Tell us a little about yourself and your career.
Ello, I’m Kathy! I’m a movie and TV junkie like most other animation folk here. I also love to roller-skate and eat my way around town. Sushi? Ethiopian? Sichuan food? Yes, please.
I’m a storyboard artist and filmmaker, currently boarding at Marvel Animation. I’ve previously had the pleasure of jamming with the teams on Wings of Fire, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, and Dragons: The Nine Realms. In my spare time, I teach storyboarding at the Gnomon School of Visual FX, Games, Animation. In a past life, I used to do production management for visual effects and producing for indie video games.
I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania where the trees and creeks are beautiful like you would not believe! Through some oddball chain of events, I ended up going to school for live-action film production at USC, and basically just stayed in town trying different things out. I love filling my days with people, process, and philosophy. Drawing’s cool, too!
What challenges have you faced in navigating a career in animation?
So I actually made my career transition to storyboards right at the beginning of the pandemic. Not having a new “desk” to tell me I was a capital-A Artist now, I think it took me over a year of working in storyboards for it to finally sink in—hahaha. It was an adjustment going online for that animation community kinship. Art-making can often be a very solitary process (meanwhile, the extrovert in me gets a bit rowdy), though I’ve also been lucky that everyone I’ve met has been super down to jam and hang—just ‘cause!
Who are your inspirations in the field of animation?
Oh gosh, this really runs the gamut. I guess right now I’m revisiting a lot of my favorite anime. I’m pretty inspired by the tender photographic splendor of Makoto Shinkai, the fearless irreverence of Masaaki Yuasa, the mind-bending conceptual powers of Satoshi Kon, and the sensitive character pieces of Mamoru Hosoda. I spent some formative years watching CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura, and I’ll just say that ’90s genius + costume design still slaps.
Who else? Kirsten Lepore cracks me up. Don Hertzfeldt cracks me up and makes me cry. I find myself trying to emulate the way Brad Bird and Mark Andrews shoot their pieces. I’m still nourished by the words “gentle storytelling” that Elizabeth Ito tweeted about her personal philosophy to animation. If I were cooler, I’d want to be Masanobu Hiraoka when I grow up. I think The Amazing World of Gumball is brilliant on so many levels. Avatar: The Last Airbender lives so rent-free in my mind, it’s making me tear-bend. And then there’s Steven Universe and all the inspiring things I hear about the way Rebecca Sugar leads a collaboration with radical kindness.
But for all the inspiring things that come from the screen, I feel 10X of that from the fellow artists that I get to jam with on every show. Alan Wan, Zesung Kang, Eric Elrod, and Ken Wong first took a chance on me to do boards for them, and I’m so grateful for all that I’ve learned from them. Day to day, I’m inspired by the excellence and kindness of the folks around me and how much it makes me want to keep up! Being able to turn to your teammates or director and just ask them, “Yo, that’s so cool! How did you do that? What do you think of this? Why is this a thing? What would you recommend for XYZ?”—that dialogue is so invaluable and frankly, good for the soul. I don’t think I could sustain a happy art career without this. It’s what makes me want to get up in the morning.
Anyone or anything that teaches me something new is on my list as an inspiration. Let’s just say, it’s a long list!
What do you hope to accomplish as an artist in the animation industry?
I think I see my ideals as two-fold. On one hand, there’s the love for the animation craft itself. I care to be part of the body of artists that helps show the world how powerful this medium is and how far we can push its boundaries. Animation is art. Animation is filmmaking. Let’s learn forever! Let’s show folks something fresh and new, that makes them go, “Wow! Anything is possible!”
On the other hand, it’s a question of culture and values, too. I think we’re in the business of making good humans, whether they’re preschoolers, teens, or adults. The more I understand my own tastes, the more I believe that strong stories contain strong lessons. Growing up with immigrant parents, I was hugely shaped by stories. Stories from my parents and stories from the world—these were some of my greatest teachers for how to be a part of society, how to live life, how the world worked. Stories tap into something universal and can bring out the best in us. In my animation career, I hope to be a responsible storyteller. I hope to be an artist who’s living her values every day. And every now and then, there’s that magical moment where something you made connects with a stranger on the other side of the world and makes them feel less alone. That’s pretty cool, too.
What does being in the Union mean to you?
I’ll never forget when I first made the jump to animation storyboards. A couple of Union members from an online storyboard community welcomed me with such generosity that I was gobsmacked. Out of the goodness of their hearts, I’d see them giving portfolio reviews and pages on pages of advice. I felt like my entry into animation and into TAG was so colored by this culture of generosity, and I should spend the rest of my career keeping it going.
To me, being Union means that when we rise, we rise together. We look out for each other. We are a body of one.
Learn more about Kathy at her website.
Follow Kathy on Twitter.
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