Straight Ahead Animation Podcast

Finally, our episode with Ulises Alvarado Llamas is here! Character designer, Vis Dev artist, and former roommate to Ray, we get down to tacks on what Uli does as a Character Designer for a 3D show at Nickelodeon. Uli talks about "Packeting", and the technical nuances between designing for a 3D show and a 2D show. Despite having such a stylized approach, Uli actually prefers designing for 3D! Wond...

Aerik Bertulfo is a Filipino-American animator at Dream View. We talk about his experience as a student transitioning to professional during the full-swing of the pandemic, which comes with certain quirks like working on a Virtual Machine. Aerik was also the co-writer, and inspiration for his thesis film: First Born. We talk about the cultural pressures, and implications of being the first born so...

Kayleen Acosta Rodriguez is a Dominican artist and our very first Lighting guest! Kayleen talks us through what her job entails, lighting and compositing as one of the final steps in the feature CG pipeline. But of course before that, we get to know how she got her start interning for three different studios: Bluesky, Hornet, and Disney! Kayleen talks about being a CG generalist, using Nuke and To...

Zilai Feng is an Asian Story Artist at Pixar. Originally from China, Zilai only began to explore her Chinese identity after moving to the United States. We explore the inspiration for their Cal Arts short film, and Z's inspirations for her abstract style. We also touch on her many internships including Dreamworks, Tonko House, and Illumination (just to name a few), and her extended studying at the...

Meet the real life Sparkle Cadet, a character from Craig of the Creek whose story is directly pulled from writer Shakira Pressley's life. Kira takes us through her incredible journey from what inspired her writing as a child, how she dropped out of college and taught herself to write professionally, and how an unlikely series of events led to her first freelance working for Man of Action. This epi...

Roxy Simons is a black writer working for both live action and animated content! We go over the differences between a writer's room for live action and animation. Roxy even talks about her experience on a show with live-action puppets, and the challenges that come with that medium. Before her career really took off, she also attended the Sesame Street fellowship: a writer's program with the intent...

Marisa Torres is a Cuban-American artist working for Nickelodeon! We dive into her day-to-day working as a background painter for Santiago of the Seas. Marisa works in 2d to ideate, design, and paint how the assets will look before they reach that 3D stage. Before that, she was selected for the Nick Artist's program. She talks about how even with no self-confidence, she built herself up to continu...

WE MADE IT TO EPISODE 50! Okay we know hit episode 50 a while ago so this is little late with this, but better late than never. Thank you to everyone who joined us live for our 50th Straight Ahead Episode Celebration Stream! We also want to thank our audience who have supported the podcast and has helped us create a platform to spotlight these rising BIPOC voices. In this episode we reflect back o...

From board artist to supervising director, Jersey to California, listen in as Dashawn illustrates how his career took off. Learn about his time at OddBot, and afterwards his transition from revisionist to board artist at Cartoon Network. We even get to touch on Valorous Tales , a comic he drew for fun on his own that ultimately helped land him his first story job! Speaking of comics, Dashawn revea...

This week we have the incredibly wonderful Angela Entzminger, a black artist who is currently working as a Story Artist and Writer. Everyone journey into animation is different and Angela is proof. Her animated journey took 15 years before landing her first job as a Pixar Development Intern. Since then Angela has worked on Nickelodeon's Santiago of the Seas as a Storyboard Artist and for Warner Br...

Aaron Cobb is a cool and collected individual, and a background painter at Wild Canary. Already in his brief career, Aaron has worked for television, feature, and VR games in a variety of roles from Background Paint to freelance Character Design. Speaking of, we touch on the differences between Background Designers and Background Painters (small distinction we haven't really discussed before). Pee...

Black 'N Animated is an organization that is focused on the empowerment of Black students and professionals in the animation industry. But before that, it was simply a podcast crated by Breana Williams and Waymond Singleton. On top of all the information revolving around BNA, we are also able to touch on Bre's own journey, and her aspirations to move from Production to Storyboarding. We talk about...

No your eyes are not playing tricks on you, this week we have the wonderful other half of our whole host Yuki Okamura-Wong! If you don't know already, she is an Asian-American 2D Animator currently working at Global Mechanic. In this non-stop thrill ride of an episode, we dive into Yuki's career working as 2D animator for both adult and kids shows and how these experiences differed from one anothe...

