The Remaking and Unmaking of Disney

*Three of the key players in Waking Sleeping Beauty, (Peter Schnieder, Roy Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

As young as the history of animation is (compared to the other arts), so much of its important history seems to be soooo far in the past. Challenging that notion is a new documentary feature Waking Sleeping Beauty directed by Don Hahn, chronicling the Disney studio between the years 1984 and 1994, a period where the dying industry of animated features was roused to new financial heights.

Peter Schnieder, the film's producer, remarked during a Q and A after a screening of the film at SVA, "We told the animators to believe you can do better than Walt." He went on to say, "In a way we did and in a way we didn't. But the important thing was to believe that we could." This was not only a pep talk to inspire animators, it was also a mission statement showing how much the thinking had changed at the Disney company.

The film describes the Ron Miller period of Disney as a sleepy little company slowly cranking out an animated feature every four years, and helmed by the remnants of Walt's original crews: sweet old men wearing cardigan sweaters. Back then a creative decision on a film would be answered by the question, "What would Walt do?" This would all change with Eisner and Wells at the wheel where it was understood that if the company was going to "win" they would have to abandon the notion of running each important decision by a dead man.

I was in High School when Roger Rabbit and Little Mermaid scampered, jumped, and splashed onto movie screens. It was amazing to see something that had meant so much to me suddenly be embraced by so many other people. Animation was big business again and Waking Sleeping Beauty tells that story, not the story of the animation artists. The way the filmmakers present it, the animators represent a herd of bodies to be moved from one building to another, waiting to be told what to do, how to feel about their work, and what to title their movies. But, don't feel too bad for them because during the good years that unfold, the animators get to buy BMWs too.

The big drama in this story came from the top. We can debate wether or not there should have been more artists included or identified (I vote that they should have), but to do so we might miss discussing the film that Hahn and Schnieder made. And, there's LOTS to discuss. At one point in the film, Bluth is labeled as "the man who kicked us when we were down," a reference to the 1979 exodus of artists that followed Bluth in resigning from Disney, something that setback the recovery of the studio. Yet, in retrospect, it almost looks like Bluth did Disney a favor. By whisking away all the malcontents, only the true believers remained. And, that was a necessary condition for the success that followed, one that was just as important as the hiring of Eisner, Wells, and Katzenberg.

Eisner and Wells were appointed by Roy Disney to save the Disney company from corporate raiders in the early 1980s. Waking Sleeping Beauty gives us a vivid and candid depiction of each man, showing their strengths and weaknesses and the nature of their relationship to each other. It seems that as each film grew to greater success, the strain between these four powerful men grew in tandem. The movie depicts them as hard driven men, each clamoring for credit and jealous of one another's accomplishments. Roy is depicted as having no love for Katzenberg, with the implication that he would have never allowed him to fill the position created by the untimely death of Wells. Meanwhile, Eisner makes the claim that if only Katzenberg had been patient he would have given the job.

One moment in the film sheds a new light on Roy's legacy. Waking Sleeping Beauty reveals another side of Roy, showing how his ego added to the mix and mess of the whole situation. There's footage of the memorial service just after Wells' death where Eisner is choked up while talking about his departed colleague and friend. At the end of his tearful speech he introduces Roy to the podium. What follows was fascinating. The situation was a memorial but Roy spends the first couple of moments grinning and laughing at the mic, teasing Eisner for not giving him a better introduction. "That's it?" he asks between chuckles. It's a moment of pure ego, one that can't be contained even for a moment.

Waking Sleeping Beauty shows how the artists and execs needed each other. Sure, each side had different goals. The execs' goal was to build the company into a modern media giant with animation as its engine. The artists wanted to do great works, to compete with Walt while at the same time follow in his tradition. Each side got to live out the fantasy, at least for a while.

According to Waking Sleeping Beauty, the period's creative VIP was Howard Ashman, the late lyricist responsible for much of the Broadway-style influence from Little Mermaid to Beauty and the Beast. Feature animation has always had a strong theatrical influence. Actors on a stage give "big performances" that can be read from the back row. Animators, by trade, over-exaggerate poses and gestures so they can be clearly read.

