Back in the 90's, Kirby Atkins was a High School teacher who applied to Will Vinton Studios in Portland and was hired into the world of animation. Soon he was getting paid to learn more about CG animation while working as a CG Animator on various M&M commercials the studio was producing at the time.
When the studio had downtime in between commercials, Kirby developed his own animated short called "Mutt", about a Dog comedian telling dog jokes to other dogs, in which he wrote the dialogue, animated, modeled, lit and even did the main character's voice. The film went on to win several awards at film festivals, including the Hollywood Film Festival.
Atkins also began a very personal short film called "Beast of Burden" about an intelligent creature which was used to pull a plow even though he could talk and tried to reason with his owner. It was a very dark and epic like idea which Kirby kept working on and developing after he left Vinton and began working for other animation studios.
Kirby develop the story into an animatic and recorded himself performing the voice of Mosley and his 7 year old daughter playing Mosley's small daughter Rue.
20 years in the making, "Mosley" was released in New Zealand in 2019 and is only now finally making its way around the world to US. Recently the film was shown at the Annecy animation festival in France in July and is on its way to the Ottawa animation film festival and the Burbank International Film Festival in September.
Take a look and listen to this very informative interview!
Thank You!
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