Transformers vs. GI Joe: The Commissary - presented by The Loyal Subjects Action Vinyls

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK*: DAY 8
*Yup, not even close to being a week, but whatever.

This project was awesome. As a child of the '80's, getting a chance to write and direct some officially-sanctioned spots featuring some of my favorite characters was a dream come true.

These three shorts serve as advertisements for The Loyal Subjects Action Vinyls line of toys. The idea is to take the collectability of vinyl toys (often sold in blind boxes) and mix it with the play value/functionality of action figures. The little guys have a really charming design to them and the collectors are a dedicated bunch.

My goal with the series was to find a fun way to mix the worlds of GI Joe and Transformers, maintain respect for the original properties, and find some organic humor appropriate for all viewers. I'm really proud of how these turned out and the work that everyone in the crew and voice cast did to bring these toys to life.

Episode 1: Soda Showdown

Episode 2: Birthday Blowout

Episode 3: Zartan's Plan

Co-created with my pal Dan Levy, executive produced by Jonathan Cathey (the big cheese at The Loyal Subjects), and produced by myself, Dan, and Musa Brooker. I wrote the scripts for all three and directed. Full credits for our incredible crew available HERE.

Baltimore Orioles Scoreboard animation 2015

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK*: DAY 7
*Okay, I know this isn't technically a week anymore.

As is now a yearly tradition, my buddy John Sumner and I got to make more animated crowd prompts for use on the Baltimore Orioles' JumboTron!

Every year, we want to add something new to the fan experience at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. It's an incredible feeling to see the animations with 40,000 other people in the stadium, catch a glimpse of the home run animation on TV, or to hear the sound effects from the construction worker prompt (and the fans' reaction following it) while listening to games on the radio.

As a fan myself, it's a big thrill. And as a director, it's always a fun challenge to communicate an idea in less than ten seconds to an audience who may need a moment to realize there's something happening on the scoreboard, all within a crazy double-widescreen aspect ratio that makes for some creative compositions.

The "Jaws" music is something they use as an intimidation tactic against the visiting team at Oriole Park whenever the O's seem poised to attack. This is the one 2015 animation that was a specific request from Orioles Productions.

For the "Strikeout!" animation, we wanted to try our most ambitious animation this year, comprised of several different shots and featuring the Oriole Bird pitching, which is a little more action than this puppet had previously attempted. Somewhere along the way, we decided that all Orioles players would be plastic cake-toppers and all visiting players and umpires would be cardboard cutouts.

For the "Charge!" animation, I wanted to do one spot that'd have slightly different endings to surprise fans who'd thought they'd seen the spot before. So, we have three different endings. Cake toppers, rubber ducks, and the return of the crabs:

Previous Orioles animation here: 2010, 2013, 2014.

All spots conceived by myself and John Sumner, except where noted.
Directed, shot, and animated by me.
Art direction and fabrication by John Sumner.

These were a blast to create and we can't wait to add more to The Bird's adventures!

Late night animating. #Orioles #Birdland #stopmotion #animation #jumbotron #camdenyards

A photo posted by @petewlevin on Aug 21, 2015 at 12:51am PDT

Private Cast & Crew Screening of "I'm Scared"

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 6

Back on the afternoon of Saturday, September 19th, we had a private screening of I'm Scared for cast, crew, and friends of the movie. We squeezed in two screenings at the incredible Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. I'm Scared is a short animated film I recently directed. It's base on the art of Greg "Craola" Simkins, featuring music by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, starring Gunnar Sizemore, and produced by Dan Levy, Musa Brooker, and myself.

So many ridiculously talented people helped out on this. Check out the imdb page here for the full credits.

Attendees at the event had a great time and there was a really positive reaction from the audience. While we'd love to put the short online for everyone to see immediately, first we're applying to film festivals, looking for a strategic place to premiere publicly.

Special thanks to Cinefamily for hosting the event, Boo's Philly Cheesesteaks for catering, Ahmed Best for moderating the Q&A sessions, and Megan Hallo for creating some really fun "life-size" Ralf costumes.

While I didn't get much of a chance to get my phone out to take pictures of the event, luckily others did. Here are a selection of some good ones from Instagram:

(This top one's a video! Click on it to play.)

