We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dana Corrigan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dana below.
Dana, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.
During my time in Grad School from 2008-2011, it was expected that we would present in front of the classroom regularly, and occasionally in an auditorium in front of peers or before a jury of professors. Each time, we would receive critical feedback about our work and our presentation. Later, I had to present my MFA Thesis, and also received training on how to pitch an animated series where I had the chance to present to Warner Brothers. Additionally, I took instructional workshops and a teaching internship. As nerve-wracking as it was to present so often, it gave me the chance to practice, make mistakes, get feedback and improve.
In Fall 2011 I started teaching Digital Art and Animation at the college level, first at the University of Tampa and later including the University of South Florida. While my graduate training helped me to become more organized and comfortable speaking in front of an audience, teaching college was paramount in developing my communication skills. In the classroom, there’s a delicate balance of clear, concise, flexible, interesting and memorable, and accessing students’ unique strengths and areas of improvement while also making sure that the expectations for the assignments are clear.
I use my teaching experience to inform my approach to Pencil Gator and use a combination of written, oral and visual approaches to best ensure we’re on the same page. I encourage questions and feedback from my team and use it and any unexpected results as learning experiences for where I can further hone my communication.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am an Animation instructor and have been teaching 2D, 3D, Story Development, Motion Graphics, Character Design and Animation Production at the college level since 2011. I have an MFA in Animation from Savannah College of Art and Design, and have presented at conventions such as the SIGGRAPH 2020’s Women in Animation: Bird’s of a Feather event. I have students whose films have presented at the SIGGRAPH Student Showcase in 2020, and was recently a recipient of the University of Tampa’s award for Outstanding Achievement Part-Time Faculty for the 2022-2023 year.
Outside of teaching, I worked as a freelance animator and graphic designer since 2006, on projects including e-cards, cartoon pitches and pilots, animation consultation and instruction, instructional videos, interactive media and short films. I’ve designed the t-shirts and supplementary material for the FishHawk Turtkey Trot events since 2016, and worked as a freelance animator for independent projects and small studios including Spindlehorse and Humoring the Fates. Additionally, I’ve implemented my teaching experience as a content writer for online courses in the Explorations of Media and Studio Arts for the Henry Mancini Arts Education and as an animation consultant and project lead for Neuroshifts, where we created educational videos for neurodiversity. Finally, I’ve taught 2D and 3D animation, Stop Motion, Character Design, Storyboarding and Drawing Foundational classes to kids at Elite Animation Academy.
My dream has always been to lead a studio and create my own animated series. I have been working on my original project, Chorus to Dero, since 2011. I’ve pitched Chorus to Dero to Warner Brothers back in 2011, and Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in 2013, where I received positive and helpful feedback. For a few years I had to put the project down and focus on making an income through freelancing and teaching, though I continued to tweak the concept. In 2019 I recommitted to the project and started production on a pilot episode, and presented a clip of it SIGGRAPH 2020. In 2021 I formed Pencil Gator Animation Studio as an LLC and occasionally hired my colleagues and students to help with the project whenever I had the funds to spare, and after a successful fundraiser in 2022 we have been working steadily on Chorus to Dero and are aiming to finish the pilot this year.
My goal is to continue fundraising, gain support from a network or streaming service to make Chorus to Dero into a series and build more clientele to make Pencil Gator into a flourishing Florida based animation studio.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
In my journey, I’ve found the most important qualities are a foundational knowledge of your craft (mine being animation, but hopefully applicable to your field of expertise), flexibility with technology and networking.
More than once in delegations with a client for a freelance gig, I’ve been asked “does the computer do all of the work for you?” The quick answer to that is no. Familiarity with the software doesn’t automatically make one an animator, a graphic designer, an architect or any of the other art-related job descriptions. The computer is a tool just like a pencil, a pen or a paint brush, and cannot fill the gaps in foundational experience. A mistake I’ll see in students, sometimes, is the urge to rush through the core exercises and go straight into full character animation, making amateur mistakes and being too impatient to learn finesse. Learning the principles, going through the exercises, practicing volume control, line quality control or graph editing for 3D animators, will build those foundational skills and translate across every tool and software you use.
However, while technology can’t do the work for you it does provide tools to help streamline the process and work through complicated ideas. It can be dangerous to ignore technological advancements or avoid learning new software, as it can make us outdated. Animation programs are introducing new ways to help speed up our pipeline, and it would be wise to keep up with it as much as we can.
Finally, while skills and technological prowess are both important, it’s the Soft Skills that will make you invaluable to work with. I’ve found asking questions, communicating availability, being reliable supercede everything else. I have found it is better to have a teammate with limited skills but excellent communication over someone who is more highly skilled but unreliable. This also connects to my last point, Networking. It’s often the connections you make that help lead to job opportunities and stability. Having a good reputation amongst your colleagues and being someone dependable will make you not only valuable to them, but also their first choice as a recommendation for others.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
As a new animation studio, our challenge is building clientele and fundraising for our original animated pilot, “Chorus to Dero.” To help raise funds for the production, we’re selling merchandise including pins, stickers, magnets and prints, as well as selling cameos of you or your original character’s likeness as a background character in the project. We’re also looking for investors, partners or agents to help us sell the show.
Our intention with the project is to finish the pilot, send it to festivals and pitch it to networks and streaming services to make it into a series. Additionally, we plan to use it as another means to attract clients and demonstrate our skills as a studio.
Finally, we are looking for local businesses who may be interested in our animation services, for promotional, instructional and commercial material. We are also interested in collaborating with educational services whether it’s teaching animation itself, or using animation as an educational tool.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pencilgator.com
- Instagram: @pencilgator
- Facebook: facebook.com/chorustodero
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pencil-gator-animation-studio/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChorustoDero
- Other: Additional information about Chorus to Dero can be found on the project page, www.chorustodero.com
Image Credits
Animatic by Dana Corrigan 3D Environments by Amber Newman Animation by Dana Corrigan, Jamie Lewallen, Orlando Inolino, Temris Ridge Ink/Paint by Angela Maxfield, Kelsey Holden, Temris Ridge Layouts by Barbara Knupp, Kennedi Perez, Threnody Gawron Environment Concept by Cassie Jacobsen, Severin Piehl
