Animating Buttercup #3: Making the Team
When I began my adventure into animation, I had no idea where to start (as you can read about in my previous post here). With anything new, you have to talk to other people with experience you can learn from, and I had a lot to learn. It takes a village to create a piece of art this big. Even the most isolated artists are influenced by other works, and feedback from others is perhaps most important to the process. So I set out to gather my team.
One of the first steps I took in this journey was to secure fiscal sponsorship. I discovered Fractured Atlas, and their team has been helpful in navigating grants and other fundraising items, as well as addressing some legal questions. They also have their own crowdsourcing platform built in, which will be very helpful in the near future. In fact, this week (April 15-19, 2024) is Fractured Atlas’s Spring Match campaign, where they give away $1,000 grants to 20 different, randomly selected projects in their network. Each individual donor who gives during this week will also represent another entry for our project, so a $1 gift could be what wins this grant for us. Exciting, right? We need your help for this, so please click here to give. (Thanks!)
Now that I had a way to accept donations and grants, I still needed help finding money. One of my neighbors, Stephanie Chaiken, is an accomplished fundraiser for a lot of arts organizations, so naturally she was one of the first people I enlisted to help. A little while later, I met Justin Chapman at the Westway Diner after a reading at the Actor’s Studio. We connected over our love of cats and he has become a partner in this journey as a co-producer with me.
Not only has Justin helped with grants, he also helped find and recruit animators for the film – the most important piece of the puzzle! Hard to make an animated film without expert visual artists! We both asked among our networks to see if we knew any animators. I found a few through various connections, and I kept getting referred to university programs to try recruiting interns or volunteers. But I needed an expert who could lead a team of artists more so than someone with less experience, not just a handful of artists. Justin and I spoke with a few animation studios and solo artists, but they were either too pricey or their drawing style was too cartoony (read: Disney-fied) for the Triplets of Belleville style I wanted to emulate.
While we were planning our fundraising strategy, Justin and I researched Kickstarter campaigns for other animated short films, for reference and with the idea we might find collaborators that way. Turns out, we did! We came across Casa Cocuyo, a women-led animation studio in Mexico, through their Kickstarter for their film, Fantasmántico. Elena and Fernanda are delightful. We were blown away by their use of color and exaggerated shapes, which are primary reasons I was drawn to the Triplets style. Another benefit of this studio was a much cheaper rate than US studios, which means our extremely limited funds will travel further. Plus, that means our film has an international presence!
Another key person on our team is our Art Director, Kendra Williford! Kendra and Justin both attended the same undergraduate school, albeit in different years. However, they worked on a number of musical performances. Justin actually didn’t know Kendra worked in animation; he had only seen her playing trumpet. A mutual friend of theirs pointed him in Kendra’s direction, and she very generously jumped right on board. Kendra has proven to be invaluable, talented and thorough. Plus, she has a lot of experience in various visual styles, especially drawing animals.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t add my inspiration to writing Buttercup, my cat Beau-Beau, who unfortunately passed away in 2020 shortly after the script was completed. Also, there’s my current feline counterpart, Louis Greenberg, and Justin’s Nina Patatina, whose antics continue to amaze and inspire all of us. We pay a lot of attention to how the cats move and behave, for animation purposes of course. Both these cats and Kendra’s dog Penny make occasional appearances in our production meetings, and each serve as a namesake of our Giving Levels on Fractured Atlas. Elena and Fernanda of Casa Cocuyo also have pets (Fernanda has at least 6). Our pets connect us even when we’re thousands of miles apart, and they are an important part of our team, improving our well-being and adding fun distractions from our work. All of these animals are featured throughout this page!
As I said last time, a person needs a team. Regardless of who the team is made of, the real variable that can make or break the team is whether everyone can work together well. Differences in personality, sense of humor, work ethic, artistic style could all have thrown a wrench into our project. Yet, so far our team has great chemistry. Collaborating is easy and fun! You’ll get some glimpses into our production meetings soon, and may even catch a live stream of our artists at work, so you can join in the fun and see us in action. I am incredibly lucky to have found such a lovely crew to create Buttercup’s Lament. It helps that we all connect over animals. We hope the connection extends to our viewers, especially through our two feline characters.
“Animating Buttercup” is a blog meant to document my journey as an artist and playwright entering a new medium, and our team’s creative process. Subscribe to my newsletter or make a tax-deductible contribution through our fiscal sponsor to be the first to know when new posts are available here. Follow us on social media (@buttercupslament) for even more exciting updates about Buttercup’s Lament!
From a recent production meeting, where Kendra showed off our first Dialogue Test for Henri!
PS: Don’t forget to donate to give us more chances to earn a $1,000 grant from Fractured Atlas as part of their Spring Match campaign. Even $1 can be transformational!
Buttercup’s Lament is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Buttercup’s Lament must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Buttercup’s Lament is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Educational content is presented in partnership with Toon Boom, the global leader in pre production and 2D animation software.