Justin Rasch is a director and animator with experience in stop-motion, CG, and 2D animation. He currently works for Blizzard Entertainment, but has also worked for Laika and Bix Pix Entertainment on projects such as Kubo and the Two Strings, Paranorman, and Tumble Leaf.
He is a gifted animator, and if you haven't checked out his work, I urge you to follow his Instagram or Youtube! He's always posting helpful tips for aspiring animators. I learned a lot while chatting with him, and I'm so grateful to Justin for sharing his knowledge and experiences in the animation industry! I felt very inspired to keep working and learning after speaking to him.
Read ahead to learn about Justin's exciting journey in animation!
Anisha: How did you get started in animation and how did you end up where you are today?
Justin: I was always an artist. My brother and I decided to go to art school to do special effects for films. We grew up in the 80s, and all of the special effects in the 70s and 80s were practical. The creatures were stop-motion, puppets, or people in suits! We were so excited about the special effects. We always wanted to know how to do it, and we were really hoping that we could do special effects for movies one day. We found this school called the Art Institute of Pittsburg, which was one of the only schools that actually taught how to do practical effects. All of these old monster movie [experts] came from Pennsylvania, and they actually taught at the school! So we both decided to go there and learn practical effects.
A few things happened next. Jurassic Park came out, and the dinosaurs were so incredible that the next day I changed my major to CG animation. I wanted to learn computer animation because I could see that’s where the future of animation was going.
By the time I graduated, I understood CG, but I had mainly been educated in 2D animation. I made a demo reel and applied to a bunch of different companies. I interviewed all over the place after I graduated because CG was still pretty new then. I got hired by a Japanese video game company, which was my first step into animation as a professional. I started a whole career where I animated for games and television.
Back then, a lot of the CG artists were not really great artists. They were more technical. They understood the software and knew how to do some basic stuff. It was a really interesting phase where artists started learning the tools and then started infiltrating all those positions and eventually taking over. The computer science people started getting phased out because the artists got so good at using the tools. It was a cool little moment in time in the mid-nineties when CG was coming onto the scene.
"It was a really interesting phase where artists started learning the tools and then started infiltrating all those positions and eventually taking over [CG]. It was a cool little moment in time in the mid-nineties when CG was coming onto the scene."
Anisha: It must be crazy to see how much CG has progressed since you first started!
Justin: Oh yeah! So much. It’s really interesting because I still love CG. I love stop-motion a lot, it’s my number one favorite of course, and I still even 2D animate. With CG, I’m working at a place called Blizzard right now. They do some really high-end 3D work. To be a part of a production where you have that much talent in animation, modeling, lighting, and all the different facets that become this final image in CG is pretty spectacular! And it’s growing. The technology is only getting better. The systems are getting better. The controls are getting better. We’re able to animate more and more realistically...or cartoonishly! However we want. The rigs aren’t as limited as they used to be. I’m very excited.
Anisha: I saw the Overwatch holiday special on YouTube and was blown away by the animation! Can you speak a little bit about that experience?
Justin: Thank you! Yeah! Blizzard is an all CG company. I had just finished working on Kubo and the Two Strings for Laika, and I was coming back to Los Angeles. Laika is in Portland, but my home and family are in LA. I was looking for my next job, and I had a buddy that worked Blizzard who said, “You gotta come check out this game!” And I was like, "I don’t know. I’m busy. It’s too far from my house. I don’t want to do that.”
I [ultimately] said I’d do it for a short time, so I went for a three-month contract. But then I was like, wow, this is amazing! This Overwatch stuff is super fun! I worked there, and they made me a full time offer after a year. I was supposed to work on Missing Link at Laika, but I said nope, I’m going to skip Missing Link because I’m having so much fun at Blizzard.