🎥recap of last night's private screening of @imscaredthemovie based on the mind and art of @craola. #imscaredthemovie #craola #ahernmedia

A video posted by @jordan.ahern on Sep 20, 2015 at 6:56pm PDT

#Repost of our contest winner @voo_doolady Watched the screening of Craola's "I'm Scared" the movie last night and it was awesome and so fun to watch! Everyone involved did such a great job!!! I can't wait to see it again! 🎥💙 Thank you! @craola @imscaredthemovie @himynameismark #stopmotionanimation #stopmotionshortfilm #stopmotion #ScaredScouts #ImScaredTheMovie #silentmovietheatre

A photo posted by hi my name is mark (@himynameismark) on Sep 21, 2015 at 12:17pm PDT

@jamesisntcool keeps the peace with #Crumbs #Craola2 #imscaredthemovie #scaredscouts

A photo posted by The scared scouts (@imscaredthemovie) on Oct 1, 2015 at 12:46pm PDT

This was one awesome short! 👍Can't wait to see it again! Thanks so much @craola @imscaredthemovie @dasprocess @petewlevin @markhoppus and everyone else who made this possible! 💕 #craola #imscaredthemovie #artyoushouldknow #scaredscouts #stopmotion #stopmotionshortfilm #stopmotionshort

A photo posted by Sarah Banks (@pinksugarfueled) on Sep 19, 2015 at 10:59pm PDT

The panel after the screening of @imscaredthemovie - such beautiful and fantastic short stop-motion animation from the mind of @craola - and the talents of Dan Levy, @petewlevin @markhoppus and so many more. Congrats! #imscaredthemovie #imscared #gregcraolasimkins #craola #silentmovietheater #cinefamily #cinefamilyscreenings

A photo posted by Joe Ledbetter (@joe_ledbetter) on Sep 19, 2015 at 10:30pm PDT

Amazing short stop motion movie "I'm Scared" by the amazing @craola. Incredibly written and creative. Truly the mind of Craola. Award winning! #imscaredthemovie #gregsimkins www.ImScared.com

A photo posted by Dan Matsumoto (@danmatsumoto) on Sep 19, 2015 at 4:44pm PDT

The cast and crew of the short film "I'm Scared" directed by @petewlevin based on a story and characters by @craola The short film is dope!! Keep and eye out for the film. Congrats to everyone! #imscared #imscaredthemovie #cbscrew #boos #BoosPhilly #cheesesteak #stopmotionanimation #stopmotion #kids #losangeles #philly

A photo posted by BoosPhilly Cheesesteaks (@boosphilly) on Sep 19, 2015 at 7:30pm PDT

Great time at the premier for @imscaredthemovie ...the #stopmotion #animation project created by #craola. @gunnarsizemore voiced the character of #RALF (white costume in the middle) & I was BLOWN AWAY at how talented this team is! So glad #Guns was able to take part in #imscared

A photo posted by Kevin Sizemore (@kevinsizemore) on Sep 20, 2015 at 11:46pm PDT

Robot Chicken: Season 8

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 5

It's hard to believe it's been ten years since my first day on "The Untitled Seth Green Project". Ten years of channel flip non-sequiturs, dredged up childhood memories, a-list stars voicing 1980's cartoon characters, and toys that were never meant to be animated getting life breathed into them. I haven't been there for every episode, but what I've gotten to work on has been a great ride.

A couple of weekends ago, season 8 premiered and the shows are more jam-packed with craziness than ever.

Each season the show becomes a little more technically streamlined, each season's crew building on knowledge gained from the previous seasons' crews. It's kind of remarkable looking at the evolution of it. Because there's always more to satire, the animators, builders, fabricators, VFX team, et cetera continually get the chance to pioneer and try new things.

Excited that I get to play with these toys.


Season 8 directed by Tom Sheppard and produced at Burbank's own Stoopid Buddy Stoodios.

Tune in every Sunday night at midnight on Adult Swim!

Supermansion -- check it out on Crackle!

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 4

Supermansion, the brainchild of director Zeb Wells and produced by my buddies at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, skewers the conventions of the superhero genre, but also creates its own world to play in. With an ongoing show like Supermansion, we get to know the characters a little more in each episode, uncovering secrets in their pasts, learning about vulnerabilities in their daily lives, and seeing how their personalities bounce of each other. With the continual character development, it's a different challenge for the animators than a sketch show like Robot Chicken; the animator needs to create a consistent portrayal of the character that can still grow episode to episode. (There's also room for some kickass action sequences.)

Bryan Cranston and Keegan Michael Key lead a lead a top-notch voice cast, which was a blast to supply animate for. The studio pulled together all of its resources to make something pretty awesome here and I was happy to get a chance to be an animator on it.

Check out new episodes every Thursday on Crackle!

Lego Scooby-Doo shorts!

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 3

Zoinks! Lego and and Scooby-Doo together? If 7-year-old me knew that getting paid to play with these would be something I could do, he'd be freaking out.

