Toon Talks Podcast

Shawn inspired me to do things I never would have, my life would be so much less had I not listen. It’s truly an honour to have such a wonderful person on the show.
Shawn Kelly set his sights on working at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) at age five when he saw the movie Star Wars in the cinema with is father. After a seemly random thread of events he started studying under the tutelage of animators Bill Hennes and John Root, he studied drawing and computer software throughout high school, attended community college, and Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

A summer internship at ILM introduced Shawn to another influential mentor, animation director Wayne Gilbert. It was through Wayne that Shawn realized that he wasn’t learning what he needed at school. Shawn left the academy in 1996 for a job as a character animator at former video game and educational company Presage Software, and continued his studies with Gilbert twice a week. They became very close friends and remain so, today.

It took about two years but Shawn fulfilled his lifelong dream and landed a job at ILM in 1998 and since that time, he has worked on numerous films including War of the Worlds, for which he animated tripods and probes; Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, where he helped develop and animate the vulture droids and animated Yoda in a pivotal swordfight; and Rango, where he was the Lead Animator for both the Mayor of Dirt and the Spirit of the West. He also worked as Lead Animator on all three Transformers movies. Kelly’s credits feature 23 films including Hulk, the Star Wars prequels, AI: Artificial Intelligence, and The Avengers.

Not to forget, he’s also co founder of Animation Mentor, the first on line animation school.

So as you can see we had lots to talk about and Shawn was incredibly generous with his time. I’m so grateful to have him on the show.

It is such a pleasure to be able to share with you all, the inspiration I get every time I chat with James.

I’ve known James for a few years now, and he really is one of my top five all inspiring people to talk to. His engaging conversation always makes me look at things in a new way. I feel like I level up both as an animator and a human, after I chat with him. Having worked on Open Season and Robots as an animator, Oddbods as co-creator and the originally director, Surfs Up and Ice Age 2 in pre-production James now continues to teach and inspire the next generation of animators at Animation Mentor and Paint masterpieces (they really are, I’ve seen them!). Clearly this was a really fun chat for me, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I hope you do too.

Animated Spirit – Art, Animation and Film Analyis
Animation Mentor Profile

This was my second time meeting Glen, I don’t mind telling you, that my first time I was too shy to talk. This time, I done a little better.

The legendary Glen Keane. He is the most well known animator alive today... perhaps due to how his characters makes us feel. Ariel, Pocahontas, Beast, Aladdin, Rapunzel... Tarzan. All of these stirring vast amounts of emotion like no other character before. Glen really does animate from the inside out.
So you can imagine my exhilaration (and nerves) as I got a few moments to ask his advice about animation. I tried hard to find questions that would reap the most beneficial information. I feel this interview is unique in that, we drive right into the heart of animation to try and discover what is at the foundation of making a legendary animator.

The making of Dear Basketball

Duet

Keane Art

The man behind the music of pretty much all my favorite short films, such a delight to chat with composer extraordinaire, Scot Stafford!
In this interview we discus the ins and outs of making incredibly engaging music. We talk about the challenges of creating music for Spotlight Stories’s 360 short films Vs music for regular film. We also chat about his production company Pollen as well as the charity work he does with Cambodian Living Arts. Scot has collaborated with the animation genius’s that are Glen Keane, Doug Sweetland, Jan Pinkava, Mark Oftedal and Shannon Tindle and he has won AICE’s 2015 Best Music Award for his work on Duet. As he says himself, anything he can stay about music, is applicable to any creative field, so no doubt all creatives will find some inspiration in this episode. Check out the links below for more information and I hope you enjoy the show!

Sonaria
Sonaria: Behind The Scenes
Pollen Music Group Website
Huff Post chat with Pollen Music Group
Sound Explorations with Scot Stafford
Pollen Music Group on Twitter
Cambodian Living Arts

Glenn has worked some of the most inspirational movies to me, it was such a treat to sit and chat with him for a while.

Fievel Goes West, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace ... these movies create a sense of excitement among most animators... and Glenn got to work on them. In this podcast we talked about his career, what is was like to work with some of the most influential directors of our time as well as what steps up and coming animator can take to make it in this industry.

As always, thank you for listening.