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Sharon was born in Ireland and worked as an animator, supervisor and character designer for studios in Dublin, London, and Berlin before making her way to California. She’s currently a story artist at Spire Animation, but her first job in animation was as an in-betweener on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Today, Sharon will talk with us through her journey, share her secret to pitching, and how no idea is stupid and every voice deserves to be heard.

In a world transformed by digitalization, the pandemic, and content creation and consumer markets in large countries like India and China, the Hollywood of old is no more. The emergence of top-quality storytelling, exceptional talent, and authentic Asian and Asian American representation from outside of centralized and established entertainment hubs has opened tremendous new opportunities for creators almost anywhere.

In this episode we've got a double scoop of talented creators in Karen Disher and Sharon Bridgeman, who join me to chat through their careers. Karen and Sharon have recently joined the multi-talented crew that have been assembling at Spire Animation Studios. After glittering career journeys through major animation houses, Karen and Sharon were drawn to Spire’s creative culture.

Prior to Spire Animation, Michal Makarewicz spent 19 years at Pixar where he worked on 14 feature films & 4 short films. Some of the films he's animated on are, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, Toy Story 3, and Inside Out. Michal has been honored by ASIFA with 2 Annie Awards for "Best Animation in a Feature Production" on Soul & Ratatouille. It was a treat to speak with him about his time at Pixar, how he approaches animation, and his future.

This episode features Karen Disher, who was the first female Director and Story Artist at Blue Sky Studios where she worked on Robots, Ice Age: Dawn on the Dinosaurs, and Ferdinand. Currently she is the Creative Director in Development at Spire where she’s working on their new feature film. In this chat she’s going to share how she got her start, what she’s learned about story and where to find the confidence to build your own path.

After studying at CalArts, Shawn Krause jumped almost straight into Pixar, where he stayed for many years, working on 15 Pixar features including the first two Toy Story films, Finding Nemo and Dory, Incredibles and Incredibles 2 and all three Cars films. Now he's made another leap, to Spire Animation Studios as Creative Director of Animation and Story, where I caught up with him to talk about his incredible career, his path to Spire and what they're doing.

Michael's career started out in 2D animation in classics like 'Beauty and The Beast', 'Aladdin' and 'The Lion King', and then 3D animation with projects like 'Tangled' and 'The Croods' before switching to the Story department. Now at Spire, he's tasked with helping shape Spire's initial projects, which include 'Trouble' from Danny McBride. I'm sure you'll enjoy walking through Michael's career and then our discussion about Spire.

This episode features Shawn Krause, the Creative Director of Animation and Story at Spire Studios. Krause brings with him more than two decades of experience working as an animator and animation supervisor at Pixar, which he shares in this chat.

The brothers Bancroft speak with Spire Animation co-founders Brad Lewis and P.J. Gunsagar. Find out how a Pixar vet teamed up with a tech entrepreneur to create the next big thing in Indy animation studios!

In this interview, Lewis and Gunsagar discuss “technology to wow the world,” live action ideas versus animated ideas, the extended story process for animation, how they think about big ideas and original stories, the importance of creativity and risk, and they share a few details about an upcoming project with funnyman Danny McBride.

Shawn Krause on Animating Toy Story, UP, and Trouble with Danny McBride at Spire Studios