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Phil Nibbelink has been drawing his whole life. He studied art at Western Washington State University and film in Rome Italy’s Il Instituto di Stato per la Cinematografia. After attending the Disney Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts, Phil joined Disney Studios to animate on The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Oliver and Company and Roger Rabbit. In 1989 he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to direct American Tail, We’re Back and Casper. Phil went on to start his own company where he wrote, directed and animated 3 features, Puss in Boots, Leif Ericson, and his third feature Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss, won him a 1st place and ‘Best-in-Show’ award at the Best-in-the-SouthWest film festival. Phil had too much fun teaming up with his old college roommate David Greenblatt to create the graphic novel Ultima Thula.

Enjoy listening to this great talent discussing about a time when we were Drawn2gether and you can meet him at the CTN Animation Expo (CTN-X) on Nov 20-22, 2009

You can see more of Phil Nibbelink’s  work and contact him directly at:

Creative Talent Network and   www.philnibbelink.com

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Born and raised in Southern California, STEVEN E. GORDON has been a professional in the animation industry since 1977.  He was hired while still in High School by Ralph Bakshi Productions to work on the feature film “Lord of the Rings”. It wasn’t long before Steve was given more responsibility and by 1982 he was Animation Director and Key Animator on the Bakshi / Frazetta feature “Fire and Ice”.  Steve’s next job was a five year stint at Disney Pictures animating on “The Black Cauldron” and other films. For the next 12 years he worked on and off with Rich Animation on a series of direct-to-videos, pioneering character layout – the industry standard, and was Animation Director / Character Designer / Key Animator on “The Swan Princess. He then continued Directing and Character Design on the highly rated “X-Men: Evolution” TV series for Kids WB where he not only directed on the first two seasons, but also did every single character design himself for all four seasons with only the help of a clean-up artist. He then went to Dreamworks and worked in the story dept. and received a credit for his work on the huge Hit Shrek 2. After Dreamworks he went to work for Marvel/Lionsgate Productions as a director and a character designer on the Ultimate Avengers. He also directed a direct-to-video for Stan Lee and co-directed the direct-to-video sequel to “Happily N’ever After” for Lionsgate and is currently a director of the new series Wolverine and the X-Men.

Here is a rare interview with one of the top 5 animators in animation today who has worked with every TV and feature animation studio that is in Southern California.

Bill Melendez

Holiday Traditions, we all have our rituals right? The things we do with our families every year without fail. My family gets together and we enjoy my Mom’s delicious handmade Tamales with a warm cup of Atole. Other families bust out the eggnog and cook up a turkey. While others like my roommate back in Art School had the Traditional Christmas Hot Tub party.

Then there’s the whole tree thing, the cookies, the shopping, the wrapping, the colorful lights, the cards, the goofy sweaters. Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing a duet of the Little Drummer boy. All wonderful stuff that brings families together.

After a while I came to realize the sleighload of Holiday traditions that our Animation Forefathers gave us. Just off the top of my head let’s see, Chuck Jones and his brilliant adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s masterpiece How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Rankin Bass Stop motion Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty special. Epic! What about Yogi’s first Christmas huh? Killer! Mickey’s Christmas Carol.Gorgeous and Timeless. Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol, I dare you not to laugh! And of course who could forget the Star wars Holiday Special, sure it only played once but once was enough for it to be burned into my memory banks forever. Thank you Nelvana for the animated introduction to Boba Fett! Lest we forget the Norelco commercial with Santa riding the electric shaver down the slope. Ahhhh good times. I love all of these shows and I hope someday when I have kids to share these animated treasures with them. (more…)

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BILL KROYER is an award-winning director of animation and computer graphics commercials, short films, movie titles and theatrical films. Trained in classical hand-drawn animation at the Disney Studio, Bill was one of the first animators to make the leap to computer animation on Disney’s ground-breaking 1982 feature, “Tron.”

“There was no software for motion when we made Tron. It didn’t exist.” ~Bill Kroyer

Founding his own company, Kroyer Films, Inc., Bill and his wife Susan pioneered the technique of combining hand-drawn animation with computer animation. Bill was Director for the theatrical animated feature film “FernGully: The Last Rainforest” and for his Academy Award® nominated short film “Technological Threat” . (more…)

An Article and Interview with Tina Price in 1992
For Careers and Colleges Magazine
by Pamela Thompson
PamRecruit@q.com

Jean Wright from Women in Animation and the author of “Animation Writing and Development,:From Development to Pitch” forwarded us this article that her colleague Pamela Thompson wrote about Tina Price (me) and Computer Animation in 1992.

