Animator's Breakfast

Will Finn has definitely animated a movie from your childhood. Joining the industry in 1979, despite being told that Animation was dead. He sweated his way up the ranks, being taught by the last remnants of the Nine Old Men. Nobody knew where the industry was going but having put in the work through the difficult period, he was ready to sink his teeth into great characters during the renaissance,...

When I think of the words play and animation, two words come to mind: Robot Chicken. A show from the insanely talented folks at Stoopid Buddy Studios. Animator and Studio Founder, Eric Towner, shares his story of moving to LA, finding a stop motion animation job on Craigslist which ultimately led him to working on the second season of Robot Chicken, and from there, becoming one of the lead creativ...

Oscar nominated director Andrew Chesworth has such an interesting career. He worked at Disney animating on Frozen, Feast, Big Hero Six, Zootopia, Moana, Get a Horse! to name a few, before working with SPA Studios on Klaus and Ember, as well as directing two of my all time favourite animated shorts: One Small Step and The Brave Locomotive. Sitting down with Andrew was a great privilege, especially...

Colin Jack is currently a co-director at Dreamworks Animation, and has storyboarded on everything from Ed, Edd n Eddy, Captain Underpants, Puss in Boots, The Croods, Boss Baby as well as more recently been Head of Story on Trolls Band Together. As we siphoned through a list of potential candidate works to talk about, he quickly decided on Fantastic Mr. Fox, the 2009 debut animation from visionary...

Tom Bancroft needs no introduction, but I’ll try to briefly summarise his career. Graduating from CalArts he was catapulted in Disney Animation at the beginning of its Renaissance. Working on nearly every film of that time. Animating Iago, Young Simba, Pocahontas and Mushu to name a few. Currently directing Light of the World with John Schaffer as well as bring CEO of Pencilish Studios and a creat...

Oscar winning director Chris Williams has been storyboarding for most of his career. Joining Disney in the 90s and working on classics like Mulan, Lilo and Stitch and The Emperor’s New Groove he was then oven the chance to cut his teeth in the hot seat. Directing Bolt, Big Hero 6 and co-directing Moana, he then left Disney and directed The Sea Beast, an incredible action adventure that is one of t...

Three time Oscar nominated director, Tomm Moore has been drawing for decades, but he has never stopped growing. Recently, after the release of Wolfwalkers, he took a sabbatical to study Life Drawing in Paris and Amsterdam, seeing his growth is inspiring. Having Tomm on the podcast again was a huge privilege for me. Last February, I ventured down to Kilkenny to pick his brain about the nature of dr...

Character design and Illustration titan, Peter de Sève is nervous about A.I. Not for its capabilities but because studios are so driven by the bottom line, they’ll lean on the tool more rather than human imagination. There’s an epidemic of generic character design in the industry at the moment and de Sève wants to fight it. Speaking to Peter on the podcast today was a huge honour of mine. He break...

Rotoscoping is far from dead, and these two men prove it. Co-Directors of The Spine of Night, Morgan Galen King (Mongrel, Exordium) and Philip Gelatt (Europa Report, Love, Death and Robots) join me to discuss the cult film that hasn’t left them since childhood, Heavy Metal. Getting to share in conversation with them about Heavy Metal was a dream come true. The passion, thoughtfulness and humour th...

Unique storytelling and eccentric animation are two ways to describe the work of Janina Putzker. She is a powerhouse of professional animation while ensuring her work maintains the highest standard that i looks effortless. It truly appears that she fears no style . Speaking to Jani on the podcast today was a great pleasure of mine. Even more so when she told me she wanted to dive into the worlds o...

Visual development and concept artist who has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world. Kamille Rogriguez is a thoughtful, passionate and incredibly hard working artist. It didn’t come easy to her but she knew if she didn’t pursue her art, she would always regret it. It’s my true pleasure to speak to Kamille on the podcast today. Her choice caught me off guard, but I was delighted to re...

Illustrator, character designer and self professed happy man, Jeremy Hoffman. To see Jeremy’s work, is to see joy. A playful sense of observation and imagination expressing itself through a heavily practiced hand. It’s my great privilege to welcome Jeremy onto the podcast today. His passion is infectious. What shocked me when I first spoke to Jeremy is that he only started drawing again when he wa...