The Broadway musical is often a guilty pleasure, a celebration of schmaltz. So, when we see and hear that master animator Glen Keane insisted on being the animator for Ariel's I-want-song, "Part of Your World," the Broadway sensibility and a Disney animator's taste seem to be one and the same. Tellingly Katzenberg wanted that song cut from the film, but the creatives won the battle and the sequence stayed in. Such important artistic victories could happen at the start of this period. Makes you wonder who was minding the store during the Treasure Planet period that would follow. This certainly helps bolster Katzenberg's role in Disney's success because post-Lion King, the studio began floundering immediately.

I left the film feeling a bit sad. The power of Waking Sleeping Beauty is how it so vividly places us in the period that we almost believe we were there... and in a way we were there––in that we remember sitting in dark theaters, munching popcorn and slurping cokes when Ariel, Aladdin, and Simba first graced the screen at 24 frames per second. Make a point to see this film at NY's Sunshine Theatre (note the screenings that will include a Q and A with producer Peter Schnieder.)

Attitude and Gratitude

I have to admit that when I started I didn't know if there would be a place for me in this industry. Doesn't everyone have that natural bit of fear starting out? That was my mystery to solve but, once I got my first freelance job from then-SVA teacher/animation producer Mark Heller, the mystery was replaced with eternal gratitude to be able to work and earn a living doing what I love.

The thing that I've observed in my time in this business is that each of us define our own experience in this industry through (in large part) our own attitudes. If we think we're gonna get screwed or shafted at every corner, we'll put out an energy of fear, distrust, and self-defeat that can block opportunities for happiness and success in the field.

A few posts ago I wrote about Ian Jones-Quartey whose main career compass is simply to be open, trusting, and passionate about his art and work. He doesn't see the industry as a cut-throat place so, for him, it isn't. Discovering you have this power is like suddenly waking up a superhero, only without having to change your sheets.

I've made a ton of mistakes in this industry (just read my books to find a "greatest hits" of them) but, one thing I have tried to be consistent with is working with an open and positive attitude. To better explain this, a couple of stories come to mind that I haven't shared before. Not so long ago, I was doing a bit of Web animation for a leading kids entertainment company. The job started with an in-person meeting between me and four reps of the company (some producers, international execs, researchers, etc). At the hour-long meeting we set the creative direction for the animation. I left with a rough plan that I was to present back to them in the form of an animatic. This work took me two days, after which I presented the animatic to the client.

A day later, the main producer called me on the phone: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you gave us just what we asked for. The bad news is that the rest of the team changed direction and want to try something else."

I answered: "That's all useful news because now we have the benefit of having tried something and eliminated one possibility. That should help us nail the next version."

There was a brief silence before the producer spoke again. She was a little surprised to hear my positive attitude and I could already sense a lighter quality in her voice. Then I added, the only thing I ask is that the time I spent creating the first version be compensated. She agreed and we quickly arrived at a price. Next she explained that they planned to have another meeting to iron out the next version, saying I had the option of attending or not. Of course I wanted to be there!

A big part of what I love about being a virtual studio is that I get to participate in each job's creative planning and execution. This gives me more control over my fate and a personal connection to each job I take on. Attending meetings is also a fun excuse to get out of the house once in a while, not to mention a chance to help cement in-person relationships with another set of producers (both of which are important to getting repeat business).

I'm happy to report that the second stage of this project came off swimmingly, and better still, led to continued freelance with the company that I'm still enjoying today. In fact, this client turned out to be my main supplier of work in 2009, helping to keep me busy in a very bad year for the economy. Would all this have happened if I'd had a different attitude during the initial bumpy stage of the first job?

For another client, I once put in a total of two extra unpaid weeks spread out on either side of a long-term job to help organize the work and later to archive it. The job was for a start-up studio making a low budget series. I appreciated their trust in working with me and I considered the extra work I put in to be a part of my obligation to the project and the people behind it.

A good attitude and a lot of gratitude goes a long way towards helping us build the career of our choice, and at the very least, might help make up for the mistakes we will inevitably make along the way. Now, if I can only figure out which monkey above represents "attitude" and which represents "gratitude."

