Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475854
As a child, Shavonne Cherry loved animals and Saturday morning cartoons. "I started to draw my own versions—invent my own stories, invent my own characters, and invent their worlds," she says. "That got me interested in the process of animation and considering it as a career." But when she graduated from art college in the mid-1980s, she was a woman of color entering a white, male- dominated profession. Fortunately, she had a strategy. She would start as a cel painter, a job traditionally held by females. "I knew that was going to be the easiest way to get my foot in the door," she says. By 1986, Cherry had made enough connections to get a job doing assistant model designs and model clean-up on the first season of Flintstone Kids. She worked at various boutique studios doing mainly commercial work, but her game plan paid off as she moved up into animation positions, eventually landing in character layout and then storyboards. You name a big show from the past 30 years, and Cherry has probably worked on it. Tiny Toon Adventures. The Looney Tunes Show. Family Guy. The Proud Family. The Simpsons. It's a list that goes on— and one whose eclecticism taught her a valuable lesson. "I had to think differently about every artistic task I was given," she says. "I had no choice. Every show is different, so I had to adjust what I did per show." Having gotten her start in Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Bros. styles, Cherry recalls how difficult it could be at times to switch gears. "You couldn't bring a Disney thought process into The Simpsons," she says. "There is a way of drawing that you have to lend yourself to. There's something underneath that gives those characters their personalities and makes them come across the screen the way they do. It's really hard to unlearn certain things that you can do as an artist. [That's why] I think flexibility is very important." Equally important to Cherry is self-care. She remembers what it was like to be a new artist who wants to give 150% "just to get the project done and let people know that you're a hard worker and dedicated. But it came with a price—forgetting what it was like to have a life." She wants those coming up after her to know that "it's okay to shut down and go outside and get some sunshine and walk around." She also advocates for being kind to one's self during the down times. For her this meant moments when she wasn't working, asking herself: "Do I suck that badly? Is it because I won't push myself to meet impossible deadlines?" Over time she learned to "take a deep breath and take the advice of good friends and family who kept me from falling into that dark abyss [where] we've all teetered around the rim." Because that abyss can exist even while a person is working, Cherry advises "not taking criticism personally. Listen to your bosses, regardless of if you think they're wrong. [Don't] be afraid to suggest alternatives before you just do what you think is right, [something] you'll eventually regret later. Be a team player." For Cherry one of the joys of being on a team is embracing the opportunities to learn from those who came before her. She savors her experience working on Tiny Toon for that very reason. "The atmosphere!" she says. "I was among the most talented people in the business on a very popular show that everybody was talking about at that time. We were free to be ourselves. Nobody put constraints on what we were doing. There was nothing like it." First doing freelance as a storyboard clean-up artist and then joining the staff as a character/model clean-up artist, Cherry took full advantage of the veterans she worked with: "We had their undivided attention. We wanted to learn. Holy cow! We listened and they told us amazing stories of working with people that had either passed on or already retired. And now [they] were teaching us how to be better at our crafts." Cherry longed to animate in some capacity, and when one of the veteran animators suggested that she do character layout, she admitted she didn't know how. This opened the door to an invaluable education as he showed her the fundamentals. "Just being able to have somebody look over your shoulder and say, don't do it like this, do it like that," she says. "[And then] oh, you've got it, you don't need my help. It's priceless, what I have as an education." While Cherry has kept up with the times and mastered all the technology necessary to keep a career going, she occasionally cel paints old favorite cartoons for fun and relaxation. She also enjoys working on her own characters she's created. And as can happen with labors of love, this led to an idea she believed would make a good show. Combining the concept of talk and cooking shows, Cherry, her husband, and two food professionals made an animatic. Having formerly worked for the Executive Producer of Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoons shorts program, she had the opportunity to reach out to him. "Fortunately, [he] was generous enough to hear my idea and saw merit in it," she says. He encouraged her to submit, and her project was chosen to be turned into a pilot. Cherry's takeaway is that "it doesn't matter how old you are. How long you've been in the business. It's all about the idea. It shouldn't matter if you're considered a veteran or newbie. It should be, can you make people tune in?" When asked if she still loves her work, Cherry replies: "Very much so. Especially how long it's taken me to get to where I'm at right now. I can see myself going until I can't do it anymore." As for how she'll do that, she plans to follow her own advice: "Get out there and just be brave and try to let people know who you are. The only way to do it is to do it." 22 KEYFRAME PRICELESS EDUCATION Shavonne Cherry F E AT U R E