Price initially started her career-life as a dancer with the New York City Ballet. But in 1978, when she realized she was not going to be a prima ballerina, she hung up her dance shoes and took an entirely different job. To read complete article click on image above…

Tina Price and Mike Cedeno 1986 working on Oliver and Company

Price believes computers will continue to have an enormous impact on animation as the technology and software improves. For example, recent software technology allowed Price to produce a very pliable looking magic carpet in the new animated feature Aladdin. To read complete article click on image above…

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CTN Legend Tony Benedict arrived on the Walt Disney Studio lot in summer of 1956 and took an inbetweening potition on Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmations before joining Bob McCrea’s television unit where he got to do a bit of animation. Find out how he got started at UPA as an assistant to animator Ed Freidman and was given an opportunity to write some Mister Magoo episodes and his journey to Hanna Barbera as a full time staff writer working with Mike Maltese and Warren Foster. Sit back and enjoy the tales of this talented contributor to the Golden Age of Animation.

Lots of vintage movies, photos and art at Tony’s website at http://www.homepage.mac.com/tonytoons

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Caricature of Dan by Dan

Dan Hofstedt, affectionately known as T-Dan, has animated on some of the most successful animated movies of all time.  His gift for caricaturing both a likeness and an action of a character has served him well so far in a 24 year career.  After putting himself through the Character Animation program at California Institute of the Arts as an amusement park caricaturist T. Dan has garnered a widespread “in-house” reputation at Sullivan-Bluth, Disney, Warners and now Sony Imageworks as one of the top caricature artists around. He has taught Character Animation for Maya at Studio Arts in Glendale, CA, taught caricature workshops at Sony Imageworks, and guest lectured at the Cal Arts Character Animation program, where he studied in the early ’80′s. T-Dan has been on animation panels at the Visual Effects Society, demonstrated Maya animation techniques used in “Monster House” for Autodesk at Siggraph in Boston and at 3December in London, and been a featured presenter at the Sony Wonder Lab in New York. He has made a successful transition from the 2D animation world to the 3D computer generated realm. Sit back and enjoy an interview with this extremely versatile and talented man and key contributor to the 2nd Golden Age of Animation.

Dan Hofstedt

Dan Hofstedt can be reach through his CTN Webpage.

Eric Goldberg Book Bash
Aug 6, 2008
Samuel French Bookshop

Eric Goldberg and Darrel Van Citters
Click on image to see pictures from the event

Thank you to everyone who came out for the celebration and signing of Eric Goldbergs first book the “Character Animation Crash Course!”. A special thank you to Tee Bosustow, Brian Clift, Tad Gielow, Steve and Janette Huelett, Mark Kausler, Dorse Lanpher, Dori Littel-Herrick, Aubry Mintz, Maddy O’Neil, Tom Sito, Darrel Van Citters, and Lureline Weatherly for taking time our of your busy schedules to drop by. And to Ellen Woodbury and Hendel Butoy your signed books are in the mail.

An extra special thankyou to Eric’s publisher Gwen Feldman for co-hosting this great event and for providing the fabulous refreshments and the venue and to Eric for signing all those books. The place was entirely “yellow” with excitement as over 100 guests complete with “Character Animation Crash Course” books and t-shirts enjoyed food and drink and waited in line to get their personal signature from the creator of the Genie, Director of Pocahantas, CTN member and friend Eric Goldberg.

We had a blast thanks to you. As always we couldn’t do this without you so thanks so much for your continued support.

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THE LIFE OF A BORDER DWELLER
Animator Turned Creativity Mentor, DAVE ZABOSKI
Speaks to CTN About
the Endless Possibilities for Artists to Shape the 21st Century.

Creative Consultant and Writer, Rhett Wickham Reports.

DAVE ZABOSKI speaks with an enthusiastic confidence that is infectious and hypnotic – an ideal demeanor for an artist whose personal vision of the future is ablaze with the endless creative wealth yet to be mined across the globe. Of the many hats Zaboski has worn since he started working in animation nearly twenty years ago, he has spent most of the past decade inspiring creativity in others; helping them “navigate” creation and “clarifying their direction to being even more creative.”

It doesn’t seem so unusual if you think about it, for a former Disney animator to turn his attention to opening up the creative potential of others. After all, what is an animator if not someone who finds endless possibilities where anyone else would have seen nothing more than a blank white sheet of paper.

Given one of his earliest experiences at Disney Animation, the fates seemed to have been preparing Dave for his mentoring role from the outset.

Dave Zaboski at work in his studio

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Producers vs Animators 1980
The Challenge!!

(Original Challenge Memo)

Words and Images care of Darrel Van Citters:

A number of animators would play volleyball almost every day at lunch and often at the 3 PM break on the court just north of the old Animation building. It’s now a parking lot at the side entrance to the studio. I forget what prompted it but I decided to challenge Ron Miller to a volleyball match, probably since he was sports minded and competitive. I sent the challenge via inter-office mail and amazingly, he took us up on it and got together his team from the third floor, all producers. Ron had the studio provide his team with uniforms from the costume department, we all wore our delightful seventies clothes. Tom Wilhite was even enlisted and was provided a uniform but he declined. (more…)