MukPod

Animator, voice actor and gamer Diego Soriano joins us to chat about heir ongoing collection of tattoos, the importance of play in acting and improv, the distinction between original characters and OC's and the extremely popular animation they've made for their TikTok. Plus a look at the state of superhero movies and video game adaptions. We also settle an important world issue: is ice-cre...

Róisín Kelly is storyboard artist at Mukpuddy and multi-talented visual artist. Róisín Kelly chats with Simon and Josh about the fantasy genre and it's disreputable cousin urban-fantasy, the challenges of growing up with aspergers, the astrophysics of tidally-locked planets and Terry Pratchett's long-running Discworld series and the various attempts to bring his satirical fantasy world to the scre...

Simon Ward is the *other* Simon at Mukpuddy and one of the studio's primary producers. He shares with us the creative and practical aspects of this often misunderstood but crucial role. We discuss his long career writing and acting on stage and screen, early collaborations with Alan Parr on the 48hours team 'IdiotVision',  his partners job as National Secretary of the NZ Council of Trade Unio...

Dane Jacobs is a compositor at Mukpuddy and wears many hats as an independent creator but paramount amonst all his achievements, is hift to the world: and most importantly, the genius behind the MukPod theme song! Simon and Josh chat to Dane about his new video-game-inspired concept album Super Golyhedronland, the difficulties of studying and teaching animation and starting the award winning 48-ho...

It's our last episode for 2022! Ryan and Alex join us to reflect on the incredible number of projects Mukpuddy has worked on this year including service work for overseas productions Dead Sea Squirrels and Juju Brain, music videos for Drink Bleach and Chris Lam Sam, ad campaigns for Electric Kiwi ads and Google, original Mukpuddy series Night Eyes and securing development funding for the long-awai...

Matt is a London born, kiwi raised, visual development artist, illustrator and drawing tutor currently based in Auckland, NZ. Matt chats with us about finding a consistent paycheck as a recent animation graduate, working as a lead background artist at Mukpuddy, teaching and learning from students as a drawing tutor and teases their new pitch for a mindfulness-based pre-school show 'Be with Zeze' P...

Rick Sweden is a production design and concept artist for such diverse projects as Bro Town, Monster Beach and even Shortland Street. Yeah, THAT Shortland Street. Rick currently lives in Australia and has recently been working for Princess Bento, a new Melbourne based animation studio, a collaborative effort between American and Australian production companies, to help bring Australia's unique com...

Do you dare listen to our ghoulish guests spin terrifying tales of All Hallow's Eve in the Land of the Long White Cloud? In case you hadn't noticed, Mukpuddy loves Halloween! Which explains why this episode clocks in at nearly four hours. If you make it through this podcast alive - you're already dead!! EPISODE SEGMENTS 00:01:08 ~ Josh and Simon welcome listeners with a celebration of Vincent Pric...

Liam Maguren is a self-described 'human movie radar' for Flicks, New Zealands go-to film and streaming guide, as well as a filmmaker, animator and friend of Mukpuddy. Liam joins us to chat about working as a film critic in the age of streaming, animating with limited time and resources and making his own independent short films. Watch Liam's films on his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/cha...

Bryn Kettle is an animator turned storyboarder at Mukpuddy, as well as a multi-talented character designer and writer. We chat with Bryn about their unique animation philosophy, developing concepts just for the fun of it, the right and wrong ways to break-the-fourth-wall and dragging Josh for constantly mentioning his holiday. But that's not all folks! Stay tooned til the end of the episode to hea...

Simon and Josh immediately break our own rule and discuss a lot of Star Trek at the top of show. Jump to 25:00 to skip the Trek Talk. We look back at the previous months guests before jumping in to discuss all the movies, comics and even radio dramas we've been enjoying. We also celebrate two of our favourite actors: Nichelle Nichols and David Warner. If you don't know who they are, listen in as w...

Joel Spencer is an animator for Mukpuddy but is perhaps best known as JoelyMoley for their independent, conversational and absurd animation. We swap tales about the minimum wage jobs we quit in order to join Mukpuddy, the uphill battle of being a YouTube Animator and learning Flash on the job. We also discuss our favourite superheroes: Batman, Spiderman and Nathan Fielder. See Joel's animation at...

