Creator Forge Podcast

Mark Simon has had an incredible, storied career lasting more than 30 years of working in the entertainment industry as a Storyboard Artist, Producer/Director for live-action and animation, and author of a dozen books and countless industry articles. He has been a part of more than 5000 productions.

Pat interviewed Mark in his magnificent basement studio back in late January to talk about his career and his terrific new book "Start at the Top: Stories To Help You Succeed".

• Mark's Storyboards Website
• Mark's Animation Website
• MarkSimonToons Youtube Channel
• Mark's book pages: MarkSimon.com and Amazon.com
• Start at the Top: Stories To Help You Succeed
• LinkedIn
• IMDB Page

Audio editing by Pat Bollin

Game developer, game artist, entrepreneur, comic artist, and more, Ron Jones is a man of many interests and a fixture in the Atlanta game scene as the founder of the Indie Cluster. Jeremiah met up with him at SIEGE 2019 to talk about his journey to his current work of promoting and supporting Atlanta’s burgeoning indie game scene.

• Ron’s Website
• Indie Cluster Site
• Tripwire
• SIEGE
• Art Institute of Atlanta
• Brad Merritt (we interviewed Brad in Ep11)

Audio Editing by Jeremiah Clark & Adam Greenlee

Chris McLaughlin is Lead 3D Environment artist at Floyd County Productions where he works on FX's Archer. Jeremiah caught up with him at SIEGE 2019 for a short conversation about his work history and thoughts about how to navigate a creative career.

Chris’ Portfolio

FX's Archer

Floyd County

• SIEGE
• Trick3D
• Went2Play
• Vizitech
• "NdotL" (Shaders for Artists)

Audio Editing by Jeremiah Clark & Adam Greenlee

As owner and sole full-time employee of Mighty Pants Media, Tony Grillo is a producer of dynamic video and animated content for advertising, messaging, training and entertainment. He has Directed ads as well as celebrated series for high-profile creative and corporate clients like Mark Cuban, Adam Sandler, and Tim Burton. He regularly works as a Story editor, writer, and development partner for short format content. Pat sat down with him to talk about his lengthy career that has spanned 3 decades and multiple states, and ask him what advice he has for industry hopefuls.

• Tim Burton: Stain Boy Animated Series
• Gracie Films
• Bottom Line Productions (where he worked in Atlanta while still at ACA)
• Atlanta College of Art
• X-Sheet format
• Atlanta College of Art (only history I can find)
• First Movie made in Flash
• Jib Jab
• This Land
• Toon Boom
• SCRUM

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee

 A self-described "Professional Nerd", Lee Hammock is a senior game designer at Tripwire Interactive where he has worked on titles like Killing Floor 2, Killing Floor: Incursion, the upcoming Man-Eater, and others. He has had a long and varied career that has included stints working on games, and RPGs and comics, for properties as diverse as Halo, Farscape, A Song of Ice and Fire, Pathfinder Online, Fallen Earth, Elder Scrolls, and Fading Suns.

• Tripwire Interactive
• Lee's Wikipedia page
• Lee's books on Amazon.com
• Tales From The Glass-Guarded World (podcast)
• Holistic Design Inc.
• Star Frontiers RPG
• Fading Suns RPG
• Hero Kids RPG- Fallen Earth MMO
• Perception (video game)
• Thomas Was Alone (video game)

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee And Jeremiah Clark

Leah Knighton is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Ker-Chunk Games. Along with co-founder and CEO Molly Proffitt, she has managed to start and grow a company in a highly competitive market. They balance client work with developing their own original IP, and they're making it work. Jeremiah sat down with Leah at the Ker-Chunk office for a short conversation about how they got their business off the ground, their commitment to creating inclusive and empowering games, and what they've been working on lately.

PS: There are still a few sound issues, but I'm learning! We appreciate your patience.

