Duncan Studio

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Inside Duncan Studio
#5

1- Layout Supervisor Lorenzo Martinez suggesting camera angles during a sequence launch. "Poppins"

2-BG Artist/Art Director Travis Ruiz inspecting a painting...

3- Animator Bill Waldman receiving an award for getting the production's first animated scene approved by the director!

4- Animator and Assistant Stephanie Alexander waiting for a shot; "Poppins".

5- A studio party.
P.A. Gwen Arreola chatting with production manager Brett Salinas (hat).

6- Layout Artist and BG painter Emil Mitev, always in a good mood.

7-A portion of our "morgue" where we store the 2D animation for all our completed projects. The cup of tea for scale...

8- Chris Sauvé discussing Lyle Nagy's storyboard work for the feature film "LOW".

9- Ink/Paint Artist painting the Wolf in Harmony software; "Poppins".

10- At the end of "Poppins", for fun, we painted a few cells of the penguins, which we gave away as gifts.
Veteran Ink/Paint Artist Staci Nichols used her skills from the past.
They linked beautiful!

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Inside Duncan Studio
The visitors: folks who visited the studio...

1- Syd Mead; 2014
Syd lived nearby in Pasadena. I'd met him at the hospital gym after my heart incident. (Former patients could use the gym).
He came by the studio, signed some books; a few of us headed to lunch with him. A kind man.
(Director Mark Baldo to his left).

2-Kobe Bryant; 2019
Kobe had been talking to us about doing a 2D feature film based on an idea of his.
He came by and watched animators drawing on paper and was like a kid in a candy store, he loved animation! The deal didn't work out at the time. (I'd even been looking at a building nearby with a helicopter pad).
A producer reached out a year later to chat again, 2 weeks before Kobe passed away. An interesting guy.

3- Kathryn Bigelow; 2014
Our studio animated an anti-ivory trade short "Last Days" produced by Sandy Rabins, directed by Kathryn who was a pleasure to work with.
With our coordinator, fellow Canuck Shawn Eddie.

4-Roger Allers; 2017
Roger directed "The Lion King", "Open Season, and "The Prophet". He came by for lunch with producer Lisa Poole and I....

5- Tone Thyne; 2018
Tone is a producer/writer of children's television animation; "Wonder Pets", "Go! Go! Carson", etc.
I worked with Tine at Disney when he was an Animation APM on "Tarzan". A good friend.

6-Buck Lewis; 2014
Buck (AKA H.B. Lewis) is a great designer and illustrator. He did great character designs on "Tarzan", "Treasure Planet", "Ice Age", "Cars"", "Ratatouille", "Kung Fu Panda", etc, etc...
Super talented.

7-Mark Dindal;
Director of Disney's "Emperors New Grove", Mark came over to chat...and I don't recall why.

8- Al Madrigal; 2014?
Al was a correspondent in John Stewart's "The Daily Show", "About A Boy", etc. We worked with Al creating some artwork for a poker app that he's building.

9- Jorgen Klubien
Jorgen was an animator at Disney and joined Pixar in the 90's as a story person. He shared his idea for "Cars" to his former roommate John Lasseter, and the rest is history.

10- Brett Morgan; 2014
Brett directed the docu "The Kid Stays in the Picture". We animated 2 scenes in his defilement "Montage of Heck", about Kurt Cobain.
A tough guy.

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Inside Duncan Studio
pre-Covid
#2

1-Fozzie Bear answering calls!
Story artist Dave Boudreau is a fan and brought in Fozzie one day. So fun; 2014

2-Me, FX legend Michel Gagne and Brad Bird selfie.
Brad came by to launch us on 2 new "Iron Giant" sequences we were about to start at the studio. They were sequences that Brad didn't have the time or budget to complete in 1999.
He wanted them for the new "Signature Edition" release in 2015 (you can view it on Apple TV, Amazon, etc.); 2015

3-Animator Brooke Shay working on the "Minion Safety Short" we created for the Japanese Universal park; 2016

4-Ink/Paint and Scene Planning crew during "Iron Giant"; 2015

5- The compositing team and director of "KFP2: Secrets of the Masters" special. Richard Ramazinski with glasses, Director Tony Leondis (with less hair), and compositor Jason Stovall on the right; 2012

6-IT Supervisor Mark Handler, and our always reliable Coordinator Shawn Eddie enjoy some Duncan Studio 8th anniversary cake!; 2015

7- Some of the crew for "Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life" celebrating at our wrap party; 2016

8- Director Rob Marshall as well as choreographer Tara Hughes visit while we create the animation for "Mary Poppins Returns". I'm at the end of the table showing the animation completed at this point; 2017

9- The "Poppins" Layout team. Supervisor Lorenzo Martinez on the far right: 2017

10- "Poppins" choreographer Tara Hughes came by to step us through the dance steps for the penguins that was filmed by dancers during the live action shoot it England a few months earlier; 2017