The Spark Cast

Denver Jackson has always wanted to be a storyteller. In 2012, he began his journey by creating a 9-minute short film titled Cloudrise. Nine years later, Cloudrise is an independent studio, and Denver has made three short films, a webseries, and now an upcoming feature film titled Esluna: The Crown of Babylon.

We recently spoke with Denver about his creative process, working as a solo animator, and how he overcame the challenges of making a feature film on his own.

One might assume that as a three-time Oscar nominee and one of the co-founders of the celebrated Cartoon Saloon, Tomm Moore might be an aloof figure. Instead, he’s warm and fathery wth a rebel streak and a spirit that bucks popular trends.

It’s this outsider spirit and willingness to follow their hearts that has put Cartoon Saloon on the map, and though it hasn’t always been easy, the studio has flourished into a collaborative enterprise that feels more like a family than a studio.

We recently caught up with Tomm to talk about the early days of the studio, his passion for history, his compulsive need to draw and his next project.

Mindy Johnson is an award-winning author, historian, educator, and filmmaker. She is a leading expert in women’s roles in animation and film history. Her work in the field has garnered her a number of prestigious awards, including the 2020 ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Educators Forum Faculty Grant and the 2019 Academy Film Scholar Award. But, did you know that Mindy is also a Grammy-nominated musician?

We recently caught up with Mindy to discuss her varied interests, multiple careers, and how a passion for life-long learning has made her a leading and essential voice in the study of women’s roles in Hollywood history.

If you attended a Spark festival in years past, chances are that you’ve seen DaCosta Bayley’s work. A self-taught, award-winning illustrator, DaCosta has been creating professionally since 1995. Working under the studio name CHOCOLATE SOOP®, DaCosta has produced designs across various media, has launched the popular “MARCH of ROBOTS” drawing challenge on Instagram, collaborated with artists around the world, and has worked with major brands like Nintendo, Sony, Hasbro, Wacom, and Google.

We recently caught up with DaCosta to talk about how he broke into the industry, how his passion for robots developed, and what he’s working on now.

A number of years ago, Taylor K. Shaw was looking to staff her project with black animators, people who looked like the characters that she was creating, but the task proved to be more difficult than she anticipated. Eventually, she did find one black female animator, but the search led her to think that there had to be a better way to find these creative individuals, and to create a space for black women to collaborate, inspire each other, and raise each other up. What started as the Black Girl Animators Collective led to Black Women Animate, a mission-driven animation studio that is changing the landscape and pushing boundaries in the animation industry.

We recently caught up with Taylor to discuss the catalyst of how BWA came to be, the accomplishments and challenges of the studio’s first four years, and what’s next for both the studio and Taylor.

Joseph Hodges’ first passion was flight, but after a failed attempt at the pilot’s exam, he opted for his second passion: architecture. His designs were always seen as too big and ambitious for real buildings, but when Joseph found himself working on the set of Hook, his passion for design found an outlet, and over his career he has worked on everything from period dramas, and sci-fi, to contemporary dramas.

We recently caught up with Joseph to talk about his experiences working on Hook, his long run on 24, and how he’s staying creative outside of the Hollywood system.

How do a Broadway star and a VFX executive come together to create an animated short film? The story behind how Cops and Robbers, a new short film from Timothy Ware-Hill and Arnon Manor, came to be, is inspiring and speaks to the power of Ware-Hill’s writing, performance and conviction.

We recently spoke with Ware-Hill and Manor about the inspiration for the film, the challenges of working with over 30 artists to create a six-minute project, and how answering an Instagram DM started the ball rolling on the project.

Jennifer Twiner McCarron has always known that she wanted

We spoke with Jennifer about discovering her passion at an