Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1055975
WINTER 2018 25 WHILE WORKING ON THE DREAMWORKS ANIMATED KIDS SHOW DINOTRUX SUPERCHARGED, FILL MARC SAGADRACA HELPED CREATE ADVENTURES FOR ROBOTIC DINOSAURS WITH NAMES LIKE CRANEOSAURAUS AND GARBAGEADON. SEVERAL YEARS LATER, WHILE WORKING ON THE DECIDEDLY NON KID-FRIENDLY PARADISE PD, SAGADRACA FOUND HIMSELF DEPICTING A RATHER DIFFERENT PRIMEVAL INTERACTION. "We had a giant dinosaur having sex with a car," recalls Sagadraca. "And in the opening scene, a character's date gets urinated on twice. It was like, 'OK, I've never done anything like that before. Check that one off the bucket list.'" The gap between Dinotrux Supercharged and Paradise PD is vast, and it's one which many artists have sought out as they move through their careers. If you have grown up watching cartoons, inevitably you have transitioned from G-rated content followed by more mature fare and then possibly returning to a new generation of daytime content when you have children of your own. But as a professional you can't "outgrow" shows; to do so would be cutting off opportunities for employment. As they train and enter the field, budding artists often end up watching a large spectrum of content—children and adult programming—with a more narrative- and design-focused eye before deciding what genre they want to pursue. Teaching life lessons to the pre-school set? Tougher, racier content that would make Bubble Guppies blush? Both? Something in between? "We all got into it as kids, watching something we liked on Disney or the Tex Avery cartoons," says Max Martinez, who worked on many of the Klasky Csupo shows like Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys before moving over to Fox to storyboard on The Cleveland Show, American Dad! and Family Guy. "Not to be too cliché about it, but we all have that inner child that we fall back on that we use to go back and forth. I have a lot of friends in their 40s and 50s who have gone back to doing children's cartoons, and they love it more than the adult genre." Veteran artists and writers who have worked extensively in both genres, say that they seek out their content of choice and that, in certain cases, the content finds then. Many contend that a strong visual storyteller should be able shuttle between adult and kids shows, provided she is able to adapt and—in some cases— to find a professional "in." That last part is important. As can be the case in any other genre of artistic creation, an animator can develop a reputation within the industry as primarily an adult content or child content specialist. It's equally possible, after years in one medium, to get burnt out and look to switch gears. "When I had been on children's cartoons on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network for awhile and I wanted to go onto a show at Fox. It was like I had to prove to them I was qualified to be on that show," recalls Carol Wyatt, who has worked on such programs as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, The Cleveland Show and The Powerpuff Girls. "People have short memories in this business, if you work on something for awhile, even five years. People forget you could do the other thing." That adult animation often has a distinctly different look than children's animation is by design but whatever the medium, a good story is a good story and has to hold an audience, say artists. The youngest TV viewer's attention will not be held if the content isn't engaging, and creating engaging content is a distinct talent. WINTER 2018 25 Dinotrux © 2018 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved. " P E O P L E H AV E S H O R T ME M O R IE S IN T HI S B U S IN E S S , IF Y O U W O R K O N S O ME T HIN G F O R AW HIL E , E V E N F I V E Y E A R S . P E O P L E F O R G E T Y O U C O U L D D O T HE O T HE R T HIN G ." - C A R O L W YAT T Sagadraca's boards on Dinotrux (top) and Paradise PD (bottom).