Chris Maguren is a self described 'animation generalist' who like his family, works hard and plays hard. As a team leader at Mukpuddy, he manages a team of animators, on top of his regular animation duties. He also does regular freelance work and still makes time to play sports and enjoy his other hobbies. We chat with Chris about the first nationally celebrated Matariki public holiday, great stri...

Aleks is back (already) to chat with us in person about the Vision Feast Film Festival, which has just celebrated it's sixth year recognizing, celebrating and cultivating the creative community in New Zealand and around the globe. Festival Founder Aleks explains the origins, ethos and potential future of Vision Feast. And after about 2-hours of that, we really lay into Jurassic World: Dominion. Ho...

Alan Parr is a writer and animatic editor at Mukpuddy, in addition to writing his own kids book 'Wilbur's Cosmic Cone' (illustrated by Mukpuddy's own Anna Lee). Despite technical difficulties recording this episode (We suspect Alan is cursed or perhaps bewitched), we discuss the process of writing, publishing and distributing a children's book during the pandemic and find plenty of time to discuss...

Simon and Josh sit down for an informal catchup to look back on the podcast so far and let you know what you can look forward to in future episodes. We also chat about the comfort movies we've watched while both sick this winter and (because we know you can't get enough) we round out the show with a Star Trek discussion, conveniently placed at the end of the episode. You're welcome! Send your feed...

Doug McFarlane is an animator, actor, artist and singer for his all-ginger metal band BLOODNUT. He chats with us about what it's like being a jobbing extra for film and TV, how there's never been a better time to be a vegan and how fanart mashups are art too. We also spend time yarning about Mike Flanagan, Orson Welles and Betty White. Now THERE'S a comedy team! Follow Doug for original memes and...

Aleksander Sakowski phones in from Down Under (or slightly further up, for us) to explain why compositing animation is like a sandwhich. We chat about his futurist opus 'The Mecha Genesis', the incredible work he's made through his own production company and even such lofty ideas as the possibility of being able to look into the past (for example, recording a podcast discussing a project in the pa...

Mike Glasswell, alias David Gleesman, chats with us about his many odd jobs before becoming an Animation Supervisor at Mukpuddy and finding creativity in his personal life. He also tries to explain the basics of Twitch streaming to Simon, how to play it cool when meeting your heroes and by some disturbance in the Force, there's hardly any Star Wars talk at all! It's a Life Day miracle! Subscribe t...

Kurt La Roche chats with us about his vital role at the studio in drawing, building and organizing digital assets for animation. He talks about his background in traditional fine arts and relearning how to draw in lead character designer Alex Leighton's signature style or as we like to say, studying Alextology. No, it isn't a cult. Josh and Simon tangent off subject to tell strange anecdotes about...

In our longest episode yet, we chat with TWELVE guests from around the studio about that inescapable force in pop culture, Star Wars. We chat with people who love the series, others who love particular parts and even a few who don't get what all the fuss is about and are sick of all the nerdy references. Maclunkey! Yub-Nub! Ootini! 5:11 - Mike Glasswell chats about his love/hate relationship with...

Becky Kuek is a Writer/Director/Actor and the creator of Tales of Nai Nai! In this episode, we chat about her incredibly diverse career, leaping from different roles to different mediums. We also find time to discuss soap operas, stuffed toys and quarter-life crises! Follow Becky @beckykuek on Instagram and Twitter For updates on LONG x XIA and DATING WHILE ASIAN visit https://www.mooncakeproducti...

Tim Evans is a founder of Mukpuddy and creator/writer of original animated series including The Barefoot Bandits, Jandal Burn, The Drawing Show and The Adventure of Tumeke Space. In this episode, we chat with Tim about his knack for putting together creative teams, being unable to mentally visualise and how that relates to personal creativity. Also, Tim claims learning new skills is fun to him?? S...

To celebrate First Contact day (May the 4th for Trekkies) Simon and Josh sit down to answer burning questions non-Trekkies need answers to, such as what is Star Trek? Which one is Spock? Why don't you get a life?  Is There in Truth No Beauty? Who Mourns for Morn? Now you too can understand these in-jokes and many more! Simon recommends these channels for videos on where's the best starting po...

Ryan Cooper and Alex Leighton are two of the founders of Mukpuddy Animation and creators of original animated series including The Barefoot Bandits, Jandal Burn, The Drawing Show and The Adventure of Tumeke Space. In this episode we chat about the realities of living their childhood dreams, the hustle of pitching and selling their original ideas and how live-action influences, from Once to Were Wa...