John Sanford

By day, Director / Story Man for Disney, Sony, PIXAR, and most recently  Dreamworks.
By night, Creator of the Chippy and Loopus web comic.

Chippy from John's web comic Chippy and Loopus!
 

My guest on the Man vs. Art Podcast is the brilliant and super talented Artist, Writer, Directory, Story Artist and comic creator John Sanford who currently works as the Director of the Dreamworks Animated Series Riders of Berk  . John is also the creator of the web comics Chippy and Loopus and K&J which his wife writes. John is originally from Denver  Colorado. He attended Calarts and in 1993 started at Disney on the Hunchback of Notre Dame as a Story trainee. He worked on  worked on Mulan, Atlantis, a little on Lilo, then co-directed Home on the Range.

After Disney
John left Disney after David Stainton (rhymes with Satan) Took over and went tot Sony, Pixar, then Dreamworks where he is now am an episode Director on the Dragons TV show Riders of Berk.. John is married, he  has has no kids, but he has  4 dogs.

John joins me for an extra long episode where we talk about animation, story, artist's rights and how productions tend to ignore them. John is very frank and doesn't pull any punches when he gives us the behind the scenes scoop at Disney, Pixar, Sony, and Dreamworks.

 
Concerns about the Animation Business.
John's main concern is the way studios use Storyboard artists to simply draw script pages exactly as scripted. He feels, (and I agree) that when Story Artists are not given the opportunity to be creative and approach storytelling with drawings the projects become stale. What is more entertaining?

A) reading Sponge Bob has a  wacky freak out?

B) seeing  Sponge Bob's have a wacky Freak out?

I rest my case.

 

Cartoonists should create animation stories with drawings.  Plain and simple. Creating animation by any other way is insane.

This is a very special show, John was pure dynamite and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making this episode!

Thanks!

[youtube  560 315 gSFwW8UGdEc]
 Ink brush sketches by John Sanford.

 

 

 

 

 

 John Sanford inking cartoons the old school way.

WITH INK!