But I’m a stop-motion guy! Part of my problem with CG is that I don’t get to get my hands dirty, so it doesn’t touch my soul the same way that puppets do. Blizzard has a university on campus for teaching the employees anything they want to learn. They always bring in specialized teachers to keep us juicy. After I had been at Blizzard for two years, they were like, “Justin, we know you do stop-motion! Will you come teach at the school?” And I was like, “Yeah! Sure. I’ll do a class!” So, I taught a class, and it went really well. Then I decided, you know what? I’m going to show these guys what I can really do. We have a collectibles department at Blizzard that makes statues, toys, and shirts. I took one of their collectables and decided to do a test to show Blizzard what stop-motion could look like. I made this thing and showed it to them, and they were blown away. They were like, “Oh my god, that’s amazing! We have to do something with this.” So Shelly and I came up with three stories. (Shelly is my wife. She makes all the puppets and sets, and we write everything together.)
"I’m a stop-motion guy! Part of my problem with CG is that I don’t get to get my hands dirty, so it doesn’t touch my soul the same way that puppets do."
We came up with three stories. We pitched them to them, they picked the one they wanted, and they told us to go home and make it for ten weeks. So we went home and got to make Trace and Bake, which was the first one for the anniversary. After we proved we could do it on Trace and Bake, they sent us home to do the Christmas version. Six months of the year I was basically at home doing stop-motion. That’s insane for a CG company!
It was so cool. We hope to do more. People really like them. We’re written and storyboarded a lot more stories. We’re ready to go, we just got to get the thumbs up, and then we can make more!
Anisha: I’m sure you’ll get it! What does your wife make the puppets out of?
Justin: We do all wire armatures. I mainly work with wire in most of my films. Ball and socket is great, but it takes a lot of maintenance. Every time you finish a shot, you have to send it back and tighten it up. You can run into problems during the shot. Also it’s expensive. We’re trying to do stuff that’s not expensive. We know how to use wire. We’ve used wire for over a decade. We have less problems when we use wire.
If I’m working on a feature film like at Laika, there’s a whole department thats whole job is to make sure your armatures run smoothly. That’s how you can get that incredible Rolls-Royce movement. But typically, wire is fine. Most of the television industry uses wire anyways.
I like to animate some dynamic stuff, and I run into limits with ball and socket puppets. The knees can only go so far when they bend, or I can’t get the kind of squash I want out of a character. When I use wire, I can literally squish the character into whatever shape I want. It gives me a lot of flexibility.
"I like to animate some dynamic stuff. When I use wire, I can literally squish the character into whatever shape I want. It gives me a lot of flexibility."
Anisha: What has been your experience working at Laika?
Justin: It’s amazing. I always say Laika is the top of the mountain. Every film has about four hundred people working on it and they’re the best artists and creative, cool group of people that I’ve ever been a part of.
It’s a hard job. They really push you as an animator. They really squeeze you to get the best out of you at all times. You’re being pushed really heavily to deliver a lot of frames and you can’t screw up because it’s Laika. It’s really intense. It’s a hard gig, but you’re doing the work of your life in every shot.
They hand me puppets that are freaking masterpieces. The best armatures, the best sculptures, the best facial shapes, the best clothing, the best sets, and the best lighting! It’s really rewarding to work at that level and see it on the big screen. It’s insane! It’s so cool. I’ve never been more artistically fulfilled, even doing my own stuff, as I have working on a big, giant film that has that level of artistry behind it. It’s really special.
Anisha: Did you always want to work at Laika?
Justin: *Laughs* No, I didn’t always want to work at Laika. Coraline is probably my favorite Laika film. I was still working in CG when Coraline was coming out. I was like, oh my god, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! I love the character design, I love the look, the animation is so good...everything about that movie was awesome.
"They really push you as an animator. It’s a hard gig, but you’re doing the work of your life in every shot. I’ve never been more artistically fulfilled, even doing my own stuff, as I have working on a big, giant film that has that level of artistry behind it."
My wife and I were making our private stop-motion films in our garage. Our film, Gerald’s Last Day, was going through the festival circuit. It had made its way up somewhere near Portland when someone from Laika saw it. They called me for an interview.
Shelly was actually with me for the interview! The head supervisor gave us a tour of everything and then asked me about working on the next film, Paranorman.
