I wore out my VHS copy of Claymation Christmas Special and went as The Noid for Halloween one year, finding inspiration from Will Vinton’s creations from an early age.
It was my honor to be able to write his obituary for the Hollywood Reporter.
Thanks to Michael Barnes for the opportunity and guidance in writing this and to Webster Colcord for a wonderful phone chat about what it was like to know and work with Will Vinton.
Back in the summer of 2017, I was awarded the opportunity to be on the roster of animation filmmakers who would bid on projects through the branded content creation arm of the New York Times, T Brand Studio.
This is my first collaboration with them and we dove right in!
In promoting ExxonMobil's biofuel initiative, I wanted to create something forward-looking, futuristic, clean, and elegant. I decided to work using some processes I'd only touched upon in the past: 3D printing objects and laser-cut acrylics.
Stylistically, this is pretty different from anything I've directed before and I'm really excited about how everyone's hard work came together.
Two years ago, T Brand Studio, the "brand marketing unit of The New York Times," sought out five exciting live action filmmakers to be part of the creative force for their content and advertising.
This year, they began the search for the five corresponding animation filmmakers...
I'm thrilled to announce that I was picked to be one of those five animators/animation teams that will collaborate collaborate with T Brand! I'm humbled by being in the company of these other four choices and I can't wait to see what opportunities may present themselves through this new partnership!
May 28: Hard copy of the paper is out on newsstands!!
Directing & Producing partners Leah McKissock & Adam Blake Carver make up La Di Da Films and have recently created a great niche for themselves with stop motion food animation! Here are four Scooby-Doo spots that I helped them with. Now I'm getting hungry for some mummy dogs...
Ohhh Yes! I'm telling ...The Greatest Party Story... EVER!!! On @MTV on DECEMBER 1st. Hahaha Haven't told this one before... yikes. pic.twitter.com/uviBbAJoAd
Directed, Produced, and Animated by Musa Brooker & Pete Levin
Starring Amanda Cerny
Director of Photography: Eric Adkins
Production Designer: Julianna Parr
Production Assistant: Andrew Oropeza
Costumes: Simone Williams
Storyboards: Greg Sesma
Puppet Fabricator & Rigger: Greg Sesma
Additional Fabrication: Musa Brooker & Pete Levin
VFX: Caress Reeves
The Baltimore Orioles. Stop motion animation. Two of my favorite things in the world.
My yearly animation for the Orioles remains at the top of the list of am-I-really-working-or-is-this-all-a-crazy-dream jobs. But somehow it was about to get much better.
It just so happened that there was going to be a Manny Machado Garden Gnome Night three days after Manny's 24th birthday and the O's wanted a video to celebrate both.
John Sumner (my perennial partner in crime on these spots) and I started brainstorming. John drew up some simple boards and I submitted them. The scoreboard team said the designs look great... but where was the script? Script? Yes, I'd be writing a script where several current players on the Orioles would voice their animated bobblehead likenesses! If there was a way to top the thrill of the yearly scoreboard animations, this was it!
Here it is:
Full Credits
Director/Animator/DP: Pete Levin
Art Director/Fabricator/Storyboards: John Sumner
Specialty Mouth Fabricator: Greg Sesma
Chris Davis as Action Figure Chris Davis
Adam Jones as Bobblehead Adam Jones
Manny Machado as Garden Gnome Manny Machado
Buck Showalter as Garden Gnome Buck Showalter
Matt Wieters as Bobblehead Matt Wieters
In March, I was hired to direct three stop motion spots to be produced by McBeard for Charbroil Grills. From stylized 2.5D downshooter animation to 1:1 scale animation, we truly found out how versatile the shooting space at Platypus Pictureworks could be!
These spots were really enjoyable to make! (Though animating that realistic steak did actually get me pretty hungry.)
I'm a Los Angeles based animator, writer, and director. Between jobs for larger studios, I work out of my own stop motion animation studio in my garage, producing advertisments, music videos, and short films.