The Cunning of Christy Karacas

This past Monday evening, Super Jail (Adult Swim) creator Christy Karacas once again graced my SVA animation career class with his can-do spirit and inspiring story. Here is someone who seemed to be born trusting his own creative instincts. For example, when he needed to make a thesis film at RISD, he struggled with the process until he decided to play to his hunger for spontaneity by drawing random storyboard panels on index cards and then throwing them up in the air and assembling them in a random order. Christy said that this was partly inspired by a jazz musician he liked that worked a similar way. The result was the spontaneous montage of a film called Space War which went on to huge success on the festival circuit, indirectly leading to a job opportunity at MTV Animation.

While working as a background designer on Daria (because of a knack for perspective drawing), Christy heard about MTV's new plan to make a creative lab that would give money to staffers that wished to pitch a project. Not missing a beat, he and pal Steve Warbrick whipped up the concept for what would become their MTV-funded short Barfight. Christy told my class that he planned the short's content by catering to his own short attention span. "I get bored easily, so I like if a UFO can just drop in out of no where. I like to be surprised. I think what is the least expected thing that can happen and that's what I do."

Smoking gun #1: Notice how Christy's process was all internal. He didn't think, "What would MTV want?" or "What might the development executive want?" Instead, he and Steve planned and pitched a film they would enjoy making and watching, one that came from a personal place.

The MTV creative lab bit the dust before his film could be aired, so the filmmakers tried their hand at the festival circuit. Despite being popular among the NY animation community, Barfight did not go on to have any festival success, and for a time, Christy left animation and Steve took a job building animatics at Blue Sky.

Smoking gun #2: Could Christy have possibly known how short the window of opportunity would be for the MTV creative lab program? If he hadn't struck right away, there'd be no Barfight. And, while that may not have seemed important at the time, it sure turned out to be important later.

Years later, Christy was working as a package designer at a DVD company when his phone rang. On the line was someone from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. "Are you the guy who did Barfight?" the voice asked. A few weeks later, Christy and Steve met with the Adult Swim exec in NYC and pitched an idea centered around a super jail. "Imagine the world's biggest jail run by a Willie Wonka type character," they said.

Smoking gun #3: Creators have to be able to sum up their creations in a short sentence as Christy and Steve were able to do. If a series idea requires three paragraphs of explanation just to be able to understand it, it usually won't be a compelling animated pitch, let alone a compelling series to watch.

Not only did Christy and Steve's instincts serve them well, they also delivered (with the help of collaborators such as Aaron Augenblick and his studio) what might be the most unusual animated TV series to hit the air since South Park. Best of all, this show helped keep NYC series animation on the map during a very bad time for the economy. Check out the odd pleasures of Super Jail season 1, newly released on DVD, and bring home a modern day slice of New York animation history.

I Want That

A big appeal of working in this industry is that we each have the opportunity to make our own way, to build the careers of our choice. Unfortunately, it's sometimes hard to distinguish between what we personally want and what others have accomplished. So many of us "like the idea" of having their own series, getting a children's books published, opening a studio, directing a feature, winning an oscar... the list goes on and on...

Complicating the matter further is that, within the NY animation scene are many individuals who have achieved these goals, so it's not hard to imagine or fantasize about following in their footsteps. Sometimes it's simply the thought, "I could do that too."

As creative people we could set our agenda to achieving just about anything. And, that's often the very root of the problem. In my career I've had a difficulty honing in on what I really want to do. On the positive side, I've been fearless about going after what I want, but on the negative side I've spread myself thin and set goals that didn't always represent where I might best spend my energies.

I imagine that lots of animation folks have this problem. How many of us know the exact path we should follow, eliminating all else? Personal development is a messy thing, full of twists and turns, and not the tidy series of events it appears to be on a resume.

So how did all this play out in my career? For starters, since I worked so often in preschool TV, the majority of my animation pitches tended to be preschool ideas. Looking back, this was not because it was my passion, but more because it was familiar. I knew the world, the rules, and was trying to capitalize on the time I logged working on preschool projects. It was an area where I thought I could be taken seriously. The problem is that preschool TV is concept and curriculum heavy with little-to-no room for character development or humor. So, developing preschool pitches left out some of my key interests, areas that would have given me a real connection to what I had created.

For the pitches I recently created with Xeth Feinberg, we focused on educational series for the ages 5-7 where there is a larger opportunity to add humor and character to the mix. The result? Xeth and I cooked up projects we'd be really excited to make, and not just because it would give us a job. We've already seen a few nibbles of real interest for our trouble, and in the mean time we are making a two minute film to even better illustrate one of our ideas. Because of our connection to the project, it doesn't feel like "work" for us to continue this way. Quite the opposite. We can't wait to get our hands on it and make a little film.

