The Heatherley Disruptor

I highly recommend this piece for today's animation supervisor. Its a quick draw multi-round unit, and Its essential for protection while dealing with the unruly animators of today.... like Scott Heatherley.

Praveen under the lens

I have mentioned that Praveen enjoys pulling pranks on various people in the animation department. Today a couple of animators decided to start keeping a closer eye on him and his behavior. The cameras are set to go off every 30 seconds. Praveen became very annoyed by this and forged an email from HR. This was easily seen through and foiled by the opposing animators. Praveen later shanghaied one of the cameras, fled to a washroom, deleted the succession of photos taken of him, attempted to take a photo of his bare ass, which failed thankfully. Later he resorted to silly spray and zapped Cayle (seen here in the BG) square in the head while Cayle was offering a truce. This is the animation crew.

Plotting.....
 

Creation of.... ???

Gary Dunn the character designer of 'Gnomeo and Juliet' is a kid like troublemaker the size of a mountain. He got a hold of these pictures of animation supervisors Morgan Ginsberg and Dougg Williams and this is the result. There, now everyone can be disturbed.

9

These are 3 of the people I meet while working on '9' the movie. All are from various studios in the States, and all are nice folks. There are a lot of opinions on '9' as a movie. One thing I will say, I respect Shane very much for trying to do something different from what is the norm of westernised animated films.

Shane Acker the director.

 

Joe Ksander the animation director.

Kristin Solid was one of the other another animation supervisors.

More Anvil..

As I mentioned on a previous post. Samad is very entertaining character. These are some more drawings I did of him while visiting his desk during my afternoon animation rounds.

 

Samad's wife went away on a trip, so he decided to let his beard grow and became a wild man (at least until she came home).

 

 

Samad has about 2381 cousins.  Occasionally they will stop by his house and eat all his food.

 

 

Samad and I discussing one of his animation scenes.

 

 

Nothing like a good piece of gum.

 

Samad did some really great animation work on Gnomeo and Juliet, especially the Benny character.

 

One of his late night bingers. He has an average of at least 2 a week.

 

Samad likes to keep an eye on everyone at the studio. Especially Praveen, his sworn enemy.

 

 

The Bio Epic

 

 

Chuck Gammage drawing Me as....

This was while we were working on a Hubba Bubba commercial. The Mandaryl baboon.

While working on an Avril  Lavigne job.

A Campbell's soup ad featuring Popeye. Paul Motta is an assistant animator, he and I shared an office.

Another Chuck drawing while we were working on a couple Kellogg's cereal milk bar commercials for the UK featuring a cow character named Uder.

I look like Frankenstein.

Or a bulldog (from a Dennys commercial years ago)

Alan Barillaro

Alan and I went to cartoon school years ago and we have been good friends ever since. On graduation, he went off south to Pixar, and I decided to avoid that cgi stuff and stay in Canada to work in the traditional hand drawn animation. Who was the smarter one.

Anyway, we have a good chat roughly every other month about the business and various things. Every time will always include how entertaining his little kids are. One instance, he told me about an argument he had with them (and lost) over the scientific naming of a Brontosaurus.

Praveen Nadarju

Praveen is hands down one of the most entertaining people I know. He lives for pranking his co-workers, taking an extra interest in attacking Samad Khan. The amazing thing is more than half the time his pranks fail big time, in most cases backfiring on himself all to the enjoyment of the animation team. He has however occasionally gotten them to work, nearly bringing people to the edge of a nervous breakdown... Morgan Ginsberg for example.

I do thumbnails and drawings at peoples desks while doing animation rounds. Sometimes I do fun drawings of the animators to try and keep things light. One drawing I did of Praveen he said I made him look fat. So I re drew this for him.

 

Praveen is also an amateur magician (go figure) and like his pranks, his tricks usually go horribly wrong. Anyway he's fun guy to work with.

 

Deanna Marsigliese

I met Deanna years ago when she did a stint of work at Chuck Gammage Animation. She is an exceptionally talented lady and has done very well for herself, most recently working at Pixar. Not only is Deanna a great lady but she is a lot of fun to work with as well.  For example, while she was working at Chuck's, one of the many pranks we played on her was using a laugh track after every time she spoke. That's a great way to annoy anyone.

Occasionally Deanna would come into my office and we would have great chats while I was working. I think this instance she was unhappy and bored with her current wardrobe. Therefore the Paper bag Princess.

Vanessa Arsen

I did this little drawing during animation rounds. I met Vanessa a few years ago while working on '9'  and have worked with her ever since. She is a bit of a dynamo, doing great work, tackling difficult scenes and working very fast. In fact she did the most footage on 'The Nut Job' and like the picture she was smiling the entire time. Vanessa is such a great person to work with.

More Happy Ginsberg and associates

Chuck taking swings at Morgan again.

 

This is Morgan on a regular work day approximately about 9:52 am.

 

 

 

Morgan and Rolph.

 

Morgan and Dogbert.

 

 

Morgan and I.

 

 

And a Shane drawing.

 

Chuck draws Chuck

A couple of Chuck drawings.

 

Brendan Beesley

Brendan is a great animator and really good guy as well. I meet him on '9' and he has steadily increased his animation skills since then. So much so, he was offered and accepted a job at a prominent studio in the states. Everyone in the animation department is very happy for him.

The animation crew are all compressed into a very tight space. Shane observed this 'accident' as Brendan passed by me. The court case is still pending.

A couple of my drawings of Bees.

 

Occasionally Brendan would lift up the building as he arrived and left work.

Shane Doyle is a menace

There is, or should be a certain code amongst artists. You don't EVER draw on someone else's drawing unless permission is given. One day I left the studio for lunch, and this is the nonsense I came back to. I don't like this image, it does not reflect me at all. In fact, my face is incapable of making that expression. Doyle and the animation crew are enjoying the fact that I'm annoyed, and because of that blasted code I cant change Shane's crap drawing.

This drawing came shortly later

The animation team was working on an OT weekend and Shane and I went out to get lunch. There was a Brownie selling cookies so I bought a few boxes for the crew. Apparently this is what Shane saw. "Here you go mister, that'll be $5 please."

Annoyed... still

The majority of the time I keep a really cool head, and I like to think I keep my professionalism in check. But once in a while something or someone will set me off.

This drawing was done by Morgan Ginsberg and its one of my favourites. He tends not to do a lot of these sorts of drawings so I was happy to get it... even though I was threatening his life at the time.

As I mentioned, I have known Morgan for 20+ yrs and I mean everything I said about him. But, this image is still an ongoing daily possibility. Drawn while working on Gnomeo and Juliet.

I was doing some design work and talking to a director at a particular studio. He was filling me on some disgusting behavior a producerling was doing to him. This at least made him laugh.

  

My reaction to an agency being stupid again. Costing the studio employees time and money. Many animation studio's and artists suffer huge losses due to agency stupidity. Chuck's drawing.

A particular agency person that was extremely difficult to work with. This person got off on causing grief to every Toronto studio and post house they went into. His nasty childish behaviors subsequently pissing me (and everyone else in the city) off every time he had to be worked with. Chuck's drawing. 

Working yet again on the weekend to meet a tight commercial deadline. This is me hearing the people at the 'My Apartment' patio far below the studio enjoying themselves. Chuck's drawing again.

Chuck's general impression after a year of working with me.