Kent Melton was a character sculptor and maquette builder who worked on some of the most famous animated films -- someone had to sculpt the genie from Aladdin!
Puppetmaker Maria Andreotti was lucky enough to work as Kent's assistant on her first film, Boxtrolls, and was soon fangirling about the amazing sculptures and maquettes he had created at Disney, Laika, Dreamworks and Pixar for such movies as The Incredibles, Paranorman, Prince of Egypt, Treasure Planet, Tarzan, Hercules, Mulan and more.
Kent eventually became Maria's good friend and mentor and when hewas diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Maria was inspired to make a documentary about him. She created a Kickstarter campaign and has so far raised over $100,000 (and counting) to finish the film.
Paul Driessen's work has always interested me because it was fun to watch and his stories were told with a quirky bit of humor. I contacted him through his website recently to see if he would be interested in doing an interview via Zoom from his home in France. I was so surprised that he agreed and mentioned that he had published his biography called "My Life in Catoons". We made plans to meet online in a few weeks, just enough time for me to find and get his book. The book publisher did not ship to the US, so I had to get it through Amazon. The book finally arrived and I was able to find out what his life was like before getting into animation.
Dreissen was in Holland and at an early age grew during World War ll and recalls a lot of memories during this time. He even winds up in Moscow with his family in the above photograph. And luckily, he and his entire family survives the war and eventually are included in this photo below in a happier time after moving back to Holland.
The book is very well written, I only wished that some of the photos were larger on the page and I also would have liked to seen more color stills from some of his colorful films.
I was amazed to learn that he discovered animation by getting an opportunity to work on the Beatles animated TV series and eventually followed it up by getting to animate of the Yellow Submarine feature film.
If you enjoy Driessen's or writing Biographies, you might enjoy this one to get a flavor of how life was like for this an independent animator who eventually worked on several films for the National Film Board of Canada and later, making his own personal films.
Please enjoy this recent interview with Paul Driessen.
If you enjoyed this blog or the above interview, please subscribe to the YouTube Animateducated channel or leave a comment below. I don't think anyone reads this blog, because most of the comments I get are from people who just want sell their animation services or spam ads.
So, let me know if you liked this or what your favorite Paul Driessen film is. And if you have never seen his work, hopefully this will spark your interests.
Very happy to see an independent animated feature from Latvia win an Oscar against some of the biggest animation studios in the world. It gives me hope for the other Cats out there working to make their dreams come true.
