Leonardo Trinidad

What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Leonardo Trinidad and I’m Producer and Director at Rocket Cartoons in Costa Rica.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I guess you could say I was very lucky because I have never worked in anything that wasn’t animation or film, I started in this business since I was 18 and haven’t stopped yet!

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Of course my personal producctions, they are like my babies, to be specific Ivick Von Salza The Little Lumberjack, a series of 52×2 mins, which marks our debut as a production company and will be airing this year in Europe and Asia.

How did you become interested in animation?
Since I was a little boy I have always enjoyed drawing, but I never imagined the cartoons I watched were actually made by people who earned money for making them. One day Continue reading

Brenda Chapman

What is your name and your current occupation?
Brenda Chapman – Director/writer Pixar Animation Studios, co-owner, director, writer, illustrator at Chapman Lima Productions.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Walking beans (walking through soy bean fields and cutting the weeds out), working in the kitchen of a retirement home (it’s horrifying what you find in coffee cups after breakfast!), stuffing envelopes for an insurance company (paper cuts!), working the service desk at Kmart (Blue Light Specials!) – ALL were crazy for OH so many different reasons.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
THE LITTLE MERMAID – my first job as a story artist, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST – trying to make Belle a stronger Disney heroine than the ones of the past, THE LION KING – taking the ‘B’ movie and working hard to make it an ‘A+’, all at Disney… PRINCE OF EGYPT – trying to create the first animated movie at DreamWorks – but then ANTZ jumped in before us – it was great putting together all the right people and creating a new studio… and BRAVE at Pixar – creating the first female main character heroines at that studio, completely inspired by my relationship with my daughter, my love of adventure, faerie tales and Scotland! – a true labor of love.

How did you become interested in animation?
I loved to draw all the time when I was a little girl. I watched Bugs Bunny and other Warner Bros. cartoons everyday after school, loved the old Disney films… When I realized Continue reading

Matthew Augustine

What is your name and your current occupation?
Matthew Augustine.  I am a Flash artist and animator for Age of Learning.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Well, this is my first full time job, actually.  During high school and part of college I worked at Del Taco.  While in college I also worked at Disneyland as a night shift custodian for a short time.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, the main one is with my current job.  We made and still maintain a children’s website.  It has educational games and lots of fun stuff for young kids to do.  I do a lot of animation for the games and for the interface.  I also designed and drew a lot of the characters in the games and the different collectibles and prizes you can get on the site.
How did you become interested in animation?
For as long as I can remember I have loved to draw.  Ever since I was a kid I have said that I wanted to be an artist when I grow up.  I took lots of drawing and art classes in school.  When I got to college, I originally thought I may become an illustrator of some sort, or maybe a comic book artist.  But then Continue reading

Tom Minton

 

What is your name and your current occupation?
Tom Minton, writer and consulting producer on “The Adventures of Taxi Dog”, an independent live action/puppet/cg project based on a beloved children’s book.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Administering and grading tests for the University Civil Service System of Illinois while in college. The sole wholly clerical job I ever had to do and the most surreal. It made me realize that I had to go for a career in animation because it had to be saner, and it was.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
“Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures”, “Tiny Toon Adventures”, “Animaniacs”, “Pinky and the Brain”, and, of course, “Rubik, the Amazing Cube Meets Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, a 1983 classic that the public sadly never saw!

How did you become interested in animation?
I was lucky enough to grow up watching not only Max Fleischer’s Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons on television but to watch tons of Warner Bros and Paramount cartoons in 35mm at my hometown movie theatre, every Saturday afternoon. I’m talking about Continue reading

Luis E. Saavedra

What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Luis E. Saavedra and I work as a Director of Altairfilms ,Co – Founder of Antares Render related to Offshoring
services and Cinema from Chile exporting Chilean films to festivals and independent markets.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Excellent question! First at school I really enjoyed drawing and me and some friends had a comic book magazine, well just a bunch of fotocopies put together ! After that, I studied Industrial design and for a while I designed and built desks for offices. I did many of them and it was a very physical job, I spent many hours at night in empty buildings finishing those offices. After that, I worked in the printing bussiness as a Graphic Designer in the pre-press process, which is very interesting regarding the color creation for Offset prints. I learned a lot from these both experiences and I related them to animation years later.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Through the years I have been involved in great projects, both animation and film but the one I always remember is the first one;
“Discovery”, because that was my first comission. In 2001 I was granted by a Government contest with US 6000 to develop a 10 min piece of animation in 6 month. I had never worked in animation before and I had to work very hard to finish it. I even had troubles with my then girlfriend because I was spendig a great amount of time working day and night, she finally broke up with me! But the experience was great, drawing though the night and with no worries about anything, just enjoying the oportunity

How did you become interested in animation?
My grandfather introduced me into the comicbook universe when I was little, classic stuff like Alex Raymond with “Flash Gordon”, “The Spirit” of Will Eisner and Jean Giraud mostly known as Moebius. I also remember a lot of cartoons, Chuck Jones and the Bugs Bunny world. I also remember watching the “Star wars Holiday Special” and the great animation that Nelvana produced for that show,  but the main interest came when I Continue reading

Matt Wayne

What is your name and your current occupation?
Matt Wayne, animation writer and story editor. I have exactly one producer credit, which nobody will ever find. Recent work includes being story editor of the Marvel Super Hero Squad Show, co-story editor of something I can’t talk about till July, former co-story editor of Justice League Unlimited.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve done things for money that a gentleman shouldn’t discuss. And I sold newspaper subscriptions door-to-door. And I was a cook at Big Boy. I know, it’s crazy, right?
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10: Alien Force, Tom and Jerry Tales, Batman: Brave and the Bold. I’m especially proud of my shared credit with Joe Barbera on a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It doesn’t get cooler than that! I also was Managing Editor of Milestone Media, which made a lot of comics and sold the Static Shock! cartoon. The first years of that were one of the best times of my life. And it turns out that comics are the entertainment industry in miniature, so I learned a whole lot about “gatekeepers” and the like.
How did you become interested in animation?


I always loved cartoons. When I was 3 or 4, I wanted to be friends with Pixie and Dixie. I hatched a plan to break them out of the TV with a hammer, which my parents fortunately got wind of and thwarted. Rich Pursel, story editor onSpongeBob Squarepants, and writer of many of the good Ren and Stimpys, grew up across the street from me. We’ve been pals since we were toddlers. His interest in art and animation rubbed off on me. I’m not a writer/artist like he is, so I make up for it by being extra wordy. Rich and I watched all the terrible 70s cartoons on Saturday morning, and would do the kids’ version of critical analysis afterward–it always began Continue reading