This was recorded in the Summer before the recent bloodshed in Gaza. When I first saw Jana Kattan’s graduate film, Checkpoint I was struck by the authenticity in which she weaved a simple story filled with heartbreak. There is a reality integral to Checkpoint I couldn’t articulate but it made me pay attention to her strong, honest and empathetic voice. As she describes, she only became aware she w...

Space Patrol Luluco is a quintessential artistic declaration from Japanese animation Studio Trigger. Though lesser known, and not as critically acclaimed as other work by the team and Studio, it remains a fresh and fun mini series that never falls shy of its promise. Made on a small scale with a smaller budget, it's endlessly inspiring to younger studios who also want to put their mark on the worl...

Welcome back to Animator's Breakfast. This month we're talking about one of my favourite Animated features of all time, the sleeping titan that is The Prince of Egypt. Dreamwork's defiant call to the western world of animation that Disney isn't the only studio in town. Originally pitched as The Ten Commandments but animated, it took a dedicated team from the relatively new division in Dreamworks A...

You don’t get much better than this! A former Disney Animator gushing about an even more former Disney animator! What an Honour it was to sit down with Tony Bancroft to talk about Fred “Freddie” Moore.   Fred Moore was one of the earliest animator’s at Walt Disney’s Animation studios in the 1930’s. He’s most famous for redesigning Mickey Mouse into the character model we know today. Moore worked t...

Welcome to season two of Animator's Breakfast and I'm very excited for it's coming year. To kick things off, I couldn't be happier or more humbled to be joined with Howard Wimshurst.  He is a freelance animator, content creator and generous teacher. Howard's passion and fundamental knowledge of the processes, both technically and philosophically, of animation are unparalleled in my opinion. It's a...

Welcome to the final episode of Animator's Breakfast, for now! What an episode it is. I'm hugely humbled to be joined with one of the greatest living animators, James Baxter.  You might know him as a horse on a ball making people happy, but James has been working in the industry for over 30 years, starting on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He's responsible for some of the most beautifully animated momen...

Welcome to the penultimate episode of the first series of Animator's Breakfast! On this episode I'm truly honoured to be joined by the incredible and insanely talented Fatma Almheiri, the creator of Emara. I don't have enough positive adjectives to describe Fatma, so I'll just say it's humbling to consider that she has directed a 5 episode web series about an Emirati superhero named Emara.  H...

Welcome to the next episode of Animator's Breakfast. On this episode I'm joined by the fantastic Jessie Smith, aka The Joopis. She's a really talented designer, animator and has a really wonderful Youtube channel where she uploads very original and interesting work.  Today we're discussing The Last Unicorn, a 1983 film produced by Rankin/Bass. The power of their studio in the 70s and 80s can'...

Welcome back to Animator’s Breakfast everyone. This next episode is a real honour for me, I get to sit down with the ineffable Tom Moore, and his surprising, yet completely honest choice of topic: Adrien Merigeau.  Adrien is an animator and film maker that worked win Cartoon Saloon for many years. Following his graduation film, Le Carnet de Chloe, he has created several other shorts including...

Welcome back to Animator's Breakfast. In our 6th episode, we discuss the heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies.  An amazing animated film in many ways, it was directed by the legendary Isao Takahata, as his first feature for Studio Ghibli. It was featured as a double bill with My Neighbour Totoro in 1988. The feature still stands the test of time and its spotlight on Setsuko and Seita's journe...

Welcome to the Fifth episode of Animator's Breakfast. This episode is a continuation with both the incredibly talented boys of BaM Animation: Brent Noll and Maximus Pauson. The second of our two episodes we talk about a quiet Tour de Force in Animation, which is King of The Hill.  Created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, it ran for 8 seasons, with some incredibly smart writing. Up against show...

Welcome to the fourth episode of Animator's Breakfast, one I'm really delighted to share! This episode is a bit different in that it's a conversation with both the incredibly talented boys of BaM Animation, Brent Noll and Maximus Pauson.  This is the first of two conversations we have, and this time Max chose to discuss a character, rather than just an animation. Character design is really im...