I could have never thought that working in stop-motion would be a possibility because I had been in CG for so many years. [Plus] there was no Laika. That was just this weird thing that fell out of the sky with this son of Nike who happened to like stop-motion! It wasn’t even thought of as a possibility. But it was a dream. To work on a feature stop-motion film? That was one of my biggest dreams ever! Of course, I had to do it. I talked to my wife and my daughter and [explained] that I had to do this film!
I went up for Paranorman, and it was the most amazing artistic experience I have ever had. At that point, I became a feature animator. I remember there were people next to me that were pros who had been in the business forever. They’d ask, “What film were you on before this?” And I’d say, “Dude, this is my first job in stop-motion! I’ve never done stop-motion professionally.”
And they were like, “Oh, wow!”
I think a big part of why I got good in stop-motion so fast is because I was educated in 2D animation and CG animation, so when I started doing stop-motion, I automatically understood the craft so well that I was able to do good animation pretty quick. That was a huge booster pad for me to move into that industry. Once you’ve worked on a feature film at Laika, you can go wherever you want in stop-motion. You’re going to be fine.
"To work on a feature stop-motion film? That was one of my biggest dreams ever! Of course, I had to do it. I went up for Paranorman, and it was the most amazing artistic experience I have ever had. At that point, I became a feature animator."
Anisha: What do you enjoy about stop-motion?
Justin: It’s magic. It’s pure magic! There’s nothing that touches my heart more than bringing an inanimate object to life in a believable way. I also love storytelling. Mixing the two of those…it’s unbeatable. It feeds my soul. *Laughs* And there’s nothing like it. That’s why I’m staying in it. I have to tell stories in this medium forever.
Anisha: It definitely is the best medium! I watched your blocking tutorial on YouTube for animating in stop-motion and it was really helpful! Would you mind sharing a little about your process for animating?
Justin: There’s so many different professional ways to animate in stop-motion. If I’m working on a television show like Robot Chicken, Tumble Leaf, or SuperheroMansion, I have to move so quickly that it’s pretty much improvisation. The director will tell you what they want, and you have to think really fast and come up with a plan for your animation. Then you just have to jump in and animate. Being able to visualize and quickly improvise your way through is normal for television. There’s not really much time to block. You have to deliver between eight and ten seconds a day, which is insane!
If you’re in feature film, it’s a way different process. On feature, because the quality of acting and performance has to be at such a higher level, you’ll get direction from the director, and shoot video reference. Especially on shows like Laika because they really want things to look what they call “naturalistic”. You’ll get feedback on your live-action reference to make sure that it’s in line with what they want. Then you take that to set and block your puppet. You put in your key poses, your breakdowns, anything else you’re going to need to communicate to the director what you’re planning on doing. Once you show that block, then you get feedback and do a rehearsal, which is shooting it on twos.
"It’s magic. It’s pure magic! There’s nothing that touches my heart more than bringing an inanimate object to life in a believable way."
Feature and television are so different. In feature you do a lot of planning, getting feedback, and refining. In television I don’t always have time to block. But improvisation in television can be really magical. Sometimes I like to just jump in and figure it out on the go.
In my garage, I’ll thinking about the shot and draw out all my poses on paper [before animating]. I’ll do little thumbnails to show what I’m thinking and what I’m hoping to capture. Then I’ll go in my garage and do a physical block. I’m sure you’ve run into this too if you’re a stop-motion person…your puppet as physical limitations. There are so many different kinds of limitations! Sometimes that can be really charming, but sometimes it can drive you crazy. Drawings and CG characters don’t have a lot of limitations. I can push or squish things around as much as I want. But in stop-motion, you have to improvise, and move and twist a little bit to get the poses.
Those are my three processes that I use in blocking. Everybody is different. There are people who don’t do thumbnails at all because they think it’s a waste of time. They block with their puppet. They’ll actually pose their puppets because then they’re dealing with something they know their character can physically do. All of the processes are valid. It just depends on what you want to do.
Anisha: That’s really helpful! One of the biggest problems I have while animating is that my puppet either falls or breaks.
