A few shots animated by David March

Just to remind folks --- I like showing people how to do animation. I've taught almost 2,000 people how to draw animation, and how to use 2D and 3D animation Software. My brother and I started drawing when we were in diapers. Eventually that got us to where we could make some $$$ at it. I'm not saying it's easy. But it's a way to make a living, if you hustle. •••••••••••••

These are some sequences I had animated before I was laid off in spring of 1992. Startoons was sending our cleaned-up Pencil Animation to studios in Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea, where their people Xeroxed our pencil drawings onto "Cels" then painted and photographed them with Rostrum 35mm Camera stands – vertical mounted single-framing Zoomable industry standard cameras. So there was a substantial interval from the time we animators finished our shots and handed'em in, until the things were photographed, processed, edited to conform to the master audio tracks, and assembled into a broadcast-ready Master Video. 

I've worked at several studios, sometimes as a contract worker, and in several instances, didn't see the final product with my animation in it, until many months later. For instance, I have NEVER seen an actual Primal Rage arcade game Anywhere, although I've seen other Atari-Midway games for which I did some work... Occasionally the Atari managers sent the teams out to see what our competition was up ta... Sega, Sony, Namco, Konami, CapCom, et cetera. They gave each of us about $25 worth of quarters. We actually spent'em all on the games, then went back and wrote up some reports. Real professional-like.

Hey, most of the time I was working in the industry, it was a LOT of 60-hour weeks, and not a few 80-hour weeks. I didn't even own a television for seven years, because I was surrounded by TV screens throughout my waking day! When I wasn't cranking out the work, I was playing my fiddle in a community orchestra or some smokey bar, playing Blues, or Celtic or just some open mike Scott Joplin tunes and Folk music. Or Camping. No one was holding a gun to our heads; we wanted the work to be GOOD! Putting in the hours just to improve some small details – sometimes that's what makes the difference between Acceptable and Outstanding. 

==> While I was working at Atari, Chris ("Mrs.") McClenahan sent me a copy of the Startoons demo reel so I would have a copy of some of the work I had done. At that time there were at least nine sequences I had animated in the reel, even if my name wasn't in all the credits for those episodes. Well, lots of actors have fared worse -- their best acting cut out by the director for one reason or another.

*Sigh* Well, I was in the credits for several shows. It happens a lot. On loan for a few weeks to the Encyclopedia Britannica TV special "The Dinosaurs!" along with a dozen other Chicago animators, I animated a pair of herrerasaurs munching some hapless vegetarian dino. None of us in that animation crew got individual screen credits for the work. You need to negotiate that in advance in a written contract, and unless you have the clout...a reputation in the industry, it's not always gonna happen.

Still, it was neat to have our work reviewed and get Feedback every week or so by Paleontologist Dr. Paul Sereno of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History!!!  (I believe he's the person who first described the Herrerasaurus, along with dozens of other critters.)