Meet Stephanie Alexander

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Alexander.

Hi Stephanie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Houston, TX and like most people my age, I was raised on Disney, Saturday morning cartoons, and anime. I always enjoyed art and drawing and I was definitely the “art kid” throughout grade school. Disney used to release trailers for their films that had unfinished animation which fascinated me and made me realize there was a craft behind what I was watching. The behind the scenes featurettes that often came at the end of VHS tapes or buried in DVD menus also gave a lot of insight into the animation process. It drew me in, and the more I learned the more I wanted to be a part of that experience.

A lot of my adolescence was spent in extracurricular art classes and summer studio art classes, so up until my teens I was constantly creating new things and coming up with ideas. Contrary to that, the high school I ended up going to was mostly focused on college placement and academics and my summers were spent playing video games and browsing the web like a moody teenager does, so for those four years, I mostly self-studied and doodled in notebook margins. I started to think that making a career in the arts wouldn’t be plausible, especially since I wouldn’t have a portfolio to submit to colleges. I graduated uncertain of what I wanted to do with my life and woefully unprepared to continue my education with a specific focus in mind. It took a lot of discussion with my parents and self-reflection on my part to finally come back around to what had lit a fire under me earlier in my life – animation. For a year, I focused on building up a portfolio to submit to colleges, with an emphasis on ones that had animation majors. I attended classes at the Glassel School of Art to get a better grasp of foundational skills, like color theory and figure drawing while continuing to live with my parents and working at a bakery. Eventually, I got accepted into several schools, including the one I really wanted to attend – Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, CA. By August of 2012, I was in a new state, far away from any friends and family, and officially starting down the path to my dream career.

At LCAD, I met a lot of incredible artists and mentors. The program at the time focused on traditional hand-drawn animation and old school techniques, which proved to be both a benefit and an obstacle. I absolutely fell in love with the process of animating and turning static images into living, breathing characters. I came out with a really unique set of skills, but the animation world had progressed beyond that to focus on digital tools and pipelines, and my entire experience was on paper. When I graduated at the end of 2016, I wasn’t sure what would be next for me. I ended up getting very lucky that following spring when one of my mentors referred me and a handful of students to work on Mary Poppins Returns at Duncan Studio in Pasadena. After an interview and test, I was brought on to the team with a couple of other fellow students and friends as an animation assistant.

For a year, I really did get to experience my dream job. The animation we were doing was almost all hand-drawn and most of the animators around us were industry veterans who had worked on the very projects that inspired me to become an animator in the first place. It felt like I had stepped into those behind the scenes featurettes and was getting to experience something very rare.

When the project wrapped up, I found myself almost back at square one. I had been able to put the skills I had to work but still hadn’t made time to fill in the gaps and make myself a viable candidate for a job in the rest of the animation industry. I was unemployed for months as I tried to build up my 3D animation skills, which came very unnaturally to me. Just as I was getting desperate, a friend of mine who I had connected with at CTNx, a networking expo for animators, reached out to see if I was interested in interviewing for a storyboard revisionist position at Oddbot, Inc on Muppet Babies. I hesitatingly agreed, seeing as how I had almost no board experience. Amazingly, I got the gig.

This represented a really big shift for my career. While a lot of animation concepts carried over into boarding, I learned a whole lot on the job, including a lot of film language and cinematography rules. Gradually I was given more responsibilities, including boards to complete on my own, not just reworking other people’s boards.

A lot of other events happened while on Muppet Babies too. My former boss Ken Duncan invited me to come onto a Buzzfeed interview with him, which lead to me becoming a regular guest on Buzzfeed’s Draw Off show. I also reconnected with Jim Capobianco, the Mary Poppins Returns animation director, and have done freelance animation work through his studio Aerial Contrivance Workshop on projects such as Philharmonia Fantastique and a short to raise awareness for children’s therapy techniques. Currently, I’m still working at Oddbot on the upcoming HBO animated feature Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Opera and other secret projects. It’s been a wild ride so far and I’m really excited to see what’s next!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I would say I’ve been very fortunate to have a strong support network and the privilege to pursue this career. A lot of young creatives are dismissed by friends and family who don’t understand or appreciate their creative vision and don’t think it’s a viable career choice. I grew up with immensely talented friends making comics together and drawing non-stop, while my parents supported my hobby with summer classes and fueling my interest and passion for the arts. They supported me emotionally and financially while I found my footing in a new environment.

Through it all, I have absolutely faced personal challenges. College could be incredibly demanding, necessitating that students pull multiple all-nighters and juggle huge assignments, all of equal value to our major and academic standing. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect. I experienced depression, anxiety and developed a lot of physical pain from long hours of sitting hunched over a drawing table. At multiple junctions, I considered going back to Texas and trying something else. Those seven months without work were some of the most daunting as my savings gradually dwindled away and I questioned whether I was actually fit for this industry.

Even now that I’m in a more secure place, I still sometimes find myself back in that old mindset, thinking I’m not good enough or won’t be able to complete an assignment to the standards expected of me. I think that’s something a lot of artists face, especially in a collaborative field like animation. We’re constantly surrounded by talented individuals, each with their own unique story and path of how they got here. It’s hard not to compare your journey to someone else’s and wonder about what you could have done differently. Those can wear down on you over time, so I think it’s really important to step back from time to time and take time to give yourself credit. Even with all the help I’ve had growing up and throughout my career, none of it would have been possible without my own efforts and sacrifices. It helps too that I am surrounded by people, including my awesome fiancé, who are always there to lift me out of a funk and help get me back on track.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am currently a storyboard artist at Oddbot, Inc working on some cool children’s programming projects. My specialty at the moment lies in song sequences. I started with those on season 3 of Muppet Babies, and it’s definitely one of my favorite types of assignment to work on. I have an almost obsessive love of musicals, so being able to take that knowledge and the things I’ve absorbed from that world, apply it to my work, and basically get paid to make my own mini-musicals is really a dream come true. I’m really proud of the work I did for one of the most recently released Muppet Babies episodes, “It’s Not Easy Being Greeny.” In that episode, the kids learn about the cycle of life through the death of their beloved flower, and the song Ms. Nanny sings to them explores that topic. Growing up, I always had a soft spot for episodes of kid’s shows that tackled difficult or nuanced subject matter. It’s heartwarming and even a bit sobering to be involved in a piece of media that could be that experience for some other child out there.

While it did lead to some challenges down the line, I do think my traditional animation background has been a huge benefit to my newfound storyboarding career. As animators, we have to develop a certain eye for movement and the elements of performance that make characters feel like thinking, breathing beings. This has helped me inject more personality into my board work, to the point where I’m often getting revisionist assignments to “plus” or improve on the acting within a completed board, to communicate more clearly to the animators what the director wants from the performance.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was an endlessly curious kid. Growing up, nearly every week in the summer I would be at a new camp or specialty program, from Girl Scouts camps, magic classes at the local science museum, theater school, rock band, and more. I was constantly dabbling in new interests and hobbies and had the good fortune to be naturally outgoing and full of energy. I was hardly ever bored. As a teen, I discovered the internet and became much moodier and hermit-like, but still had a strong circle of friends, all with creative interests and pursuits. I was always hanging out with someone on the weekends, making comics, listening to music, attending anime conventions, or finding new, and at the time novel, boba shops to hang out at. I was every bit a nerd, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Contact Info:

• Email: stephanie@stephanieanimates.com
• Website: stephanieanimates.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephanieanimates/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/orangeinah?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1XDuS8680M