I'm also working on some pitches for Nicktoons (which caters to a 6-12 year old audience) with a couple of partners. Again, I have the amazing feeling of being in my element. Because I logged so much time trying to develop in other areas, I can really feel the difference when something clicks with what I want to do. I'm gradually learning the difference between "wanting" and "what I want."

All in a New York Week

I'm not the first person to observe that sometimes it feels as if there's an animation-related event going on every night in NYC. Last week was no exception, starting out in high style with a presentation at SVA by a living legend, Russian animator Yuri Norstein. For great coverage of that event, see these informative posts by Michael Sporn, Richard O'Connor, and Dayna Gonzalez. "Hedgehog in the Fog," so richly captures the filmmaker's philosophy of exploring the psychology that makes characters move, behave, and react the way they do. And, if that weren't enough, Norstein is equally interested in his characters' relationship to the spaces their in––he calls the space (including camera moves and lighting) another "character" in the film.

So, how does all this play out in the film? In an early key moment, when the fog first envelops the title character, the hedgehog instinctually holds up his precious jar of jam out of the fog's reach (pictured above) as if the fog were a living thing that might swallow up his bundle. It's as true and honest a moment as has ever been committed to film. All at once it establishes the fog as something unknown to the hedgehog. And, the innocence of lifting the jam aloft reveals the animal's young age, while at the same time giving us a glimpse of character by showing how he'll cope with something new and unfamiliar. Some get their kicks from seeing blue people frolic around an alien landscape in Avatar, but Norstein's animation of the hedgehog and his jam jar is the stuff that gives me goosebumps.

And, what can I say about Norstein's work-in-progress clips from his forthcoming "The Overcoat," except that it's truly rare to see the work of an animator who is not only working at his own personal peak, but a peak that is also a pinnacle for the entire art-form. There's very few examples of this in the history of animation. If animation had its own Mt. Rushmore, I'd nominate Norstein's head to be carved right next to Walt Disney.


The topic swung from art to the TV cartoon later in the week when I presented a pitching and development panel to a capacity crowd at MoCCA on Thursday night. For the more intimate setting of a museum I went with a two person panel made up of Nickelodeon animation president Brown Johnson and creator Fran Krause.

We hit all the important points on the subject and there were a lot of memorable moments. Fran (who has been on ALL THREE book panels I've had thus far!) explained his reluctance to create a hook or a gimmick for his pitches until someone at the network explained to him that at some point "a five year old kid needs to be able to explain his cartoon to another five year old." This idea was reinforced earlier at our December John Dilworth event where a letter from Linda Simensky was read that included a bit where her young daughter was able to succinctly explain "Courage the Cowardly Dog."

Fran already described the experience of making his second pilot (with co-creator Will Krause) for Cartoon Network (image from their pilot, "Upstate Four," pictured above) in great depth at this post on cartoonbrew, but this night he revealed another piece of the puzzle. During the seven years it took for that pitch to go to pilot production, Fran confessed he didn't really know his characters yet, nor was he sure they would work. It wasn't until he was making that pilot and cast the actors that it came together. Imagine being the executive having to decide which projects to green light, when even creators aren't certain what they have! All the more reason why a creator has to build up his creative acumen because a pitcher is judged (in large part) by his ability to execute, and nothing proves this more than the pitcher's previously completed creative works.


I was thrilled to have Brown Johnson (pictured above) on my panel. She's probably the most influential animation exec in TV today, as Nickelodeon is the nation's largest supplier of original TV animation. Since her promotion to president, she now overseas all of Nick animation development from preschool to older kids cartoons, while also heading up Nick's global animation development slate. Brown told us about Nick's unique development model for its preschool development, which consists of a long and short form assignment. Each year or so they choose a new agenda, for instance, recently seeking out a math-based show. Once they have their direction they reach out to a select bunch of writers and artist whom they've always wanted to work with or work with again. The creators break into teams and each pitch back a show based on the set agenda/curriculum. The most recent example of this being the new series Team Umizoomi, currently still in production at NY's Curious Pictures.

