Archives for : Shrek

Toon-In Talk Episode 27: Interview with Vicky Jenson

Posted by :storysequence On : July 26, 2016
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Hello and welcome to twenty-seventh episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews.  Continuing with her fabulous Ladies of Animation series, Whitney interviews the one and only Vicky Jenson.  Vicky is one of the top animation directors, in Whitney’s opinion, in Hollywood and she also lends her talents to television animation as well.  She is respected as the director of DreamWorks’s Shrek and Shark Tale.  Vicky’s  resume includes the shows Smurfs, He-Man, JEM, She-Ra and the films The Road to El-Dorado, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and FernGully.  She discusses her past successes with Whitney and also hints at some exciting projects yet to come.

Episode 27

  • Vicky Jenson is an animation director who worked on many feature films and cartoons.  Whitney’s favorite work of Vicky’s is Shrek.
  • Vicky never did any of the animation on the projects she worked on, but she has dabbled in different parts of the process, including storyboarding.
  • Remember that Old Navy advertising campaign a few years ago with the talking mannequins? That was Vicky Jenson’s work!
  • She became interested in directing when she worked in storyboarding, because she decided the camera angles, action, and loved the interaction with the story.
  • Whitney and Vicky discuss the benefits of drawing in a digital environment vs. the traditional pencil in hand model.
  • Vicky Jenson describes working in animation during the Saturday morning boom in the 1980s.
  • She joined DreamWorks and began work on The Road to El Dorado.
  • Jeffrey Katzenberg noticed Vicky Jenson’s talent for story and encouraged her to be storyboarding and directing.
  • Vicky later worked on Shrek and through her persistance and talent became one of the directors.
  • Vicky and Whitney talk about how storyboarding ins integral to the story process.
  • She left her position at DreamWorks animation in 2015 after being at the studio from the beginning.
  • When DreamWorks restructured in January 2015, the studio decided to end production on several animated film projects, including the one Vicky Jenson was on. It’s disappointing that some of these features will never be seen, especially since many of them were 70% animated.
  • Vicky Jenson is writing and illustrating her own graphic novel, much to Whitney’s excitement.
  • She is also working on a stage musical and is adapting a work. Vicky describes it as something between Cirque du Soiliel and Broadway.
  • Her advice to women interested in pursuing an animation career: get your stuff together and do it. Also seek out opportunities and pursue them when they appear.
  • Vicky shares that she learned the most when she was on the job.
  • She has nothing to declare!

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Toon-In Talk Episode 26: Interview with Yvette Kaplan

Posted by :storysequence On : July 26, 2016
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Category: EPISODES

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Hello and welcome to twenty-sixth episode of Fanboy Nation’s Toon-In-Talk, your rendezvous for animation interviews.  Whitney is back from her hiatus and ready to finish her Ladies of Animation series.  She’s returning with an awesome guest, Yvette Kaplan.  Yvette Kaplan has a prestigious animation career working in both feature and television animation.  She made a name for herself as the supervising director for the quintessential 1990s cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head.  Yvette also directed the Beavis and Butt-Head Do America film that was the highest grossing non-Disney animated for years.  Yvette works on any project that catches her interest and she shares her adventures in this interview.

Episode 26

  • Yvette Kaplan is famous for her work on Zack and Quack, Beavis and Butt-Head, Doug, and many other great projects.
  • She has carried many titles and roles in the animation industry, going as far back as being an ink and paint artist.   She caught the animation bug when she was five years old.
  • Yvette loved watching the Fleischer cartoons: Betty Boop and Popeye. Her absolute favorite cartoon short is Max Fleischer’s “Somewhere in Dreamland.”
  • She knew more about the Fleischer cartoons than she did the Disney features.
  • Yvette is also a fan of John and Faith Hubley’s works, a husband and wife team who made animated films.
  • When Yvette began her career, she was advised not to go into animation, but she didn’t listen and in the early 1990s, she began work on Nickelodeon’s NickToons.
  • She worked on the pilot for Doug, directed by Tony Eastman. Nickelodeon liked her work and she was a director on the series for three seasons.
  • Although she was very busy, Yvette consulted on The Magic School Bus.
  • Then Tony Eastman showed her two “gross boy” characters for a MTV show. Yvette Kaplan loved the humor and Mike Judge, the show’s creator, hired her to be the director on Beavis and Butt-Head.
  • She also directed Beavis and Butt-Head Do America and it was the highest grossing non-Disney animated movie for years.
  • Yvette would later return to Los Angeles with the intent to work on more feature and television, but she also wanted to explore all avenues.
  • She found a comfortable spot on the King of the Hill team as well as on the PBS show Arthur.
  • Drawing more on her extensive talents, Yvette made the children’s CGI show Zack and Quack. The animation looks like it was made from paper.
  • She prefers to work in television, but Yvette sometimes get the strong urge to work on a feature film.
  • Yvette recently worked on the fun new girl-based series from Disney called Star Darlings. She loves working on it, because it took her into a new genre she had never worked in before.
  • She shares that working on education based cartoons has its difficulties, but it was a challenge she loved.
  • From her perspective, Yvette wasn’t too aware about the lack of women in the animation industry. She never felt a ceiling and her positive attitude helped her push through many barriers. She became more aware of it as she matured.
  • Both Yevette and Whitney are huge fans of Steven Universe and Star vs. The Forces of Evil, two shows created by women.
  • Yvette declares that her animation adventure will continue.

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