History & Philosophy
I spent most of my childhood drawing, reading comics, and watching television. My parents were never able to keep typewriter paper in the house as I would steal it for drawings as early as the age of 3. Spiderman, Flintstones, Pink Panther, Scooby Doo, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Looney Tunes, Astroboy, Marvel/DC Comics, and The Muppet Show became major sources of inspiration. When I became a teenager I saw shows like Ren & Stimpy, Batman, Animaniacs and then I slowly realized that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of his life.
In 1999, I finished my diplomas in Graphic Design and Digital Animation and quickly became a dedicated full-time cartoon junkie. I began work as an animator at Collideascope Animation Studios, and later became a designer, director and consultant on numerous projects for that company. Thus far I've worked on several productions over the last 13 years, including shows for Cartoon Network, BBC, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Teletoon, and YTV. Eventually directing over 400 episodes of television animation.
At Collideascope I hired and supervised over 500 animation artists over the course of 8 years. In 2001, I helped produced one of the very first fully-animated Flash series for television. Since then, I had the pleasure of animating, designing, storyboarding, supervising on many shows, music videos and demos. Eventually I produced my own short film that won honors at a couple festivals, gained experience in writing, voice recording, sound effects, color design, and editing, while meeting so many awesome people along the way.
At Copernicus, I supervised a crew of animators for 4 seasons of Teen Titans GO! and directed layout and animation for sequences of the 77 minute feature film in 2017.
If there’s one thing I have learned about the crazy world of broadcast animation, is that planning is still the most important part of the production. You round up the script, your boards and designs, and talk to countless people about your idea; then you attack. Once the road has been cleared, Flash makes the rest of the production quite painless. The scene turnover rate is incredible, and the quality is as good as you want it to be. I feel that it is just as important to tell a good story as it is to make a drawing move beautifully. The speed at which Flash (or any 2D-CG digital animation tool) allows one to put together a short film or broadcast-quality animated series is amazing… just think, we can give those sweatshops a break and bring more work back to Canada.
Animation is a complete and total collaboration. Although it's best to have one person with a vision of where the story's going, but it's the input and creativity from every person in every department that makes it great. Of course, you've got to shake the bad ideas but it's all in the building of entertaining characters and a good story. With every department (including animation) in the same building, communication is open for everyone - you can watch the shows come together every day and fix anything as it gets designed, boarded, animated and composited. I learned that having the entire production in-house is vital to a smooth-running operation. It's how they did it back in the day, it's how I love doing it now, and it's absolutely what works the best.
Animation is the perfect marriage of drawing and acting. The only limits are the edges of the frame and your own imagination.
In 1999, I finished my diplomas in Graphic Design and Digital Animation and quickly became a dedicated full-time cartoon junkie. I began work as an animator at Collideascope Animation Studios, and later became a designer, director and consultant on numerous projects for that company. Thus far I've worked on several productions over the last 13 years, including shows for Cartoon Network, BBC, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Teletoon, and YTV. Eventually directing over 400 episodes of television animation.
At Collideascope I hired and supervised over 500 animation artists over the course of 8 years. In 2001, I helped produced one of the very first fully-animated Flash series for television. Since then, I had the pleasure of animating, designing, storyboarding, supervising on many shows, music videos and demos. Eventually I produced my own short film that won honors at a couple festivals, gained experience in writing, voice recording, sound effects, color design, and editing, while meeting so many awesome people along the way.At Copernicus, I supervised a crew of animators for 4 seasons of Teen Titans GO! and directed layout and animation for sequences of the 77 minute feature film in 2017.
If there’s one thing I have learned about the crazy world of broadcast animation, is that planning is still the most important part of the production. You round up the script, your boards and designs, and talk to countless people about your idea; then you attack. Once the road has been cleared, Flash makes the rest of the production quite painless. The scene turnover rate is incredible, and the quality is as good as you want it to be. I feel that it is just as important to tell a good story as it is to make a drawing move beautifully. The speed at which Flash (or any 2D-CG digital animation tool) allows one to put together a short film or broadcast-quality animated series is amazing… just think, we can give those sweatshops a break and bring more work back to Canada.
Animation is a complete and total collaboration. Although it's best to have one person with a vision of where the story's going, but it's the input and creativity from every person in every department that makes it great. Of course, you've got to shake the bad ideas but it's all in the building of entertaining characters and a good story. With every department (including animation) in the same building, communication is open for everyone - you can watch the shows come together every day and fix anything as it gets designed, boarded, animated and composited. I learned that having the entire production in-house is vital to a smooth-running operation. It's how they did it back in the day, it's how I love doing it now, and it's absolutely what works the best.Animation is the perfect marriage of drawing and acting. The only limits are the edges of the frame and your own imagination.
