Journal log

I have quite a few favorite films--too many to name individually. But I will say that throughout my life I have gone through phases where the work of certain director's and animators have caught my interest. Instead of these interests going away, I would just incorporate these interests into my lists of favorite things and move on to another obsession.

For example, in the 1990s, when I was 7 and 8 years old, I went through a "Tim Burton" phase. I loved Burton's direction and art direction on Peewee Herman and the Beetlejuice films as well as the Beetlejuice animated series.

When I was older, I began reading about some of my favorite artists and I discovered that shortly after Burton graduated from Cal Arts, he made a short film called Vincent, a stop-motion film about a child who believed he was Vincent Price. Although I was at a phase in my life when I was more obsessed with recent Disney films and short student films, my initial interest in Burton led me to looking up the film. After watching Vincent, I realized that many of the stylistic touches that I appreciated from Burton's films were the very things that he had been developing as an artist and a student for quite some time.

Another example was my interest in Tom Warburton's cartoon show, Codename Kids Next Door.

I had always wondered why some of the character designs and overall style of the show looked familiar, and after watching and reading interviews of Warburton, I realized it was because he had worked on character designs and in-betweens for shows such as Doug and Pepper Ann.  These all happened to be shows that I loved as a child!