I always enjoy Lego animation because the limitations make for stylized, poppy movement. There's also something great about the accessibility of animating over-the-counter toys. Playing in the iconic world of Scooby-Doo was awesome and I'm happy to know I added even just a little to the legacy of that series.

The friendly and talented Ethan Marak directed these shorts at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. We had a small crew in the newly-christened "Buddy Lodge" satellite building and got to spend each day playing with Legos very slowly. (Check out the amazing sets built for the backgrounds in the shorts!)

Here's one that I animated the majority of:


Stay tuned as more of these will be showing up in the future!

Bratz: the stop motion series

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 2

Another fun project I got a chance to work on this year was Bratz, the stop-motion animated web series based on the doll line. Directed by my good friend and frequent creative partner, Musa Brooker, and produced by the wonderful folks over at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the series was created by a hardworking, tight-knit group in Buddy Labs, a smaller section of stages within the studio.

Here's the episode that I personally contributed to the most: 


A combination of puppet animation, digital animation (for the eyes & eyebrows especially), and downshooter paper animation (for the girls' "spirit animals").

Give it a looksie!

Target Pharmacy commercial

BLOG CATCH-UP WEEK: DAY 1

Catching up on the backlog of posts I wanted to put up here. I guess it's good when you don't have enough time to yammer on about all of the stuff you're doing because of all of the stuff that you're doing.

This is a quick, fun Target commercial I worked on in May, with the team at Buck.TV.

It incorporates live action, CG, and stop motion. I was the stop motion animator, with Jason Ronzani serving as assistant animator. The spot was directed by Steve Day, produced by Emily Rickard, and Stacy Toyama was the DP.

Look for the sponge animation and the spray bottle coming coming out of the surface - those are the main stop motion effects! 

More entries each day this week! (Hopefully!)

Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 has signed on to be the composer of I'm Scared!

We could't keep a lid on the news anymore. Mark Hoppus, along with musical collaborator James Ingram have written a beautiful, playful, exciting, spooky, original score for I'm Scared.

It's different from anything Mark's ever done before and we can't wait for you to hear the whole thing when you watch the completed film. Mark and James were a real pleasure to work with and the creative process of collaborating with them was as fun as it was rewarding. As a sneak preview, we've given Billboard an exclusive clip of the movie.

Blink-182's @MarkHoppus makes scoring debut on "I'm Scared" (exclusive video): http://t.co/K2ajms5B0s pic.twitter.com/AdoLDMwM3B

— billboard (@billboard) July 21, 2015

This also marks the first time that Gunnar Sizemore's vocal performance as Ralf is publicly available to hear! He's done a great job bringing the character to life!

Check out Mark's blog here for a mention of our film as well as a shout-out in his podcast!

ART OF TOYS - Museum Exhibit

In other news, the Museum of Art & History (MOAH) in Lancaster, California is currently having an exhibit on The Art of Toys. Stop on by if you're anywhere near Lancaster!

I'm honored to be a part of the #ArtOfToys exhibit at @MoahLancaster . The show runs until September 6th and is a must see! #moahlancaster #leftcoasttoys #craola #arttoys

A photo posted by Greg "Craola" Simkins (@craola) on Jul 22, 2015 at 7:08am PDT

In which Dany Levy & I make an appearance on John Ikuma's Stop Motion Magazine: The Podcast

Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with John Ikuma to record his Stop Motion Magazine podcast. Unfortunately, that also means that he had to endure to me yammering on about animation for fifty minutes. But a good time was had by all. Important topics are discussed, such as:

- I'm Scared: The Movie
- Pete & Dan: The Early Years
- "The Munch District" of South Pasadena
- And more baseball wriggles its way in there.

Here it is!

I'm Scared: Teaser Trailer

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to direct this short film and collaborate with some truly talented (and nice!) people.

We started preproduction over a year ago and production last November. Now, we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for this little film.

We're currently immersed in postproduction and sound design/score, but I found some time to cobble together this short teaser.

Based on the work of Greg "Craola" Simkins, here's the teaser for our stop motion short, I'm Scared:

Animation Reel: April 2015

Hey lookie here!! A new animation reel!

Pete Levin: Animation Reel - April, 2015 from Pete Levin on Vimeo.

Featuring clips from:
Oakley*
Spy vs. Spy#
Foo Fighters*
UPS#
Dinosaur Office
Baltimore Orioles*
Google Cardboard#
Detroit Lions#
Minhocas o Filme
Haunters*
I'm Scared*
WWE Slam City


* = I directed or co-directed this animation as well as animating it.
# = I was a lead animator on this project.