Nick Jr.'s short-form initiative is similarly set up, only the goal is to make a self-contained interstitial, one that might one day make the leap into a series in the way that Wonder Pets and Ni Hao Lai Kan have done. For Nicktoons development, Brown unveiled that (in addition to normal "paper development" where a network options a project and asks for more designs/scripts, etc,) they sometimes do something called "Open Mic," that gives creators some money to make a simple 1-2 minute short starring one to two characters just being characters. She said it is really an attempt to find characters using the simplicity of a stand-up comedy style motif. Just a character being entertaining in and of themselves. Sounds like fun to me! Brown said, "We just give the creator the money and they go away and make the film." It's nice to see that some of Nick's development may go through such a direct process.


From pure art, to art mixed with commerce, the next evening had us going all the way to the business side with a presentation by the musical accountant, Steven Zelin (you guessed it, pictured above). Dayna Gonzalez introduced and arranged this event for ASIFA-East, and just in time for tax season! Steven Zelin explained that you are either in business or you are just doing this as a hobby. Anyone from a studio owner to an individual freelancer working from home is, in fact, in business so it wouldn't hurt to have a little education in that area from time to time.

Zelin conducted his work-shop style event while casually perched on a desk and plucking away at his guitar as he discussed 1099, W-2, W-4, and 1040 forms and more. He opened with a parody song of "When You're Smiling," retitled "When You're Filing." Then, Zelin had everyone in the audience ask tax questions which Dayna Gonzalez scribed on the chalk board. The event stretched to three hours as Zelin addressed all those and more, but the evening felt more like a breezy 10 minutes. Who knew tax info for the artist could go down so easy? At the close of the event Elliot Cowan and Justin Simonich were practically demanding that this become an annual event. The challenges of being in business aren't going away, so maybe this event shouldn't go away either.

To sum up, three events running the spectrum from animation art to animation business. I was glad to be at all three!...all in a New York week.

Report from KidScreen Summit 2010

For a time I didn't think I'd be attending this year's Kidscreen Summit because I wasn't a featured speaker or panelist. But, then I got the idea to propose a panel on the rise of low-cost/high-yield indie animated features. In other words, an animated feature made between for an average of $20 million dollars catering to a niche market or courting the mainstream success of hit indie films such as The Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Paranormal Activity.

The purpose of the the KidScreen Summit is for network executives, production studios, marketing folks, new media wizards, and distributors to meet, reconnect, and do business. As we all know, the business of entertainment has been changing year-to-year. One sign of the times was the abundance of independent producers in attendance. My friend, producer Melanie Grisanti, remarked that ten years ago most of the people like herself would have representing a production or a network, but these days producers are often between projects, working as consultants, and using the Summit to hustle up work much like creators might do. I've always thought that producers and animation artists were on the same team and now they are also in similar situations. An interesting trend showing that we have a long way to go before our industry fully recovers.

As a creative person attending the Summit, there's always a moment or two where the "business side" confounds me. On one hand there are business execs saying that a kids media pitch has to have a multi-media strategy built in from creation, which should include a games component, web specific content, etc. But, then you hear others say, "It's about finding great characters." I side with the latter because the internet and games worlds are filled with tons of failed character liscenesed product that makes no connection with an audience. Besides, what happened to the time when execs used to advise pitchers NOT to come in with a merchandizing plan showing characters on T-shirts but to instead concentrate on creating a strong character-based property?

So much of this confusing noise comes from these new media specialists or consultants that need to justify their own services. But, the bigger concern is that if creators bog themselves down with trying to hit every target at once as they develop an idea, they will end up with a big fat zero. Remember that Poochie episode of The Simpsons? That's just the type of creation you get with such thinking. You don't need a committee to be destroyed by committee-style thinking.

Two terms I kept hearing at this year's Summit was IP (intellectual property) and "play platforms" (another term for "toyetic" or how kids play along with a series through toys and games, etc). So don't make the mistake of calling a pitch a "creation" or ancillary areas "consumer products." Those terms are so "1999," which is incidentially the last year an animation mega hit was created (SpongeBob). SpongeBob predated a time when a would-be creator needed to worry about a plan for "play platforms." But, some how despite this, Spongebob proved itself pretty adaptable to those areas––even ones that weren't even invented yet in 1999. Food for thought.

