Saturday, August 2, 2008

My Day At DreamWorks Animation


While away at comic con one of my greatest dissappointments has been meeting some of my artistic heroes. In some cases they have been well to put it bluntly 'Pricks' I don't want to name names but seriously I wondered if I would meet people who have incredible artistic ability and havent got the ego to match.
Dreamworks Part One

So today was a really awesome day. I had Lunch at Dreamworks with THE Chris Sanders. An amazing experience. Chris is the creator and Mastermind of 'Lilo & Stitch', Kiskaloo and is now working on a Top secret movie with Dreamworks which looks to be...................

Oh Damn I got edited by lawyers haha no I'm not gonna talk about stuff for I would lose my tongue but from what I saw it looks amazing and thats all I'll say.
Chris is so Genuine and the nicest person, willing to take time out and just chat about his time at Disney give funny anecdotes and just Talk art. I've known Chris for almost a year, yeah me I know I know its not exactly something I should keep secret but well hes a busy man too and we swap emails from time to time and we chat about lots of things from Ghost Stories to the state of 'Art of' Books (yes we both hate all the authors who like to right more than show art) so when he said come have lunch at DW well I wasn't going to say no, now was I??
So this has been about 6 months in the planning and for 2 hours I felt like a flea amongst Giants. DW is the place that I want to work now more than the other places. Sure it would not be easy but the creativity is there especially with their newer projects.

We just had lunch at the DW cafeteria Chris, Myself and his friend Kurt and afterwards we went to Chris' studio and I saw some cool stuff like original Kiskaloo artwork and we chatted about illustrator and how I do such perfect curves. Chris must have been in the australian mood cause I could swear he was drawing a few Koalas!! I felt like raiding his trashcan just to find some throwaway sketches but withstood the anxiety to do so. Anyway it was time for me to leave, I didnt want too but sigh well apparently unless you work there they frown upon you staying. So anyway it was Great, I gave Chris some gifts like a Tassie Devil and a copy of my portfolio and then said our goodbyes got some photos and then I went shopping!!
Dreamworks Part Two


So Afterwards I shopped at the small store they have and got some cool merchandise like exclusive Kung Fu Panda shirts seriously these ROCK I'm gonna be wearing these tomorrow!!

Anyway a great day topped off by a visit later to DisneyLands Haunted Mansion Ride its still the best!!

8 comments:

  1. You incredibly lucky son of a bitch.
    You know, I've had similar experiences, where the artist who's philosophy and artistic style you'd admired for a long time, is right in front of you and you start to express your appreciation for them and they turn out to be less than nice.
    Still, Dreamworks? Wow, man, wow.

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  2. Awesome. I love going to that studio. I haven't been there in a while but it's always a great visit.

    Don't worry. We've all had the "meeting our heroes at cons and finding out they're jerks" experience. It's a rite of passage for every comic book nerd. Helps dull that dumb imaginative sparkle in our eyes. ;)

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  3. totally cool Matt, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I hope you've followed through with the number you got at the con.

    Big things are happening!

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  4. sounds like a fabuouls time!! :) Chris Sanders is really nice. I interviewed him for chicagoanimators.com I was sooo nervous to talk to him but he turned out to be one of the nicest people to interview. Twins and I were invited to lunch at dreamworks but turned out we couldn't go cause the day we could go we were flying out. :( Glad you got to go and could share your story!

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  5. Well thankfully Chris is really Genuine which is rare!!

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  6. I'm not sure if Sander's movie is top secret - especially if it's Crude Awakenings...
    Maybe it's something else though.

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  7. Crude Awakenings.... Maybe thats what your supposed to think!!

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  8. Sorry I dropped off before, btw.
    My laptop had become unplugged and the battery bailed on me.

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