Animation

In the early ‘90’s, I produced two music videos at O Pictures in Los Angeles for Virgin Music, featuring Paula Abdul’s animated cat character MC Skat Kat. They were follow-ups to the hugely successful Opposites Attract video of 1990, and were likewise directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger.

The films were an attempt to create a new animated character for the time- a hip urban creature unlike anything else, not a parody, or an attempt to update an existing character. Sadly, after the videos were finished nobody seemed quite sure what to do with Skat. Virgin Music and Universal Pictures talked of a feature film that would combine animation with live action, but nothing ever materialized.




	Click the icon to play an excerpt from Skat Strut 1991 O Pictures / Virgin Music Video

Skat Strut was the first, completed in the summer of 1991. It was meant to be the kickoff of Skat’s solo career, in which he bids farewell to Paula Abdul and the role of supporting character, and heads off to his new life as a featured artist.




	Click the icon to play an excerpt from Big Time 1992 O Pictures / Virgin Music

Big Time was the second of the Skat Kat solo videos. It was finished in January 1992, and sadly, I don’t think it ever aired. It’s my favorite of the two, and one of the best projects I ever worked on. Much of the animation was done by the great Eric Goldberg, who at the time was the lead animator of the Genie character in Disney’s Aladdin feature film.

In 1996 I went to HBO Animation to direct two episodes of Ralph Bakshi’s Spicy City. HBO remains one of the true highlights of my career: a wonderful place to work with the most talented and energetic staff it’s ever been my privilege to be counted among. I went on to produce the second season of Spawn.




	Click on the icon to play an excerpt from Spawn 1997 HBO Animation Series

Jennifer Yuh directed the episode from which the excerpt is taken. One of the great joys of working on a late-night cable TV series was the freedom we had to break all the usual Broadcast Standards & Practices rules, and we did so with gusto. Characters got naked, guns fired at camera, people were shot on screen, in slow-motion no less, kids were put in jeopardy...it was great!

At Warner Brothers in 1998, I directed four episodes of the WB TV Series Baby Blues. I was back in Regular TV Land; no more broken bones or on-screen bullet impacts.




	Click on the icon to play an excerpt from *Baby Blues* 1998 Warner Bros. TV Series

Liz Holzman produced the series and Jeff Martin of Simpsons fame was the show runner. The animation was done at Varga Studio in Hungary.

In the spring of 1999, I started at Disney directing a film featuring Cinderella and the characters from the classic 1950 film. Two and a half years later Cinderella II- Dreams Come True was released on video and DVD. In my opinion the film isn’t really a sequel, despite the name, but it ended up being quite successful. We attempted to capture as much of the feeling of the classic as we could, despite the lack of real conflict in the stories.

Cindy went on to be the best-selling DVD of 2002, and eventually poured $140 million into Scrooge McDuck’s money vault.

The animation was done at Disney’s Tokyo studio, which is no longer a part of the Magic Kingdom but continues in business under the name Answer Studio. The clip features the voice of Holland Taylor as Cinderella’s nemesis, Prudence the castle chatelaine.




	Click on the icon to play an excerpt from Cinderella 2 2002 Disney DVD Premiere Movie

Carolyn and I began work on a short film in 2002. The enclosed clip is an animatic, which is an assembly of illustrations shot in order and set to music to give the viewer an idea of what the finished film will be like. We found that the animatic had so much charm on its own that we may never actually animate the story..




		Click on the icon to play the entire film Avery And The Little Cloud 2002

Carolyn painted her own illustrations.

The music is by Edvard Grieg, taking a little break from the Hall of the Mountain King.

Back to mayhem and destruction after a few years on the softer side of life. In 2004 I produced two animated titles for Universal Studios. These were intended to serve as additional material to support two of Universal’s tent-pole films of that year, Van Helsing and The Chronicles of Riddick. Both short films- neither was longer than 40 minutes- gave audiences more information about the characters and situations of the live-action films, and while they could stand on their own, sort of, they really serve as supplemental viewing for the feature films. The success of these shorts was very much tied to the success of the feature films, and neither performed as hoped.




			Click on the icon to play an excerpt from *Riddick: Dark Fury* 2004 Universal DVD Premiere



	Click on the icon to play an excerpt from Van Helsing-The London Assignment 2004 Universal DVD Premiere


		The Riddick tie-in, *Dark Fury, tells what happens to the characters Riddick, Jack, and Imam hours after they escape the world on which the first of the Riddick films, Pitch Black*, took place. It was written by Brett Matthews, directed by Peter Chung, and produced at DNA in Seoul, Korea. 2D animation is very successfully blended with 3D backgrounds and effects.

	*Van Helsing- The London Assignment* tells what happens between Gabriel Van Helsing and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde just before the events depicted in the feature film. We had a truly stellar voice cast: Hugh Jackman, Robbie Coltrane, and David Wenham reprised their roles from the film and Tara Strong played Queen Victoria. Sharon Bridgeman directed from a script by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.The animation was produced at Productions IG in Tokyo and at Sunwoo in Seoul, Korea.


	For a more detailed career overview, click on the Resume link below.