One of the best sessions I attended at the Summit was "30 minutes with Kate Klimo," the VP & Publisher at Random House Children's Books. Klimo told us about Random House's new agenda to translate their books into animated TV series. I asked her if this was having any effect on how they were evaluating their children's book submissions. She said that at first it did have an effect on that process, a negative one. Having to look at book pitches with the added burden of imagining them as a TV series property greatly slowed down the works. They had difficulty choosing projects and trying to plan so far in advance also complicated their contract negotiations with author/creators. After a short while, they realized their mistake and decided to consider book proposals as strictly books. If and when a book takes off to big success, Random House can take that property and try to develop and sell it as an animated series. Listening to Kate Klimo was like a voice of reason in a sea of noise and a good reminder that creators should focus on creating great characters, be they in books, films, or animation pitches.

All this aside, my ticket inside KidScreen was my panel event spotlighting the new model of indie animated features. Here's a list of my panelists along with some insights they shared with the audience.


Iginio Straffi
The Founder and CEO of The Rainbow animation studio, as well as creator of its most famous product, the Winx Club series, which, culminated with the Winx feature film “The Secret of the Lost Kingdom." Beside its headquarters near Loreto, Rainbow now has offices in Rome, Spain, Hong Kong, The Netherlands and Singapore.
Iginio confessed to being a dreamer with a whole drawer full of feature film ideas he'd love to make one day...but, he lamented that the U.S. market seems near impossible to crack into. He treated us to a funny clip from a 3D movie his studio is making featuring the misadventures of some ancient Roman soldiers. The clip was well directed with snappy timing and clever writing. Maybe Roman soldiers could be the next big thing? After all, who would have thought pirates would have come back into style?


Fred Seibert
The president and exec producer of Frederator Studios. He is currently the executive producer of six cartoon series on Nickelodeon's networks --including, the new hit series Fanboy & Chum Chum, and he's developing animated feature films at Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures.
Fred has been targeting an underserved segment of the audience by developing animated feature films that fans of (say) Family Guy might pay to see. He noted that up till now the only films made for this audience are live action comedies such as The Hangover. Fred revealed he had developed a feature called Super Fuckers about a bunch of screw-up teen superheroes. Despite trying to gear some of his features towards underserved moviegoers, Fred explained that he's a "pop culture guy" who's goal is to make hit product a-laThe Beatles.


Heather Kenyon
The VP, Project Development and Sales, Starz Animation, a Division of Starz Media, where she is seeking projects suited for Film Roman for TV, features and the direct-to-DVD market. She is the former senior director of development, original series at Cartoon Network, and the former editor-in-chief of Animation World Network.
Heather explained that Starz is aiming to keep their features down below the $50 million budget mark. Their first feature venture, 9, cost $30 million and grossed $32 million in US box office. She noted that in America, Disney has traditionally defined what people think of as the animated feature but that perception can be changed over time with films such as 9 that sport different subjects and design approaches. She thinks this area of animation is growing: the smaller, differently targeted animated feature. 


Paul Young
The co-founder of Irish Animation and Design studio, Cartoon Saloon, Producer of the animated feature The Secret of Kells and Executive Producer of the animated children’s series Skunk Fu!. He is currently in development on a number of projects including a new Feature film by his studio partner Tomm Moore, Song of the Sea.
Paul accepted our congratulations on the Oscar nomination of The Secret of Kells and suggested that Cartoon Saloon would like to become the Jim Jarmusch of animated features, making small interesting films. He said that Kells director Tomm Moore's blog helped generate a lot of interest in their film during the long period in which it was made. When I asked him how they made the most of their meager $6 million Euro budget, he answered that all the money is up on the screen. Everyone worked for low wages in order to make the film as good as possible.

My main point was that the easy mistake for an indie to make would be to try to imitate a Pixar experience at a fraction of their budget, schedule, and resources. During the 1930s and 40s, the Warner Brothers Animation unit couldn't imitate what Disney was doing at that time so they became something else, culiminating in Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies. And, while foreign and domestic indie animated feature films have not yet created a major stir in North America, barriers like that were made to be broken. After all, who was looking for a 4 piece band from Liverpool prior to 1964? No English music star had amounted to hill of beans in America prior to the Fab Four's arrival. That logic tells me an indie animation Blair Witch-sized hit is inevitable. And, just like The Beatles ushering in the British Invasion, it might knock this barrier down once and for all.