Justin: That happens at Laika. It happens no matter where you are! It’s part of the medium. It’s a pain!
Problem solving. I say it to every student I have. Stop-motion is all problem-solving, and there’s fifty million ways to solve every problem. Your way can be different from mine and totally work. It’s definitely all problems. *Laughs*
Anisha: What are some of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on?
Justin: Paranorman is probably always going to be my most cherished because it was my first. I love the designs in that film so much. When I went to work on Paranorman, I knew it was about zombies, but I didn’t know the designs. Designs are really important to me as an artist. I didn’t want to work on ugly designs, if that makes sense. When I got there, I had no idea what they would look like. I remember going to my first dailies and being like, “Oh my gosh! This is so cool!” The concept artist was a woman named Heidi, and I just loved her designs. It was really exciting! When I saw the designs, I felt so relieved.
"Stop-motion is all problem-solving, and there’s fifty million ways to solve every problem."
Anisha: When you animate your characters, how do you go about giving each of them such distinct personalities?
Justin: If I am working in my garage, my wife and I are the creators of the characters. We talk and know who they are before we start animating. I also go through a testing phase. You have to feel your puppet and see how it moves and what its limitations are. During the testing phase you develop a personality. You can find a walk. You can find gestures. You can hear the voice! You can find an intensity, a sadness, or an anger in the voice.
If you’re working on a feature film, the animation supervisors create a bible showing an approved walk, an approved run, and an approved set of poses that show the character’s personality and behavior. They have voice samples. When you start on a feature film, you spend three to four weeks just testing the puppet and just getting used to them on a testing unit. You literally go through the motions with the character while the supervisor is giving you feedback every day for a month before you get launched onto the real film. They have a whole book that you can read and study.
Pretty much any time you join Laika, your very first day of work they give you instructions for the character you’re specializing in. For me it was Norman, Alvin, and Aggy. Those three were the main puppets I was going to be dealing with. You go through posing exercises and you show the supervisor and they’ll say yes, no, or maybe. If it’s a good one that’s not in the bible, they’ll add it to the bible. You basically become educated on who these characters are. By the time you’re released on set, you have a really good idea of who these characters are. That’s feature.
Television is very different. There’s some minor testing that happens, but if you get a hired on a TV show, you learn as you go. [For instance], Tumble Leaf on Amazon is a children’s show with a little blue fox and pink bear. As my homework, I will study. I will look for common poses. I look for timing or anything that makes one character stand out from another character. I remember my first shot I did on Tumble Leaf, I worked with the supervisor, Rachel. She told me I was bending the knees too much in some of the poses. I logged the [feedback] in for the next shot, because every day is new shots on TV shows. You get smart quickly. Study and look at other people’s shots, and you’ll figure it out.
"Being able to visualize and quickly improvise your way through is normal for television. There’s not really much time to block. You have to deliver between eight and ten seconds a day, which is insane!"
Anisha: It seems like it’s like a boot camp when you’re on feature!
Justin: Yeah, totally! I skipped television and went right to feature. It’s cool because I got to do a very high level of animation, but there are so many lessons you learn in television because the turnaround is so fast. In television you are just logging information, making mistakes, and fixing them.
In feature, the stakes are so high, you can’t screw up. If you do screw up, that’s a problem. They’re going to yell at you. But if you screw up in television, there’s some wiggle room because TV is nowhere near as scrutinized. A lot of the shows are for young kids or for comedic value. There’s a lot more room to just learn and make mistakes. And you have to make mistakes to learn! Getting a few years of television in is just really, really priceless.
Since working at Laika, I’ve come back and worked in TV. I’ll just take a month or a couple weeks off and go work on a show for fun. The process is so loose. A lot of people can find their wings in TV before they go to having to be like snipers on the big screen where you can’t screw up.
Anisha: What are some of the most difficult parts of animation and the stop-motion industry in general?
