Our story begins in March 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic, when people started wearing face masks and hoarding mass quantities of toilet paper. I was working as a part-time driving instructor at my local AAA when I received an email asking if I would be available to do some freelance 2D animation work.
Fred Raimondi, the project's visual effects supervisor, described that he needed a scene involving a live action boy drawing a tiger on a piece of paper. Fred wanted the tiger to then come to life and interact with the boy's pencil like a playful kitten. He also described another scene he needed in which the boy is holding the tiger drawing and it comes to life again.
The story, "The Tiger Rising," is by Kate DiCamillo who wrote "Because of Winn Dixie" in 2005 and "The Tale of Despereaux" in 2008.
I worked out a budget and figured out how I would be able to do this job and still teach animation and keep my AAA job. Then things kind of worked out when AAA closed down the driving school for a few months due to Covid and I had extra time to work on animating the tiger.
It was only later, after I finished the animation, that I found out it was for a feature film starring Queen Latifah and Dennis Quaid. I also wondered if this film would ever be shown in theaters.
So I'm very happy to report that "The Tiger Rising" will be released on January 21, 2022. I have also received a title credit as the entire "Animation Department" on IMDB which I am quite happy with as well.
Here are the two scenes that should be somewhere in the feature film...
Please let me know what you think of the film.
Happy New Year!
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