John Celestri animation blog


There's a new animation blog I want to recommend to you by a great animator, John Celestri.


John the Animator Guy



John started his animation career in his native New York City (working on the Richard Williams' feature film "Raggedy Ann & Andy", among other things)  then spent several years at the Nelvana studio in Toronto as a supervising animator on Nelvana's ambitious first feature film , "Rock & Rule", as well  the Nelvana television specials  such as "The Devil and Daniel Mouse",  "Intergalactic Thanksgiving" , "Easter Fever" (which he was also a Sequence Director on) , among others.     I don't think these Nelvana specials run on TV anymore , but I'll tell you as someone who was a teenager interested in getting into animation at that time:  in the vast wasteland that was television animation in the 1970's  these fully-animated specials by Nelvana were a bright standout , which inspired people like me with the thought that "hey, it is possible to still do full animation today, it's not just all in the past".






*ADD ON:  Thank you to the Anonymous commenter who posted this in the comments :


"On the old Animation Nation discussion board (which used to have many pros posting as members of the board) Dave Brewster (who is also a very fine animator) posted something about Celestri:

"He went off to pursue other things but he is one of the few animators I consider up there with James Baxter and Glen Keane. During Rock & Rule he did some of the best animation ever. Feature animation suffered a huge loss when he stepped out of the spotlight. More than just dwell on the past I pine for what could have been."


After a long stretch in the Hollywood animation industry John moved back east to work as a freelancer from his home studio.  He and his wife Cathie have also teamed up to write a series of mystery novels.   Currently John is the Directing Animator and VP of Grace Animation Studios in Danville, Kentucky .


On the blog John is sharing his thoughts on animation technique,  scriptwriting,  the relationship between art and commerce , among other topics.   




Check it out !