We recently connected with Bill Kopp and have shared our conversation below.
Bill, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Growing up I was a cartoonist and made films as well. I attended the California Institute of the Arts as a painter innitially but switched my major into animation my second year. I buried myself in animation and made 2 films that both won Academy Awards. Storytelling and animation timing and drawing were and still are the main skills. But breaking into digital animation has changed everything. Now I am busy making my own cartoons outside the studio system. It’s faster and vastly more inexpensive and the quality is top-notch.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
After I graduated I went right to work in directing animation for feature films. From there I went into television on a start up series of short cartoons called The Simpsons. From there I went to Disney and worked as a story artist on the 3 Roger Rabbit theatrical shorts. There I really learned writing for the screen and it was with those skills I was able to write and produce the shows I created. eek the Cat, Mad Jack the pirate, Toonsylvania and Tales from the Cyrpt.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
It’s basically a miracle to get a television show through development and onto the screen. The past seven or eight years I have been involved in project after project that ended up being shelved for a variety of reasons compoletely out of my control. After the last one got cancelled BY THE STUDIO that paid for a years worth of development even after we sold it to Amazon, I decided to take matters into my own hands and finally learn all i could about digital animation production and began making my own cartoons. It was learning those new programs and skills that put the power back into my hands.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I feel like I’m here on this planet to make funny cartoons. And the studio system was preventing me from doing that. The most rewarding part for me is the ability to actually create and that means that you can’t let anything get in the way of that process.
Contact Info:
- Website: billkoppanimation.com
- Instagram: @billkoppfunny
- Facebook: Bill Kopp and Bill Kopp animator