Alive & Unedited

Animated conversation

By Tracy Zollinger Turner

WILL SHILLING PHOTO

When he was an undergraduate at Denison University, Tom Richner knew that if he wanted to work as a film animator, he wasn't going to be able to stay in Ohio. He headed west to earn his master's degree at UCLA, where he landed a job at The Simpsons while he was still a student, working as a layout artist and sheet timer.

After a few years working on Matt Groening's talented team, honing his craft and making industry connections, he and his wife wanted to raise their family back in Ohio, so Richner took a position as an assistant professor at CCAD in 2004. Now he's founded Cap City Studios, which he hopes, as it grows from concepts to contracts, will keep more of Central Ohio's fledgling animators from moving out of Columbus.

What exactly does a layout artist and sheet timer do?

Layout artists create the key poses. There are two drawings, like the standing and seating position, then animators — usually less expensive overseas — would fill in the subtle movements in between. With sheet timing, basically, we write the instructions for how something's supposed to be animated. We take two drawings and write detailed sheets, frame by frame: "I want an eye blink here." It's technical, but it's kind of fun, because you're really rounding out the subtle parts of the character's performance.

Why do you think an animation studio can work here in Columbus?

Being at CCAD and seeing students who are talented enough to move right into positions at The Simpsons got me to start thinking about this. There are so many who graduate and say, "I'd like to stay in Ohio, but I think I have to go to California," especially if they want to do film and TV work. It started a fire under me.

There's no reason we can't be doing that kind of work right here. There's a really high concentration of animators in town, a lot of people doing work with architectural firms or making commercials, [also] people who have come back from Hollywood and worked on TV shows, films, who are now storyboarding TV shows here in their homes.

There's no reason there couldn't be three, four or five studios and a couple of gaming houses in Columbus. With the 100,0000 college students that are in the area each year, there would definitely be enough supply here to staff them. CCAD is already exporting a lot of its talent to Disney.

What projects are you currently trying to get underway?

We're actively pursuing a bunch of different routes. We are working on developing some TV shows — bouncing some ideas off of a couple of people over at Disney. We're also working on developing a web series, and we've got a couple of screenplays for features that we really like. We have a few pots on the fire, waiting to see what boils over first, but the process has been deliberately slow. The last thing we want to do is start bigger than we can handle, because we want to grow into something that's sustainable.

Is your goal to ultimately make feature films that would be shown in movie theaters?

Feature films would be great. There aren't that many animated films being made, but there are so many other avenues now, like direct-to-television, DVD, or places like iTunes or Xbox Live where there's downloadable content. It's a nice time to do something like this. People are really scrambling for content.

What kind of content do you want to create?

I think Pixar is a great model. They create films that appeal to both kids and adults. The most important thing is story. Whatever we decide to do, we want to take our time and make sure we have something special that stands out. It has to be something new and different. You need a different type of character, different kinds of situations. I think we do have the ideas and the talent to carry them out.

July 3, 2008

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