Denny Goes Airsurfing

If you've seen my first cartoon "DENNY GOES AIRSURFING", then you'll know just what airsurfing is. "Denny", named after my father- Dennis, was a 2 minute cartoon I did when I was a film major at San Diego State University. It was drawn entirely by me and shot on a huge, old ACME animation camera and I'm not kidding- it was an ACME!














I painted the cels in my Mom and Dad's basement during Christmas break. For the record, my brother Reid helped out when he wanted and to this day claims the thing still wouldn't be done if he hadn't helped out. We laid them all out on the family Ping-Pong table to dry. I'm glad it was only 2 minutes cause it was alot of work! I still remember the long nights shooting all the artwork, eating Spaghetti-Os out of an old thermos at 3 am on campus at SDSU.














I've had some trouble showing it in other venues and formats because of the song "Surfing With the Alien" always needs to be cleared. Joe Satriani was very cool about me using the song and loved the short. I even got to meet him. Nice guy.



I had alot of great help from my classmates for all the post production work. We mixed the tracks on reel to reel tape! I shot on 16mm stock and edited the short on a flatbed. Man! Everything is so much easier now, huh?













My friends and I were fans of Mike and Spike's Festival of animation, so we showed it to them and they loved it! "Denny" was put into the next festival line-up. Mike and Spike slipped it into the next year's shows as an added surprise. It's nice and short and always gets a laugh, so it worked out well!