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!

Doug Vitarelli

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Doug Vitarelli. 3D animator at one of those big networks. Adjunct professor at NYU.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a roustabout for the Big Apple Circus. Spent 2 summers travelling the northeast with some seriously interesting characters.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I directed “The Buddy System”, a pilot that went nowhere but was a lot of fun to work on. Won a bunch of awards too. I was an animator on “Sonic Vision” an updated 70’s laser light show for the American Musuem of Natural Histoy’s Hayden Planetarium. Going into the theater and seeing your work projected in a dome was a ton of fun.
How did you become interested in animation?
In high school I was given “The Illusion of Life” for a Christmas present and finished reading it in 3 days. I was always Continue reading

“The Giant’s Dream- The Making of Iron Giant” teaser trailer

Iron Giant was arguably one of the greatest animated films of all time, yet it fell on it’s feet at the box office due to executive fear and suppression of advertising which is odd since Warner Bros was literally frothing at the mouth to get an animated feature off the ground. Enter Brad Bird who WB execs reportedly allowed to make the film essentially unsupervised and once they saw the film and how good it was they feared for their jobs and suppressed it as best they could.

REALLY looking forward to this film!

Rachel Anchors

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
Hello I am Rachel Anchors and I am a Character Animator.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
I wouldn’t call the jobs I did before animation crazy. I was a freelance artist doing some illustration. I worked some restaurant jobs and barista jobs. I worked as a rental agent. As soon as I graduated college I was doing only animation and animation related jobs.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud to have worked on Arthur Christmas with Sony Imageworks. I got to work with some pretty inspirational people, push myself as an animator, and experience what it was like to work on a big production.

 
How did you become interested in animation?
I became interested in animation at a very early age. I always drew and made up illustrated stories. I watching, “Lady and the Tramp,” and, “Robin Hood,” repeatedly as a child. There was something about the way Continue reading

Einar Baldvin

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Einar Baldvin, independent animator. I do both my own projects as well as freelance.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
My father counts ducks and I would assist him when I was younger. It’s all operated from a reportedly haunted research station far up north in Iceland. A very fun place for a child.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?My film ‘Baboon’ it was my first 2-d film (I did cut-outs before) it was fun to make and the the first festival to accept it was Annecy. I met my wife, Jeanette Bonds there. The film went on to play at Ottawa as well which was another amazing experience.  Last year I was fortunate enough to animate on a project executive produced by James Franco ‘The Labyrinth’. He was teaching a class at USC along with John Watson (who produced Backdraft among other things) where they selected some of the brightest students at USC to make eight shorts based on the loose theme of “the unexplained and the unimaginable”. The shorts were to be cut into a feature and I was contacted close to the end to make animation in order to tie it all together. It was a bit crazy since the animation is essentially 2 minutes of hand drawn POV shots because the idea was really to let the audience get lost in a labyrinth. I don’t do any 3-d and I making it in After Effects seemed more trouble than it was worth so I just went ahead and drew everything, it was more than worth it in the end. It was a great project to work on, everyone involved was a pleasure to work with and I even got to record James for the voiceover.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Iceland. I always enjoyed drawing, monsters and animals in particular when I was a kid. I would make illustrated stories and comics so when the time came to go to Continue reading

Kenard Pak

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Kenard Pak Visual Development Artist at PDI Dreamworks.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Nothing too crazy. I’ve flipped burgers, cleaned dishes + bathrooms, got yelled at for bad video rentals.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m very proud of “Madagascar 3”. We were an excellent, inspiring, professional + fun art team. This doesn’t happen very often,
and I consider myself very fortunate to have been a part of it. The film that started my career, “Prince of Egypt”, is also very memorable.  Not only did I get my start on such a mammoth project, but I learned so much from the legendary artists that had designed it.  At Disney Feature I had a great time on their pre-production projects, and I also have some interesting memories working  with the director Monkmus on his “Topside Rag” shorts.

How did you become interested in animation?
Like many kids, I grew up enjoying cartoons like Merry Melodies and Woody Woodpecker. Unlike most kids, this fascination eventually became Continue reading