About Andy
Yep, that's me as a kid. Dressed up as Santa
with a candy cane in my mouth. Hey, you said
you wanted to get to know me! What's more
important than hearing about the time I played
Santa in a school play? I even decided
to ride around on my scooter,
spreading Christmas cheer through
the neighborhood.
Anyway, I also got interested in
animation and filmmaking as a kid
and eventually grew up to become
an animator. A career as a professional
Santa just wasn't in the cards for me. . . sigh. . .
But doing animation is just as magical!
"I fell in love with the
magic of animation as a
kid and have been doing
it ever since."
This is a picture of me animating on The Boxtrolls.
Have you seen it? I loved working with the Winnie character. She had a lot of sass and was really fun to animate. Working at laika was amazing. I was able to work on 4 of their Oscar nominated movies. I loved animating on ParaNorman. Animating the kids in the van was so awesome, and my confidence grew a lot there.
And here is my demo reel from my time at Laika
My Animation from Missing Link (stop-motion demo reel)
My Boxtrolls Stop-motion Demo Reel
My Kubo Stop-motion Demo Reel
What about flipbooks? Good question! Thanks for asking. Flipbook animation is one of my favorite forms of animation, and it's one of the things that made me fall in love with animation as a kid. Why is it one of my favorites? Because it's so simple - all you need is paper and a pencil - anyone can do it. Theres no screen or projector or viewing device - it's all just right there-on the paper, right in front of your eyes. That is such a cool thing to me.
flipbooks
my flipbook kit
So, while I was working at laika, my wife Laurie had the idea for me to make a flipbook kit. At the same time, my YouTube channel was starting to explode, so we designed my original Flipbook Kit and launched it on Kickstarter. And. . . it failed. Yup. But I knew it was a good idea! There was nothing out there like it. So I kept growing my channel, getting a bigger audience, and later we relaunched my Flipbook Kit on Kickstarter with a much better promo video, and this time. . . it succeeded! And we've been manufacturing and selling Flipbook Kits consistently ever since.
On that note, I'd like to take a second and thank everyone who has purchased one of my kits over the past few years. Your support has made all the difference and allowed me to keep developing. And now we have TWO versions of my kit, a Starter Kit and my deluxe Signature Edition Flipbook Kit. And I've got lots of ideas in the works too.
In thinking back to when I was a kid. . . riding around on a scooter in a Santa outfit. . . my jolly little self never would have imagined being able to make a career out of flipbooks and stop-motion animation. So I thank you.
And now I'd like to hear from you. If you have one of my flipbook kits, send me a video of what you make with it. I would love to see it. Stay creative!
Andy