Outside of the panel event I was buzzing around the Summit taking meetings with production companies, show creators, and network executives––sometimes pitching the show ideas Xeth Feinberg and I cooked up, and sometimes just comparing war stories on working in the business. Best of all were the opportunities to say hello and spend some time with old Nickelodeon collegues Kay Wilson Stallings, Teri Weiss, Dr. Alice Wilder, Koyalee Chanda, and Sarah Chumsky. I also enjoyed catching up with Little Airplane's Tom Brown and Tone Thyne, and former Little Airplane mainstay Heather Tilert, and Big Bad Boo founders Shabnam Rezaei and Aly Jetha. There's so many things going on at any given time that it's possible to miss someone completely. For example, I didn't see the Ottawa International Animation Festival's Azarin Sohrabkhani, who was there to check out Kidscreen's panel events for TAC research, until the very last hour of the three-day event.

Besides my official pitches, I was also the animator of a pilot for another project being presented by creator Shelly Delice with her partners Linda Kahn and Melanie Grisanti. It was fun to check in with them from time to time to see how their meetings were going.

Walking around the Summit you can grow contacts very easily. Your friends introduce you to their friends and its easy to meet others at the coffee station, on couches in the delegate's lounge, or simply by talking to your neighbor seated beside you at an event. A lot of these meetings have the potential to grow work, especially work with clients outside of the New York area. And, that can mean a lot in periods when work is scarce in the big apple. I don't consider myself a business person, but I take the business of my career very seriously.

Passion and Ian Jones-Quartey

Post-it sketch and warm up doodles by animation director Ian Jones-Quartey (pictured above).

"Don't focus on getting a job. Focus on your passion for animation." These words of advice were spoken by Venture Bros. animation director and SVA alum, Ian Jones-Quartey, to the students in my career class at SVA this past Monday night.

Ian is an impressive character, and not only because his first industry job was as an animation director. He interned at World Leaders during his junior year and it was then that his inking talents were noticed, leading to the studio offering him freelance work into his senior year. But, once it became clear how much of a commitment his thesis film would require, he had to decide which was more important, finishing school or dropping out to work. Wanting to finish what he started, he informed World Leaders that he'd have to stop working for them to focus on his thesis.

Once he finished his thesis he returned to World Leaders to screen the film for his former employers, also handing out promotional postcards. A few days later, they called him with a job offer to direct a flash animated series. Yes, Ian had made a terrific film, which certainly helped World Leaders decide to offer him a job...but, another key element to his opportunity was the fact that he visited the studio, wanting to show them his film. It showed that he valued their opinions and the relationships he'd made during his time interning and working there.

But, the most impressive part of the story happened a year later. Ian was still working at the studio when he happened by a desk that belonged to a supervisor on The Venture Bros. Ian hadn't worked on that project, but he noticed a stack of envelope packs on the supervisors desk. He asked what they were and the supervisor answered that they were Venture Bros. sheet directing tests about to be mailed out. Ian asked if he could see one and the supervisor had one xeroxed up.

"I had no plans to do the test," Ian recalls, saying, "I just thought it might be cool to check out and be a fun thing to have." But, Ian did more than check it out. He tried to time out the first scene that night. The next day he showed it to the supervisor who helped him correct the work and gave him other pointers. Ian repeated this process each day for the next week and a half until he had the test finished. But, he still had no expectations that he would get the job. He was just curious and wanted to learn. And, this passion was not lost on the production, which wisely offered him the sheet directing job on the series.

In contrast, Ian told our class about a former intern he knew that was very bitter after not being offered a job at the studio following the internship. In that intern's eyes, he was owed a job and fully expected to be offered one at a moment of his choosing. For Ian, this was an affirmation of his approach to not focus on any single job opportunity, but on his passion for animation instead. And, passion mixed with talent and good people skills has way of landing job opportunities. Ian Jones-Quartey is one of those people that seemed to instinctually know this from the start. I'm very grateful he returned to my class to impart a bit of that wisdom and experience to the students.

And, if the above is not impressive enough, for much of the last three years, in his spare time, Ian has been producing his own animated Web series, with co-creator Jim Gisriel, called knockFORCE. As they say, If you want something done, ask a busy person.