Welcome to Episode 13 of Flipped with CG animation director, animator and teacher, Jason Ryan.

Jason is a multi-talented Irish animator whose career has spanned the last 20 years on such films as Fantasia 2000, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Croods and most recently Big Hero Six (to name a few). 

Alongside to his film work Jason also teaches animation online through his own site and iAnimate which I can personally recommend as a great way to learn character animation and productive workflow through traditionally-based methods, mentor-supported training sessions and clearly explained online tutorials. If you would like to know more please check out the links below.

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Podcast Contents00:00 - Intro01:00 - Interview start - Brush with accountancy03:30 - Starting out in Dagda05:45 - Joe Grant memories06:50 - CG Animation, love at first sight & video game animation13:15 - Coming to America - Fantasia 200019:16 - Disney's Dinosaur23:29 - 3D Theme Park animation - working with Eric Goldberg30:38 - Chicken Little - animating acting34:58 - Leaving Disney38:50 - Pre-poduction animation40:10 - Working at Dreamworks45:21 - Feature pipeline - character teams v sequence teams48:12 - Baseball trading animators51:28 - The animation process and workflow1:12:14 - Outro

References An interesting article about the video game Jason worked on can be found here 

The Steadfast Tin Soldier sequence from Fantasia 2000

Dinosaur

The Magic Lamp from Disney Seas Tokyo attraction

Chicken Little

Jason's Dreamworks Reel

Ianimate

iAnimate - Advanced Character Animation Training from iAnimate on Vimeo.

For more information on iAnimate - visit ianimate.net

Really huge thanks to Jason for taking the time to talk to us and thanks to Gareth Lee at Animation Skillnet for helping facilitate the interview.