Category Archives: Profiles

Probably everyone in the business has heard the saying that animators are shy actors, and I think that’s true in my case. I like telling stories but not public speaking, so animation is perfect for me.

Tell us about your short in this year’s festival.
Nate Sipes of the bluegrass band Pert Near Sandstone wrote this cool song called “Ship of Fools” that recalls this mythic custom originating in Renaissance times of putting all the town crazies on a boat, and sending them down the coast, picking up lunatics until they ran out of places to go, just aimlessly floating and being in a situation that becomes more and more surreal and mad. Kind of like a party bus, but with scurvy and death. This animation illustrates that concept, and was inspired by the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch.

Do you do other kinds of art that inform your animation work?
I like to sketch in ballpoint, and I also do digital illustrations that sometimes end up being concept paintings for animations I’d like to do. My sketchbooks are full of weird characters, and I come up with ideas for stories by building plots around those characters.

Who are some of your favorite/inspirational animators?
My new favorite is the short “Bee and Puppycat” by Natasha Allegri, who was a writer and art director on Adventure Time. Another AT person, Rebecca Sugar, does great work and is on the verge of being the first woman to helm her very own show on Cartoon Network, Steven Universe, so she’s a hero of mine. Stylistically I admire the scratchy art of Heidi Smith, who worked on Paranorman, and Carter Goodrich.

Is Minnesota a good place to do animation? And what do we need here to make it a better place for animation?
Coming from South Dakota, MN is a great place for animation! I really think there’s a solid network of like-minded people in the area, but we need to be more prominent in the film/arts community.

 

Why do you like animation?

I wanted to study animation at MCAD literally because it was the only medium I knew absolutely nothing about, and wanted to try my hand at. I love to draw, I always have, so I felt my skills there would see me through. Once I finished my first character animation class I knew I wanted to be an animator. I love making things move, and telling stories. I like to make people laugh.

Tell us about your short in this year’s festival.

“Leonard” is a project I made in my senior year at MCAD. I wrote it initially to fit within the time constraints we were given (no more than 2 minutes). I wanted to do something funny, or at least funny to me, since I’d be working on it pretty much all the time for about 10 months. It is the first fully realized animation I’ve made.

Do you do other kinds of art that inform your animation work?

Before I became pretty engrossed in animation as a digital format, I loved to paint with watercolor. I’m really attracted to bright palettes, which is probably why “Leonard” is so saturated in color. I also used some watercolor textures in the backgrounds that I had scanned into Photoshop. I also love film, so my approach to animation tends to be very cinematic and less “cartoon” like. I’ve been told I have a naturalistic style of animation…I animate characters based on how they would move in real life.

Who are some of your favorite/inspirational animators?

David O’Reilly is probably my all-time favorite contemporary animator. He uses 3D low poly characters in really conceptual and interesting ways. He’s also not afraid to tell people what’s on his mind, and he’s a very accessible artist – I’ve had conversations with him on twitter and via email. As far as structure and writing, I think I’m very influenced by Wes Anderson, specifically his stop motion “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”. It was the first animation I saw that really opened my mind to the possibilities of the medium.

Is Minnesota a good place to do animation? And what do we need here to make it a better place for animation?

Why do you like animation?

I think it’s a fun way to pass the time, but most importantly I feel that, in the end, animations look far better on screen than people do.

Tell us about your short in this year’s festival.

It’s a short about SPACE NATURE (include dramatic voice when reading) documentation, that takes a turn for the silly.

Do you do other kinds of art that inform your animation work?

Unfortunately, no. It makes it incredibly difficult for me to animate due to the fact that I have no skill with sculpting, drawing, or tailoring. I feel my sets and characters always come up short.

Who are some of your favorite/inspirational animators?

Tim Burton and Henry Selick are the two that come to mind right away. Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie are wonderful films that I adore, although Coraline is by far my favorite film.

Is Minnesota a good place to do animation? And what do we need here to make it a better place for animation?

It doesn’t seem like a bad place to do animation, but I’m not really a good judge for that. I really think that to make it a better place for animation, we just need more animators.

I believe the potential is there. The conduit between the creative and their audience is a little more challenging to find in MN, but the talent and the appetite for it is there. There needs to be more opportunities, like MinnAnimate, for artists to showcase their work and connect with an audience.

We work as a team. We worked commercially in California and Minnesota from the mid 70ʼs until about 2000. We wanted to do animation for adults and together we created the feature My Art School Summer. Since then – we work on shorts and Dave teaches Character Animation and Storyboard at MCAD.
We like mixing theater/story and drawing. Dave has been drawing comics with the Cartoonist Conspiracy, and making mini comics that become storyboards for us to animate – and that is how Climate Conference came into being.
Favorite inspirational animators; Tex Avery, Jay Ward, Bruno Bozzetto, Picha and Renaissance paintersʼ drawing skills.
Longer winters would give more time indoors animating; we never get much animation done in the summer.