We're kicking off season 2 with a name you may find familiar: Ray Mendoza Landa! A story artist at Warner Bros. Animation and one of the co-hosts of Straight Ahead! Although Ray has only just started his career, he has a plethora of experiences: story artist on a 3D show with a blender-integrated pipeline, interning at Pixar, acting as President for the Shrunken Headman Club, and heading the ambit...

We are ending season one of the podcast with a banger with the one and only Steph Rizo, a Mexican-American Character Designer and Story Artist currently working at Sony Animation Studio! Learn how Steph tried to break into the industry as a character designer but instead broke in as a Story Intern for Walt Disney Animation! Her journey into story didn't stop there, as she soon got a job as a story...

This week we are joined by the incredible Daniela Dwek, a Middle-Eastern artist currently working at Pixar. We learn what happens on the technical side of animation as Daniela explains her role in the animation pipeline as a Character TD Model/Rigger. We also discuss her progression from Pixar Intern, to Resident, to Full-time employee. Daniela has had an amazing career in animation, but it starte...

Todays we are joined by Derrick Malik Johnson an African American Storyboard Revisionist currently working at Disney TVA. This episode gets a little heavy in certain subject matters than other episodes but it's still import to acknowledge and discuss these topics. Despite the difficult subject matters Derrick is an explosive wave of positivity and energy that you cant help but smile and laugh alon...

In this week episode we are joined by Taiwanese Storyboard Revisionist Rae Huang! Is she a person? Is she a goat? Who knows?! You have to listen to find out! As you listen you will learn how Rae got her start in animation as a 2D Animation Intern at Moving Colour! Did you know that BuzzFeed has an animation department? Well neither did we until Rae told us her experience working there as an animat...

Today we have the wonderful Samia Khalaf a Palestinian/Lebanese Senior Concept Artist currently working at Funomena. Samia shares her experience attending school as an international student and the hurdles one has to go though when trying to get a work visa. We also talk about how Samia slowly started becoming more comfortable sharing her artistic voice and started creating art that she enjoyed an...

Andrew Arcilla is a Filipino-American working as a Production Coordinator. Unlike most of our guests, Andrew knew about many positions in the animation industry since high school, and made his his goal to join the community in a production role. We get wrapped up in Andrew's many passions, and one of us earns the title of Lego destroyer. We also talk at length about Andrew's love of musicals, the...

Grey Chen is a Chinese-American Background Painter and Color Designer, currently working at Warner Bros. Animation! Hear how each of her past experiences prepared for the next, such as getting her start doing freelance color design work for PowerPuff Girls to becoming a full-time Color Designer on DreamWorks She-Ra! We also talk about Grey's tough decision of accepting a full-time PA job whilst st...

Kristal Babich is a Chilean-American story artist and WIA mentor who has worked on a variety of projects. Grab some tips on the differences between boarding for stop motion, CG feature films, and even how that all differs from a comics pipeline. Even before that, Kristal nearly finished her degree for Biology Education, and learn about her decision to pivot her career trajectory. If you're in...

We've talked a lot about working as an artist or production crew in a pipeline, but... ¿Por qué no los dos? Christian Alvarez is a Production Coordinator that freelances as a Character Designer on the side. We talk about how he fell in love with production, what it's been like working on Kamp Koral: Spongebob's Under Years, his goals for recruiting in the future. Aside from work we get into how he...

Continuing on our Latinx celebration, Janet Rodriguez is a Mexican-American freelancer for character design and illustration. Understanding where your aesthetic tastes come from can be a real boon, and being able to share those inspirations is a way Janet communicates with her team. We talk about her experiences at California State Fullerton, and how wanting to make genuine friendships has lead he...

Our amazing guest this week is Juan Luis Bravo, a Mexican-American Storyboard Artist currently working at Pure Imagination Studios. Juan shares his amazing story of how he transitioned from working in Live-Action as a Digital Media Special at The Walt Disney Company to a Storyboard Revisionist at Wild Canary! We talk about how his film background was really beneficial in his transition as well as...