Post by /\/\att on Jun 29, 2004 4:33:15 GMT -5
[shadow=green,left,300]Eric Wight was a character designer on Batman Beyond![/shadow]
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LoG: How did you get into working in animation? Was the path difficult? Any tips for aspiring animators?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: I started off at the School of Visual Arts in their animation program. By the end of my first year I landed a job as a character layout artist at MTV on "Beavis and Butt-head Do America." During my junior year, Disney announced that they were going to have an animation boot camp training program with students nationwide. I was selected to be a part of it and spent a month in Monterey studying with a lot of the great Disney animators. When I got back I received a call from Disney Television asking if I wanted to pitch a show to them. Of course I accepted, and when I flew back out to California to pitch my show I also dropped off my portfolio with the Batman crew at Warner Brothers requesting to join their team. The TV show pitch never went anywhere, but Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami like my portfolio, so I was offered a job drawing character designs for Batman. In a period of two weeks I graduated college, got married, and moved to California to start work on Batman. At that point in time, the path was daunting but not tremendously difficult because there were a lot of opportunities. DreamWorks had just opened their doors, direct-to-videos were booming, and television animation was taking off like gangbusters. A lot has happened since then and the industry has changed a lot. So much more is being done overseas and in Canada that it has taken a lot of jobs away from very talented people. My advice for aspiring animators is to find one aspect that they love about animation -- whether it be design, storytelling, or color -- and create a portfolio that focuses on that area. If the actual art of animation is what you love, then you really have your work cut out for you. There are almost no opportunities here in the US for being an actual 2d animator. I have friends who have moved to Taiwan just to be able to animate. It is also a big help to create samples that reflect the style of the show you want to work on. There are a lot of great websites of talented animators and illustrators that showcase the quality of work you should aspire towards. [/glow]
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LoG: Are you a Batman fan at all? What was it like being chosen to work on Batman Beyond with such a legendary character?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Batman was always one of my favorite characters. I have drawings of him that date back to when I was three or four. And I was a tremendous fan of Bruce Timm and his take on Batman. I remember feeling like the luckiest guy in the world getting to work on this show. [/glow]
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LoG: When designing characters for Batman Beyond, were you given much direction as far as the look, or did you sort of run with your own ideas within the art style?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Of course Bruce played a major role in the look of Batman Beyond. And Art Director/Producer Glen Murakami is also one who deserves a lot of credit for the design of Batman Beyond. He did a fantastic job of creating such a believably futuristic environment. And he was the guy who sheparded the rest of us in the direction of his vision. So we had various "theories" on how the clothes should look that kept things consistent[/glow]
-----------------------------------------
LoG: You did some fantastic design work on Batman Beyond. Tell us, are there any characters that you designed, other than the following list?
*Matt McGinnis
*Various Board Members
*Vilmos Egans
*Lula
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Out of five character designers, I was the youngest and most inexperienced, so a lot of the characters I worked on were the background characters that you only saw for a blink, or I would be given a design from Bruce or Glen and I would have to fine-tune it and drw the model sheet for it. On one occasion, a storyboard artist drew me into one of the episodes, so I got to design a character of myself. My brief walk-on role turned out to be pretty lucrative, as I can be seen popping up in about four or five episodes of Batman Beyond, Zeta Project, and Justice League Adventures. Usually my character is fleeing in terror or being blown out of a building.
[/glow]
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LoG: Are you currently working on any Batman related projects for DC/WB? If not, what projects are you working on currently?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: I am currently working on an issue of Justice League Adventures for DC Comics. I hope to some day write and draw a Batman graphic novel. I am also working on other various television and animation projects, including the Buffy Animated Series.
[/glow]
---------------------------------------------
LoG: How did you get into working in animation? Was the path difficult? Any tips for aspiring animators?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: I started off at the School of Visual Arts in their animation program. By the end of my first year I landed a job as a character layout artist at MTV on "Beavis and Butt-head Do America." During my junior year, Disney announced that they were going to have an animation boot camp training program with students nationwide. I was selected to be a part of it and spent a month in Monterey studying with a lot of the great Disney animators. When I got back I received a call from Disney Television asking if I wanted to pitch a show to them. Of course I accepted, and when I flew back out to California to pitch my show I also dropped off my portfolio with the Batman crew at Warner Brothers requesting to join their team. The TV show pitch never went anywhere, but Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami like my portfolio, so I was offered a job drawing character designs for Batman. In a period of two weeks I graduated college, got married, and moved to California to start work on Batman. At that point in time, the path was daunting but not tremendously difficult because there were a lot of opportunities. DreamWorks had just opened their doors, direct-to-videos were booming, and television animation was taking off like gangbusters. A lot has happened since then and the industry has changed a lot. So much more is being done overseas and in Canada that it has taken a lot of jobs away from very talented people. My advice for aspiring animators is to find one aspect that they love about animation -- whether it be design, storytelling, or color -- and create a portfolio that focuses on that area. If the actual art of animation is what you love, then you really have your work cut out for you. There are almost no opportunities here in the US for being an actual 2d animator. I have friends who have moved to Taiwan just to be able to animate. It is also a big help to create samples that reflect the style of the show you want to work on. There are a lot of great websites of talented animators and illustrators that showcase the quality of work you should aspire towards. [/glow]
-----------------------------------------
LoG: Are you a Batman fan at all? What was it like being chosen to work on Batman Beyond with such a legendary character?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Batman was always one of my favorite characters. I have drawings of him that date back to when I was three or four. And I was a tremendous fan of Bruce Timm and his take on Batman. I remember feeling like the luckiest guy in the world getting to work on this show. [/glow]
-----------------------------------------
LoG: When designing characters for Batman Beyond, were you given much direction as far as the look, or did you sort of run with your own ideas within the art style?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Of course Bruce played a major role in the look of Batman Beyond. And Art Director/Producer Glen Murakami is also one who deserves a lot of credit for the design of Batman Beyond. He did a fantastic job of creating such a believably futuristic environment. And he was the guy who sheparded the rest of us in the direction of his vision. So we had various "theories" on how the clothes should look that kept things consistent[/glow]
-----------------------------------------
LoG: You did some fantastic design work on Batman Beyond. Tell us, are there any characters that you designed, other than the following list?
*Matt McGinnis
*Various Board Members
*Vilmos Egans
*Lula
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: Out of five character designers, I was the youngest and most inexperienced, so a lot of the characters I worked on were the background characters that you only saw for a blink, or I would be given a design from Bruce or Glen and I would have to fine-tune it and drw the model sheet for it. On one occasion, a storyboard artist drew me into one of the episodes, so I got to design a character of myself. My brief walk-on role turned out to be pretty lucrative, as I can be seen popping up in about four or five episodes of Batman Beyond, Zeta Project, and Justice League Adventures. Usually my character is fleeing in terror or being blown out of a building.
[/glow]
-----------------------------------------
LoG: Are you currently working on any Batman related projects for DC/WB? If not, what projects are you working on currently?
[glow=red,2,300]Eric Wight: I am currently working on an issue of Justice League Adventures for DC Comics. I hope to some day write and draw a Batman graphic novel. I am also working on other various television and animation projects, including the Buffy Animated Series.
[/glow]