Creators Society Animation Podcast Creators Society

Welcome to our second annual Kidscreen Conversations episode. I headed to San Diego, not Miami this year for the first west coast Kidscreen. As always, it was a great event, although the sun decided to skip it this year!

Our guests this year are Rob Doherty, a consultant with great insight into the industry and founder of Festivus, an animation org that parallels the Creators Society in some ways in the UK, Sueann Rochester, Managing Director of Wild Child Animation in Scotland, and Lucy Murphy, director of kids content at Sky in the UK.

There are some great thoughts and insight here so I know you'll get something from these conversations.  Please excuse the on-location audio, a little rougher than usual, along with my voice.

Enjoy!

And if you do, please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media.

If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.


Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam

Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller

Music by: Rich Dickerson

Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha

Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam

The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net

Welcome to the 4th season of the Creators Society Animation Podcast. We're thrilled to have made it this far! As you know, our business is changing all the time, rapidly. But that means that there is more to talk about than ever, so we're going to be talking to different people and discussing different topics of change and importance.

Today we chat with Sean Charmatz and Peter McCown from DreamWorks about their new film Orion and the Dark, which is out on Netflix.

This one is super interesting to me from a few perspectives. When I saw the trailer, I was intrigued - it was written by Charlie Kaufman, so you had me interested in seeing what he'd do with an animated film right there, but I was also intrigued by the creative execution, how that vision was executed on a streaming film budget, and its directed by Sean Charmatz, a long time story artist who spent a chunk of his career on Spongebob.

If you haven't had the chance to watch it yet, I encourage you to do so. One thing I've noticed after chatting with several people about Orion is that it sparks discussions. It's interesting to me because it deviates from a regular linear narrative, which it easily could have followed. However, this departure from the norm fosters dialogue and, I believe, adds depth to its storytelling.

Hope you enjoy it!

And if you do, please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media.

If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.


Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam

Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller

Music by: Rich Dickerson

Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha

Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam

The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net

Today we have a treat as I chat with Mike Lasker of Sony ImageWorks. I don't know about you but I was blown away by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - and actually when it finished, I sat there with so many questions - mainly around the theme of 'how the hell did they do that?!'

I have long had a fascination with render styles that veered away from realism, playing with toon shaders and compositing techniques in my own work and trying to find new looks that were fresh or different. Of course, Sony's recent films have been an explosion of fresh and different, starting with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, then Mitchells vs the Machines and now exploding again with Across the Spider-Verse.
So when I had the opportunity to chat with someone at Sony about this film, Mike Lasker, the VFX supervisor seemed the perfect choice. But when I got into this chat, I actually realized what a pivotal role he's had in helping to change the way we look at animation styles. Mike worked on Into the Spider-Verse and also Mitchells and Across the Spider-Verse, bringing a wealth of experience from both live-action and animated films - something we often see with Sony ImageWorks folks that seems to broaden their range and perspectives and help them to adapt to challenging briefs. 
Mike was a delight to chat with - and I only really scraped the surface of some of the amazing tools and development work they did on these films - we really could have chatted for hours.

Hope you enjoy it!

And if you do, please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media.

If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.


Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam

Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller

Music by: Rich Dickerson

Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha

Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam

The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation, and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net

In today's episode, we have a conversation with Sandy Wax - a former Discovery, Disney, and Sprout executive. Sandy is delightfully curious, and that curiosity really paved the way for so many things - from her interest in research, to how that ties into content development and marketing and branding - and what led to her becoming CEO of Sprout for over over 10 years. 

Branding is something we don't talk enough about, so I loved diving into this with Sandy - and she's had 3 different and major experiences with brand building in our industry that I think we all can learn from.

I hope you enjoy this one!

And if you do, please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media.


If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.


Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam


Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller


Music by: Rich Dickerson


Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha

Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam


The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation, and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net

For this episode, we're breaking down The Inventor with an 'Anatomy of an Indie Stop Motion Film'.

We first had Jim Capobianco on the show almost two years ago! In that chat, he talked about the stop motion feature project he'd embarked upon. With the Inventor releasing in theatres on Friday, September 15th, we thought doing a deep dive and breaking down how it made it to screen would be a great idea. To do so we were joined by Jim, the film's writer and director (Jim was also Oscar-nominated as co-writer of Ratatouille), Co-Director Pierre-Luc Granjon, and Line Producer Kat Alioshin. 

When looking at how a low-budget film came to be, Kat's role as Line Producer was key. And since Jim came from the 2D and CG world, Co-Director Pierre-Luc, with a wealth of experience in stop motion, was also key. 

All three joined me to walk through the project, which itself is a charming depiction of not only Leonardo Davinci's latter years but also captures the spirit of creativity and curiosity of a man who gave the world so much. 

Really hope you enjoy the podcast - but also the film! Go see it!

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If you enjoy the show, please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media.
If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.
Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam
Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller
Music by: Rich Dickerson
Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam
Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha


The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net

If you're looking for some career inspiration, look no further than this episode with guest Bobby Chiu. Bobby's career is an example of tenacity, purpose, and a drive to not only be a great artist but to be great FOR artists.

We start out early in his career journey and talk through all the obstacles he encountered before his big break, which was really a big gamble that turned into a big break.

Our industry throws up continual obstacles, whether it's a no from a pitch, a no from a school, being part of layoffs caused by Wall Street's whims, or a myriad of other barriers, this episode will encourage you to keep going and to help others to keep going.

Enjoy!

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Show Notes:

Bobby Chiu Instagram
Check out Lightbox Expo here
Watch the Lightbox Expo 23 Trailer
Visit Schoolism here
Visit Imaginism Studios here

- - 

Please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media if you enjoy it.
If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.

If you'd like to hear about new episodes in your inbox, please subscribe here.
Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam
Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller
Music by: Rich Dickerson
Edited by: Jonathan Wakelam
Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha


The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.

Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.net