Justin: The hardest thing about the stop-motion industry is jobs. There’s more work now than there has ever been in the history of stop-motion. There are so many studios, and there’s so much content. There are so many more eyes to see it and recognize it. It’s awesome.
"The hardest thing about the stop-motion industry is jobs. There’s work, but it’s kind of circus-y, as I call it."
There’s work, but it’s kind of circus-y, as I call it. A show will appear, and they’ll build up a building for that show, and it’ll go for as long as that show goes, three seasons, two seasons, or one season…you never know. Six months of work, and you have to find another job. If it’s renewed for another season, and you get another six months of work. There’s a new thing happening at Laika? Now you have work for a year and a half. Then there’s something happening in London. Or the Ukraine. You have to find all these little projects all over the world that just pop up. Laika’s the most stable one for sure. It’s this mutant one that exists. Here in Burbank, California, there’s probably five studios that have many shows. But shows are seasonal. Unless you have something like Robot Chicken that’s gone on for twelve seasons or something crazy, usually it’s two seasons and they’re gone.
The scrambling and looking for work is a bummer. There are so many jobs in CG that are steady. Here’s another thing…medical insurance. There are little things like that that you take for granted. With CG, you’re going to get medical insurance pretty much anywhere you work. In stop-motion, since it’s a specialty, they never really have enough money to give people insurance or stability. Things like that suck. Laika of course has insurance. If you get a job on a feature film, they’ll have insurance because they have bigger budgets. But if you’re working on shows, you pretty much have to get your own insurance. You may have to move a lot.
I’m always telling my students to learn CG. You’ll always have more options. With CG you have sixteen times as many jobs. You could always do stop-motion, but if there’s ever dead space, you can jump over here. It has always served me. I can pick and choose when I want to a stop-motion film, project, or show, but I always have steady CG work because I have a family. I really want to make sure I have some stability.
Feature can be taxing. It’s the best work of your life, but it’s marathonic. You can get really exhausted because the hours are really long. And it’s just so intense! You’re pouring your heart and soul into these things and you can’t screw up. I don’t know if I could do it full time. I like doing a movie and then going back to my cushy, full time CG job.
Those are some of the bummers, but at the same time, it’s magic. It’s undeniably cool when you walk onto a movie set or a television studio that has sixteen to thirty stages full of this amazing artwork. It’s amazing! You come to my work at Blizzard and it’s this boring ass desk. The coolest thing on there are my action figures. But you go to work on a stop-motion film, and it’s this hustling, bustling, set. There are stop-motion artists everywhere. Lighters, cameras, voice actors, props, and sets! It’s really cool. And you’re moving. Every day you’re going to a new set and getting new characters. It’s so exciting! And the culture is so different too. You’re making a film or a TV show. There are weeklies where everyone reviews each other’s work and have a drink at the end of the week. Or there’s dailies. There’s a celebration as the film or the show comes more and more together. You get to watch everyone’s work as it turns into this finished product. That’s really exciting. It feels like you’re in Hollywood! Versus working in CG and video games as I work now…it’s cool, but it’s not that cool. For me, growing up in the 80s and wanting to very much be a part of film, to now see it and be a part of it touches so many buttons in me. I never thought I could be making movies and TV shows.
"You go to work on a stop-motion film, and it’s this hustling, bustling, set. There are stop-motion artists everywhere. Lighters, cameras, voice actors, props, and sets! It’s really cool. It feels like you’re in Hollywood!"
Anisha: What’s your typical day like?
Justin: At Laika, they’ll start with a forty-hour work week, then it goes to fifties, and then it goes to sixties. The hours can stretch up as the production goes on because they need to hit more seconds, or they need to hit a release date.
In television, the workday is nine to seven. Typically, it will be ten hours a day. You have a quota of eight to ten seconds a day. You’re shooting on twos. If you’re in feature, you’re shooting on ones. You get there, grab your coffee in the morning, and head to set. If you’re already launched on a shot, you just close the curtain and get to work. If you’re getting directed, you wait for the director to come in and watch you either block or do your shot. Then you go through the process of getting notes and then doing it again.
