atlanta, GA. I loved watching cartoon as a kid (I still do ). I wanted to be a paleontologist because I loved drawing dinosaurs, until I realized what they do all day. In high school, my twin brother and I would Continue reading

Isaac Marzioli

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name is Isaac Marzioli and I’m a digital design clean-up artist on Tuff Puppy at Nickelodeon.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve had a few.  Two of the craziest were when I was just shy of 20 and still trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career.  I answered an ad in the paper (before newspapers went extinct) and ended up in an interview where I agreed to sell knives door to door.  That didn’t last long because the idea of walking into a stranger’s house and pulling out sharp knives sounded sketchy…so I went one worse and started selling perfume in parking lots.  There’s nothing like approaching a random stranger, pulling a bottle out of your bag and asking if you could squirt them with it.  It was this job that taught me that school was very important.  I came home after a long day of chasing weirdos around an ATM parking lot and enrolled into Cal State Fullerton – more specifically, into the illustration program.  And then to get myself through school (and after I graduated, but before I was able to land a job in the industry) I sold ladies’ shoes.  The Al Bundy jokes weren’t the worst of it – I couldn’t believe what people would tell me about their feet.  Or show me.  This one lady had a fuzzy green square on the bottom of her foot that she wanted me to touch.  Then the smells.  There’s nothing like a hot summer day for people to come in and take their shoes off…So I’m really glad to be working in animation.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
It’s been great to be a part of the Butch Hartman cartoons.  It’s a little pandering, but it’s hard to stay employed in the animation business.  Shows don’t last forever, and cancellation usually comes as a surprise.  Being on Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom and now Tuff Puppy – I’ve been employed steadily for the last 10 and a half years.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m originally from Northern California – and I came down here to go to school at CSUF.  I hung out with a lot of animation students.  In our junior year they set up a meeting with a storyboard revisionist on Angry Beavers and I Continue reading

JOBS: Onsite Freelance Motion Designer

Freelance Motion Designer

Apply here.

Please Note: Applications without a link to reel or portfolio will not be considered.

  • Expertise in all things Adobe Creative Suite. Especially After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop.
  • You must be able to work in-house in our Los Angeles studio (equipment is provided)
  • Your reel should demonstrate an eye for design, comprehension of motion design principals and clear communication.
  • Immediately availability is a plus!

Examples of ATTN:’s animated content:

1) We’ve been betraying Native Americans long before Standing Rock: https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1198610423507748/

2) When you spoil your kids, you end up with Donald Trump.: https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1159748947393896/

3) Politicians shouldn’t be able to choose their own voters: https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1081106318591493/

4) Drug corporations are ripping you off: https://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1229382870430503/

Andy Sykes

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Andy Sykes. I go by the name ‘Hexjibber’ onlline. I work as a part time lecturer at The University of Leeds, where I teach Animation and Digital Storytelling. I also work as a freelance commercial illustrator and animator.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve worked as a visiting artist in schools. Working with kids is rewarding, but very frenetic and tiring. I’m lucky that most of my jobs have been related to art in one way or another.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I created 3 animated films with funding from Screen Yorkshire, called ‘Special Glue and Other Stories’. One of the films, ‘Stupid Table’ won the award for Best Short at Bradford Animation Festival in 2009. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkLwF8O7Jw, I have self-published 3 illustrated books. The first ‘The Hexjibber Colouring and Activity Book’, is a subversive activity book for adults. I created some bizarre adverts for it here: http://www.hexjibber.com/colouring-book/.’The Hexjibber Anti Revision Book’ is a creative procrastination book. ‘Hexjibber Hobbies Vol.1’, is a compilation of the first year of my illustrated blog http://hexjibberhobbies.blogspot.co.uk. I am currently working on Vol.2, which is a complete story, centring around my recent battle with insomnia. I enjoyed creating large scale interactive art projects for Light Night in Leeds. It is an art festival that takes place on the first Friday of October, involving installations, performance and projections. It is great get so many people involved in creating illustration and animation. You can see some video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL2xAmTbg34, I created the ident for the Bradford Animation Festival in 2010, with illustrations from Tom Wooley. It is Jekyll and Hyde meets 90s anime. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wd0NIOuvbc

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from Leeds, which is in the north of England, in the UK. Think Winterfell in Game of Thrones. It’s a bit like that:) I studied Interactive Arts in Manchester (which is also in England), where I worked mainly in animation. I taught myself Flash and started creating short animated films. It took me a long time after graduating before I started to make a living from it. I did some work for free for experience anywhere that I could find it. I created a lot of visuals for nightclubs and gradually started getting bits of paid work. Shortly after graduating, circa 2004, I applied for some production funding from NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) to make some ‘Pocket Shorts’. These were short films designed for mobile phones. These films started to get shown at festivals, which helped raise my profile a bit. Then I got some production funding from Screen Yorkshire to make ‘Special Glue and Other Stories’ in 2008. This did quite well at festivals and won an award. It has been a long drawn out process.

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