Timing a piece of animation can be, well, very time-consuming. Just ask
David Brain.
He is a timing director with more than 30 years of experience in the animation
industry. His credits include the animated version of the popular Dilbert
cartoon. And Brain must have felt a certain kinship for the main character
and his cubicle alienation during a recent day and night at the office.
He was timing a long, complicated scene with multiple characters and multiple
backgrounds that paid homage to the popular sitcom Seinfeld. He started his
day at around noon and he didn't leave his office until 11 that night
because the timing sheets had to be shipped off to the animation studio the
next day.
Brain finished the job, but his work was not rewarded. His bosses cut the
lengthy scene because it was too technical.
"There is a sense of isolation and frustration that you have not [got]
the time to do it right," says Brain. "You get into those situations every
once in a while."
Such moments are thankfully rare, and Brain could not be happier about
his career in animation.
It started in 1966 when he joined the Walt Disney studio as an animator
after he graduated from art school in his hometown of Los Angeles. He has
also worked on popular television series like G.I. Joe, Men in Black, The
Simpsons and King of the Hill.
He also worked on Sesame Street, the popular morning show that has educated
millions of kids around the world. And he has fond memories of that gig.
"We got to design the shows, help build the stories, animate them, even
do some of the voices," he says. "That was a lot of fun."
But animation is not all fun and games. It is labor-intensive, and work
prospects are not steady.
Jon McClenahan was trying to break into the industry in the early 1980s.
Frustrated by the lack of jobs in the United States, he eventually moved to
Australia. "I was sick of driving a truck," he says.
His gamble paid off, and he worked there for a major animation studio for
eight years. "It was a dream come true," he says.
He eventually returned to the U.S. and now runs his own animation company
in Chicago. His client list includes Warner Bros. One of its producers paid
McClenahan one of the best compliments in the industry after he had timed
an episode of Tiny Toons, an updated version of the classical Loony Toons
cartoons created by famed animator Chuck Jones.
"The executive producer of the series said that my timing made me the Chuck
Jones of the 1990s," says McClenahan. "So I was very proud of that. In fact,
we put it in all of our brochures."
Marlene Robinson-May actually worked with the famed creator of Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. After she worked for a decade at Disney, she left
the famed studio in the mid-1960s to work for Jones, who had started his own
studio at the time.
"He was a wonderful boss," she says. "He knew what he was doing."
Robinson-May says there was a great deal of friendly competition between
Jones and his staff. He, of course, had worked for Warner Bros. for many years,
while many of them came from Disney.
"He'd come in, look over your shoulder...lean down with a pencil and
alter your drawing a little bit and say, 'Now, that is the Warner's
way,'" she recalls.
Robinson-May now splits her time between an animation studio and teaching
timing at a film school.
In 1987, Eduardo Soriano's friends told him that Disney was planning
to open a studio in Manila.
Dissatisfied by his past and current jobs, he put together a handwritten
resume and asked his friends to submit it for him. A few days later, Disney
called him in for an interview, and the studio offered him a job soon after.
Stays at two other studios, including Warner Bros., followed.
Then in 1994, he submitted his resume and samples to an animation studio
in Canada. It sponsored him immediately, and a month later he had left the
Philippines. He now works for a busy studio in Vancouver.
Indeed, one time he had to cram a month's worth of work into three
days. It was exhausting, but Soriano could not imagine doing anything else.
"I have the freedom to play with the characters, and it's kind of
fun seeing all your ideas on TV."