We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bradford Uyeda. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bradford below.

Bradford, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was about 8 years old, on a Saturday afternoon, Looney Toons was on television and I loved watching those cartoons when I was a kid. On this particular afternoon, at the end of the show a behind the scenes look came on. It took the viewer behind the curtain and explained how the cartoon was made. It was a real mind blowing experience for me. The legendary animator Chuck Jones demonstrated just how he brought Bugs Bunny to life with just his pencil. He demonstrated how he would also use a mirror to help him create the movement references of Bugs eating a carrot. He then drew several gestures and flip them back and forth to show the movement. I was completely floored. When the show ended I got up off the floor and went and grabbed several sheets of white construction paper and drew an anthropomorphic mouse in the water with a navy blue crayon. I drew three of the same drawings but I moved his arms into different positions to simulate swimming. When I flip the pages as Chuck Jones did the mouse was swimming. I thought to myself “I can do this”.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Brad Uyeda. It all really started for me in College at San Francisco State University. I was a Fine Arts major at the time and I was sketching outside on campus one day when a student who was passing by caught a glimpse of my sketchbook. She asked if I was a cinema major. I replied that I was not. She then told me about the animation department and that I should go check it out. It was calling to me again. I ventured up to the third floor of the cinema department and peeked my head into the animation classroom. I saw animation light tables, pencil testing stations, work tables and cartoons playing on a television set. The teaching professor asked what my business was and asked if could get into the animation program with being a cinema major. She gave me the oddest look at the time. I showed her my sketchbook and told her my love of animation. She signed an add slip and I was in the program. The surprising thing about this journey is that as much as I loved drawing and painting I discovered that I enjoyed sculpting far more. I fell in love with stop-motion animation and have been a claymation fiend ever since.

After a few years in the business I decided that a change was needed. My style of art and the stories I wanted to tell was different from what was out there at the time. I decided to freelance. This enabled me to pick and choose my projects, to set my own hours, set my own rates and create what I visioned which to me was more liberating. On the other end of this the clients also benefited because I was a one man crew, I learned to do it all and was more affordable than an animation company. So I created music videos for bands, commercials for small businesses, animation for independent films short and full length. I can animate in clay, hand drawn, or computer generated in Adobe. In between projects I work on my own animated shorts and write scripts.

Learning to do every facet of animation is fun but overtime one begins to yearn for colleagues. Today I try to bring other artists into all of my projects. It truly is a collaborative process, filmmaking and animation. I have grown as an artist and a director by bringing other creatives into my projects. Having previously learned all the other jobs it makes directing and trouble shooting much easier in terms of communication with other creatives. We speak the same language.

As I get older I have come to find this overpricing of animation services to be quite outrageous. A lot of clients are always shocked at my rates and I think that is sad. The price spectrum for animated content is so wide I can see why business try not to incorporate animation in their marketing campaigns. My hope is to one day change that model. To make animation more affordable to small and local businesses is my goal. Right now the only option is to find studios overseas in Asia to produce animation for companies that cannot afford the big studio prices. There are plenty of talented artists here in the States looking for that opportunity and it would be nice if they got it.

I am currently working towards my first full length feature film. My animated feature film is titled, “Purple Heart for Effect” is a very personal story about my grandfather during World War 2. He and several of my great uncles served in the U.S. Armies segregated unit the 442nd regiment battalion. Historically the most decorated unit in U.S. history and my film centers on a particular mission to save a lost battalion in the forests of France on the French-German border.

As a Japanese American I have been wanting to make this film since I was very young. Like so many who fought and survived in WW2 they really didn’t talk about it. The Japanese Americans in particular really NEVER talked about it. Wounded in battle and lost some portion of his thigh my grandfather never talked about it. Only in recent years did my generation step up and start asking those who are alive their stories. After researching and talking with my family and those who remember I pieced together my family story. It was quite a journey for me and got to know my own father better from it. My grandfather was an amazing artist and I owe all my skills to him. I want my children and their children to know what exactly he did for this country.

The power of film can entertain, educate and bring forth important social issues. As a Japanese American who’s grandparents were forced out their homes, their businesses and off their farms and relocated to camps for years because of racial fear the current state of our country needs stories like this at the forefront of our culture.

My hope is that in the process I can provide jobs for other artists and comfort to my community.

Have you ever had to pivot?

This is hard to talk about. There was a block of time I had to stop as an artist. It was during the economic recession and I was still living in California when the hardest years of my life happened. My partner at the time had become addicted to methamphetamine and began to secretly spend all our money, so no bills were being paid because there wasn’t any money in the account. One day the car gets towed, one day we get an eviction noticed, late bill notices began to flood my mail box. When I confronted her about it she left and disappeared. We had a daughter who was two at the time and she had a son who was older. I was now homeless with two little children by my side. I was overwhelmed and unprepared for this. I had to stop animating and art all together and figure a way back. The California legal system was not designed to help a single father with kids at the time. There was only one shelter in town that accepted fathers with kids. It was also only temporary, I had two months to find another home. I had to find work and fast. I applied and found work a mall. I worked at five stores in the, 72 hours straight sometimes, i worked the morning shift, the closing shift and the overnight shift. Then Repeat. I had to get government aid, I used the emergency fund after two month’s which the state only gives you once in your lifetime to pay for two weeks hotel room if needed, food assistance and wic. I remember one night we had to wait for a bus and it began to rain. The bus stop hadn’t a roof so I had to make my kids climb under the bench to get out of the rain. It still brings me to tears. And like in a movie a nice family stopped and offered to give us a ride home. And home I did find, I worked night and day, walked miles everyday, got a gym membership to use their shower, rented a room and put our belongings in storage. Eventually was able to get full custody of my daughter, rented a studio space at Smash Mouths recording studio and set up shop again. It was a rough couple of years. But I came back.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

One of my college professors once said that there is special place in the world for storytellers. Since the early cave drawings on walls, stories have been told about life: shared experiences, death, distant wars, the gods, weather, health-subjects that affect how we survive in this world. Animation has formally taken its place alongside live-action films and stage plays as a primary storytelling medium, and animators are taking the wand from the live actors to the next leg of the race.

As I realize mortality and time are shorter and shorter I find myself focusing more on the past. I want to tell stories that should be told before they’re forgotten. Starting with my own family history I have found some profound stories that have captured my heart and my mind. I want to share that with the world and leave a history behind for my children and their children to remember. I want others to feel as I felt from these members of my family the sacrifices and struggles that we all have had to go through in history. That no one is alone in their darkest days, their hardest moments and better days are always, always ahead.

I what to give someone hope for the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://savmostudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savmostudio/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradforduyeda/

Image Credits

Head shots by Lily Bell Photography
Family Photo by Lily Bell Photography