Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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36 KEYFRAME Other couples also struggle with this delicate balance, including Disney TV designer Molly Ostertag and her partner, Noelle Stevenson, a showrunner on DreamWorks TV's She-Ra reboot. The two met seven years ago while promoting their web comics. "We try to be very honest and communicative in our relationship if one of us is feeling insecure or even jealous," says Stevenson. "It's not a trait necessarily I like about myself that I can be competitive." It was especially hard for Ostertag, a graphic novelist, when she moved to Los Angeles from New York about two years ago to pursue a career in animation. "When you were just starting She-Ra and I was looking for a job and I was getting a little desperate because I didn't know a lot of people, we talked about, 'What if I wrote on She-Ra," says Ostertag. Though the idea was initially appealing, in the end the couple decided it was more important for them to be on equal footing. "I think our ambition is really important to both of us in our careers but it's something that I want to be really sensitive about," says Stevenson. "It is tricky to have an employee-employer relationship when you're dating." However, not all couples have an issue with one working in a supervisory role. For a short time, DreamWorks TV designer Roger Oda worked with his wife, Valerie Fletcher, on American Dad! where she is a director. The two found the collaboration mutually beneficial. "It was nice because we could give each other honest feedback that maybe we wouldn't give or get from somebody else on the show, " says Fletcher, who met Oda while both were studying character design at CalArts. Indeed, the two had almost a shorthand language, which came in handy when trying to express creative direction. "If we were talking about design, we had a common frame of reference," she adds. That being said, Oda credits part of their collaborative success to the fact that both were well established in the industry before working together and they don't compete for the same job. King also appreciates the opportunity to get feedback from his wife when he's working: "It's invaluable when I'm brainstorming and working at home to have someone who I can say, what do you think about this?" Ostertag found Stevenson's advice critical when navigating her first job, while Stevenson calls Ostertag, "her secret weapon." "I trust Molly's narrative and visual sense so much," she says. "You can just bounce ideas off of each other—it's one of the biggest benefits of both of us being in the industry together." Understanding the nuances of the industry—unpredictable hours "I've heard some couples have a hard time because animation is not very steady. We both just accept that our work can be seasonal." Roger Oda & Valerie Fletcher Caricature by Lindsey Olivares F E AT U R E