Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory Garay.
Hi Gregory, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Have you ever taken a walk outside in your neighborhood and because you were scrolling on your phone, you missed where you intended to turn? Now you have to walk back but not directly. The luxury of choice presents itself and you embrace it. You take a stroll around the block. You take a different turn than normal. You notice a store you weren’t expecting to sell the things you remember from your childhood. It feels like home, the atmosphere is warm. Now you have a new store to frequent. This reflects my journey from the job of User Interface Designer to a multi-hyphenate Director/Writer/Storyboard Artist/Animator.
My obsessions with cartoons, anime, skateboarding, comics, art and music was my default setting as a kid. Being from New York, I’ve always misunderstood that classic saying, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” I always thought to myself, “why would I ever leave my city?”
After earning a BFA at New York Institute of Technology, my design skills led to web design jobs for advertising agencies in downtown NYC. It’s the quintessential New York hustle to burn the candles at both ends. By day I was a Web/UI Designer and at night I worked on drawing comics and taking life drawing lessons. My desire kept growing to do comics and to work on TV Shows where kids from the Bronx could see themselves as the main characters.
It took some time but the call to leave NYC came. I got married. Moved to Pittsburgh to support my partner through grad school. Started an art career as a painter. Started a creative services business called Visual Verbosity. I self-published a comic book. Tabled at comic conventions along the east coast, and spoke at comic book panels about diversity and representation in comics. After all those years, I realized that all this living that I was doing was cultivating my voice. LA is where animation happens and so I came here to learn and see if my voice had value here.
My time at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts as part of the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts was incredible. My work became an exploration of liminal spaces. Characters at the threshold between two realities became a focal point. Through many projects this exploration culminated in my short film, Izzy’s Demons. It’s a film about a girl’s hesitancy to connect with an old friend and how anxiety can warp a person’s perspective of their relationships.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
–From “The Fire Next Time,” 1963: “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were Black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. ”
–James Baldwin
I’m a 6’2″ black latinx man whose parents are from Panama raised in the South Bronx in the 90’s. I saw the older kids and teens stop and frisked in front of their own building. I’ve been stopped and frisked many times in my youth while coming home from school. My parents told me about police brutality and how I was going to be treated differently at the age of 8 years old. They told me I had to work twice as hard to get half as far so work 4 times as hard. It took a while to accept it but it became so clear by the time I was 11 years old. The national conversation about police brutality feels like a conversation I’ve been having my whole life.
2020 as a whole has been a revolutionary year. A global pandemic, A global uprising against police brutality and a call for the defunding of police, A global quarantine effort, and sudden homeschooling, and an inept president. The fibers of how our society operates are fraying. I wouldn’t describe that as a smooth road but I’m still driving it. I find ways to smile, tell stories, build community, and fight for change. All this adversity should lead to a once in a generation’s worth of change and growth.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a multi-hyphenate Director/Storyboard Artist/Writer/2D Animator/Visual Artist based in Los Angeles. My short film Izzy’s Demons world-premiered at the Ottawa International Animation Festival 2020. Since the premiere it has gone around the country and the world, Coney Island Film Festival, Los Angeles Animation Festival, Official Latino Film and Arts Festival, MIAMI short FILM FESTIVAL, St. Louis International Film Festival, Panama Animation Festival, and Izmir International Short Film Festival.
I’m a storyteller with the goal of building understanding and empathy for people who may go unseen. Whether through comedy or drama, I want you to know who these characters are and why they move the way they do.
People often say to me that I have a poetic sensibility. I work with Rhythm in mind in all facets of what I do. Everything has a rhythm to it. The line strokes of a drawing, shots in a sequence, the color palette of a character, the movement, the flow of the words in the order they’re said, and the score. As I do more work, I’m always re-evaluating and calculating the poly-rhythmic nature of animation.
What makes me stand out is that I root my poetic sensibility in my embrace of new technology and systems. I’m always looking to tweak the pipeline for creation into new spaces that make animation more accessible in its creation. For Izzy’s Demons I did all my rough animation on an Ipad app called rough animator and found ways to import drawings into Toonboom Harmony. Solving these kinds of technical problems are part of the rhythm of animation creation too.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
The radical changes we’re seeing in animated content as it relates to intersectionality is a welcome and appreciated breath of fresh air. My little nephews and nieces can find characters who look and act like them on screen. That is powerful. And I’m hoping to contribute to that trend.
I value the power of teamwork. Izzy’s Demons allowed me to collaborate closely with talented people and create a tight cohesion across all the parts of the film. I’m currently working on my next project, which is an animated series proof of concept. With that in mind, if you want to know a little more about the project and help fund it, feel free to reach out to me.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.gregdraws.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregdrawsitall/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artofgreg/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GregDrawsItAll
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GregoryGaray/videos
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/gregory-garay
Image Credits
All illustrations and Drawings by Gregory Garay
