In Praise of Passion and Perseverance
This month, we caught up with Dieter Wagner, a self-taught independent animator who used his passion and perseverance to romance the folks at Robot Chicken and Rick and Morty, and land a dream job at Snap, Inc. Here are a few of the things we learned from him: So, Dieter, tell me about your journey so far. Well, it took me about 20 years, more than 10 trips going back and forth between North Carolina and Los Angeles, dozens of small animation projects, and a bunch of stubbornness to ultimately become a 3D designer for Snap. How did it all start? As long as I can remember I always wanted to make cartoons, but where I grew up in North Carolina there was no animation industry and certainly no training. I had always planned on carrying on the family business of textiles, but in the late ‘90s I stumbled upon the Martin Hash Animation:Master website and that really opened my eyes to a whole new way of making animation. This helped keep me motivated for the next few years to study and develop my own projects. I eventually enrolled in the very first Animation Mentor course in 2005, sent my demo reel to everyone I could find, and eight months after graduation I landed my first gig as a remote animator for Andy’s Airplanes. How did you go from a remote animator for a kid’s show to working on Rick and I always had a huge passion for stop-motion and wanted to explore this further, so I enrolled in Animation A Team, which was the only online stop-motion course available at the time. In this course, my instructor mentored me through a Robot Chicken- style shot. Once completed, I posted it on Twitter and people from the show actually contacted me. They said they loved my work and their animation director would be calling me soon.
Although it didn’t lead to a job, the response I received from this was greater than anything I had ever done with CG, so I felt it was my true calling. Sometime later, I took a similar approach with a Kevin Smith short called Tusky Business, and that eventually led to spending three to four months producing my next short, The Misadventures of Rick and Morty. The creator of Rick and Morty loved the short and ended up hiring me for my first official stop-motion job where I produced two promos for the third season of the show. You’ve been on a long journey, how did you persevere? Passion. If you are not passionate about what you want, you’re going to turn and run at the first sign of resistance. I was convinced I wanted to be an animator and I was determined it was going to work out.
When times got tough, people would tell me about other job opportunities, but it just didn’t register with me as even an option. I told myself, although the contracts seem to be few and far between, it’s still animation. If you quit when the going gets tough, that just shows you weren’t really passionate about it in the first place. Many times I resorted to side jobs to pay the bills but still kept focused on animating. If there’s something that you really want to do, you can’t stop pursuing it. How important are referrals in this industry? Referrals and recommendations are how I made it happen from job to job. Even if you do remote work, be friendly. Chit-chat with people. You never stop building relationships and friends. If you’re genuine and have no agenda and show that you love what you do, people will be receptive and want to help. It will come What advice would you give to those just starting out in animation? Familiarize yourself with all the moving parts of the animation industry. Try to follow people on social media that are doing animation professionally. Study what they do and look for an opportunity to network with them. Some are nice enough that they may even give you advice. Whatever it is you want to do, be doing it. You must have something to show to get interest. For example, I loved stop-motion, so I started doing it even though I wasn’t getting paid and had no idea how or if I ever would. Any closing comments? Even though I have a dream job at a dream studio, I still feel like I’m on a journey, and I don’t truly know what the next step will be. I feel very lucky and honored to be in this position. I’m able to do what I love, support and spend time with my family and I realize how truly special that is. I don’t know if this is the last step in my journey, but if there is a next step, it will definitely be in animation. Martin Grebing is president of Funnybone Animation and can be reached at www.funnyboneanimation.com.
The past decade saw more choices in animated content all over the world as audiences enjoyed 2D, CG, stop-motion and multimedia projects both on the big screen and the small.
hugely popular Rick and Morty.
The following year, we chronicled another fantastic batch of animated cinematic achievements. With the likes of The LEGO Movie, Big Hero 6, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the limelight, our writers landed informative and inspiring interviews with the directors and the artistic teams responsible for their success. Also on our radar this year were vfx-heavy blockbusters such as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Maleficent, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Of course, we also covered the year’s best animated festival shorts, web series and TV debuts such as Sonic Boom, BoJack Horseman, Breadwinners, Clarence, The 7D, All Hail King Julien, Mike Tyson Mysteries, Star Wars Rebels and Tumble Leaf.
In 2015, live-action fantasy and sci-fi epics such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Martian and Ant-Man kept our visual effects reporters busy. However, envelope-pushing CG-animated features such as Pixar’s Inside Out, Illumination’s Minions, DreamWorks’ Home and Sony’s Hotel Transylvania 2 also attracted record audiences to theaters. The year’s auspicious TV debuts included ZAG’s Miraculous, Puffin Rock, The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Dinotrux, Dawn of the Croods, Harvey Beaks, Miles from Tomorrowland, The Lion Guard, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, SuperMansion, Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Pickle and Peanut. In addition to covering all these toons, Animag also profiled indie animators and festival favorites that helped push the artistic integrity of the medium.
Animation fans enjoyed another busy year in 2016, packed with colorful new properties debuting on multiple platforms. The arrival of The Loud House on Nickelodeon, Milo Murphy’s Law on Disney XD, Justice League Action on Cartoon Network and Trollhunters on Netflix all warranted in-depth articles in the pages of our magazine. Our writers also covered the year’s biggest animated features, a long list that included LAIKA’s Kubo and the Two Strings, Pixar’s Finding Dory, Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets, Disney’s Zootopia and Moana, and DreamWorks’ Trolls and Kung Fu Panda 3. We also brought attention to the fantastic visual effects work featured in blockbusters such as The Jungle Book, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
You can find out more about our 30-year history and all the many animated movies, TV shows, multimedia, shorts and vfx articles at www.animationmagazine.net. You can also share your own favorite stories and suggest future articles at edit@ animationmagazine.net. Thank you for all your support and being part of the Animation Magazine community for the past three decades.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 [Disney, BD $24.99]
Audiences and critics were delighted with this invigorating return to the colorful, crazy Marvel sci-fi universe, and now you can take all the laser-blasting, space monster-infested action home on a variety of formats— including 4K Ultra, in a Marvel Studios first.
Directed again by James Gunn and set to an all-new soundscape, the sequel sets Guardians Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) on a quest to unravel their leader Peter Quill/Star Lord’s (Chris Pratt) true parentage, forming new alliances with old enemies and fan-favorite comic characters.
Blu-ray and 4K ($24.99) sets grow the story universe with intro and audio commentary by Gunn, four deleted scenes, gag reel, the viral “Guardians Inferno” music video starring David Hasselhoff, and “Making of” featurette. The Digital version boasts exclusive breakdowns of the “Eclector Escape,” “Gamora and Nebula” and “Rocket and Ravagers” scenes, plus sneak-peek at the new Disneyland ride Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Breakout!. The interplanetary Pratt-falls are also available on no-frills DVD ($19.99).
[Release date: Aug. 22]