Bean Bonkers and Life as a Human Resource

Every business has its bean counters.  In the bean business, they have them in spades.  A team of bean counters determines exactly how many beans to place each can to yield the maximum profit for the company.  If a worker at the cannery should strive to create a better can of beans by adding more beans or being more selective of the beans to be canned, that employee would, after a few formal warnings, be canned themselves.

Beans are not art.  Art is not beans.  But sometime way back, the two were crossbred to create an abominable freak worthy of Dr. Moreau; the animation production.  In this business, there are people who try to create art and people who try to count beans.  Together, they fail miserably in their individual tasks, but produce a bi-product called the animated cartoon; neither art nor beans.

My Most Influential Contemporaries

I have posted before about artistic influences, artists who I did not work with personally, but had a strong influence on my own work.  This time, I write about artists of my generation. In the past 30 years, I have worked with hundreds of artists, and many have influenced me in some manner.  Here is a list of five artists who, for me, had the greatest impact, in chronological order.  

1.  Dan Jeup – Dan was my roommate during my freshman year of CalArts, in 1981.  I knew next to nothing about Disney animation, though Dan was already animating at a professional level, and was an encyclopedia of Disney animation knowledge.  His passion for the medium was contagious, and I felt lucky to be asked along when he studied Disney film prints in the school library, pointing out different animation techniques.  Dan taught me about editing and match cuts and animating a character with weight.   And I taught him how to drink a lot of beer.

Drew Barrymore Gives Birth to Olive

In 1999, I had the honor to direct Matt Groening's Christmas special "Olive, the Other Reindeer".  It was based on the book by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh, who based the character Olive on their dog of the same name.

Last Wednesday, Drew Barrymore, who voiced the title character, gave birth to a girl and named her Olive!  I, for one, think this is very cool.  As the Christmas special was concerned, Olive was Drew.  The charm in her voice brought so much character to that  bizarre-looking little dog.  

A few years after making the special, I saw Drew at the Dresden in Hollywood.  I said, "Hey Olive!"  and her face lit up.  She clearly loves this character.  

Congrats Drew!  And Happy birthday, Olive!

-Steve