Leah's Profile Ker-Chunk Games

• Call Me Phrasy (iOS game)
• Princenapped (iOS game)
• Rainbow Tree Stickers (for Apple Messages)
• 2 Dads + 4 Kids
• Puppet Minis (Unity Asset Store)
• Hyper Casual Games
• Colorblind stats (I was WAY off)

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee And Jeremiah Clark

Julee Fuller is an Athens-based freelance illustrator and concept artist. Originally from Indiana, she received a BFA in game art from the Art Institute of Atlanta. Since that time she has had a lot of ups and downs, but she's powered through it all.

Jeremiah sat down with her to talk about some of her recent struggles and how she's gone about rebooting her creative career. The audio quality is not the best (sorry about that, I'm, still learning! -JC), but the conversation is chock full of honest talk about the trials and tribulations of what it means to pursue your passion despite setbacks (while still taking care of yourself).

Julee's Portfolio

• Rook and Pawn (restaurant)
• Titanic 3D (movie)
• Art Institute of Atlanta
• SIEGE
• No, You Shut Up! Games (sadly, now out of business)
• Legends of Ooo (games)
• Desert Sky Graphics
• Freelance Fridge
• Adventure Time: Battle Party (game)
• "Time to make the donuts"
• Strange Waters anthology comic (Kickstarter)

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee And Jeremiah Clark

Laura Martin is an award-winning comic book colorist who has worked at Marvel, DC, WildStorm, CrossGen, and more. In this, part 2 of her interview with Pat, she talks about her coloring process and how it has changed over the years.

LauraMartinArt.com

People

• Lee Loughridge
• Matt Hollingsworth
• Trish Mulvihill
• Joe Chiodo
• Brian Hitch
• Bryan haberlin
• Bryan Miller
• John Rauch

Companies

• Image Comics
• WildStorm
• CrossGen

Other

• Ruby Lith (wikipedia)
• RGB vs CMYK
• Wacom Cintiq
• Comics Experience
• The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics (book)

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee

Laura Martin is an award-winning comic book colorist who has worked at Marvel, DC, WildStorm, CrossGen, and more. After months of scheduling problems, she sat down with Pat to talk all things comics. There was so much to talk about, in fact, that this is going to be part 1 of a 3 part series. Be sure to subscribe or check back often so you don't miss parts 2 and 3!

ComicBookDB - Laura Martin

ComicBookDB - Laura DePuy

Companies

• WildStorm
• Image Comics
• CrossGen
• Gaijin Studios

Comics

• The Authority (comic)
• Wild Cats (comic)
• Desperados (comic)
• Sandman (comic)

People

• Ian Hannin
• Jim Lee
• Frank Miller
• Niel Gaiman
• Alex Ross

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee

Brent Day is an Atlanta-based writer, director, and all-around creative problem solver. He currently resides at Spoke Creative where he has directed video and multimedia projects for leading companies in hospitality, financial services, and information technology. He has been lead copywriter on marketing campaigns, internal communications programs, print advertisements and video scripts for B2B and B2C marketing.

Adapted from Brent's bio on the Spoke Creative website.

Spoke Creative's Website: www.spokecreative.com

• Spoke's Vimeo Channel: https://vimeo.com/spokecreative
• Long form director's reel: https://vimeo.com/305092317
• Brand Story reel: https://vimeo.com/313312972
• Music video example: https://vimeo.com/253525477
• Corporate Comedy examples:
  • https://vimeo.com/156495231
  • https://vimeo.com/180952429
• Short film example: https://vimeo.com/180324605

Influences

We asked Brent about his influences, and he sent back a document that was far too long to use without editing. Here is a severely cut down version of his response.

I'm more influenced by music than movies. I like music because it operates more at the dream level. It's like reading books as a child. You can imagine the story being told, and each piece of instrumentation can be used to add something to a story that you can't say with a picture or a word.

I particularly like lush, intricate pop music like The Beatles, XTC, or Elvis Costello. I also like punk rock and dream pop, and really dreamy old Velvet Underground and R.E.M., and a lot of classic rock. Also great lyricists like Bob Dylan, Springsteen, and Joni Mitchell. And also Bowie & Prince, of course.

I also get a lot of inspiration from travel, history and current events.

Audio Editing by Adam Greenlee