In feature, you do every shot three times. You block, do it on twos, and then you shoot your hero. That’s if your block is good. If your block’s not good, you might have to block it again and do it four times. But usually they’re trying to move you along. They’ll give you notes and hope that you can apply them to your next round. That’s how they get that amazing animation at Laika (or whatever studio is making it).
"In feature, you do every shot three times. You block, do it on twos, and then you shoot your hero."
Anisha: Do they have a quota of how fast you have to be animating?
Justin: They always try to have a quote. On Kubo and the Two Strings, the quota was so unrealistic because we were dealing with the highest level of animation that we had ever done at Laika. Everyone had kimonos, and long hair, and sideburns, and dresses, and capes. They were all jumping around with really complicated rigging. And there are multiple characters. The studio wants you to get three seconds a day, but I physically can’t do that at that level of quality. They eventually came to their senses and lowered the quota. But I’d say in feature, they would like you get to animate three seconds a day once you’re launched. That’s not counting your blocking and rehearsal phase. But once you’re doing the real hero shot, they want [each animator] to get about three seconds a day.
Anisha: That’s a little more reasonable, but still a lot!
Justin: Yeah! It can always fluctuate depending on the style and how complicated things are. We had people getting as few as ten frames a day! It was intense.
Anisha: Wow! And there’s so many little details in Kubo and the Two Strings!
Justin: Yeah, and that giant skeleton! Or the sisters!
Anisha: Do you have any dream projects that you’d like to work on?
Justin: Yes, I do! Pinocchio. Pinocchio is a dream project for me.
Anisha: You should go work on it!
Justin: I know, I should go work on it! *Laughs* I was asked to work on it. It’s just that I work at Blizzard. I have a full-time position at Blizzard that’s too hard to walk away from. I have stability. They’ll keep me there forever, they pay me decently, and they have benefits. And here’s the other thing…now that they’re allowing us to make these stop-motion shorts for them, I get to do everything I want to do there. I get to do stop-motion, CG, and storytelling. I have directing opportunities. When I put the two options on a scale, even though Pinocchio is [amazing], Blizzard keeps winning.
The one thing I might do is take a very good size vacation at the end of the year and just go work for a couple months on Pinocchio. I do take vacations to go work on productions so it will probably be the case for this one too.
Anisha: It must be nice having creative freedom on the projects you work on with your wife!
Justin: Yeah! We’re working on a film right now in our garage. It’s a Viking film. We are always writing new projects. We have a lot of big dreams of stories we want to tell.
"We are always writing new projects. We have a lot of big dreams of stories we want to tell."
Anisha: Is there anything else you’d like to add? Any advice you have for some interested in stop-motion?
Justin: Get a portfolio together. There are positions out there! Getting that foot in the door is everything, whether it’s an internship or working in a fabrication unit. You have to show a pretty decent amount of work in a portfolio…and the cooler it looks, the better!
I can’t advise much more than just apply everywhere. Here’s a little tip I didn’t know it when I first got out of school…if you are applying to stop-motion jobs out of Florida, your chances of getting them are pretty much zero. You have to come to California. You have to be on-site, because there are so many people who want these positions. If they like your work, they’ll ask, “Hey, can you be here?” And you have to say yes. You might be able to apply from Florida, but you pretty much have to able to get there for that interview and be there to work. Like I said, most of the television studios are in Burbank, California. That’s where you’ll probably get your start.
I’m excited for you! When I talk to students, I say that going out into the world is such an exciting, terrifying moment of, “What am I going to do? What am I going to be?” There are so many questions! You have this direction now. It’s really exciting. Just focus and learn as much as you can about fabrication.
This was a long time ago when I learned, but stopmotionanimation.com is where I learned a lot. Now there are so many YouTube tutorials, and all these things that weren’t around when I was just learning. There’s a lot of cool stuff. You can learn a lot, and do it yourself!
If you would like to learn more about Justin Rasch, check out his links below:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justin_rasch_official/?hl=en
Youtube: https://vimeo.com/user169226
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user169226
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1494039/
Comments