At the end of every production comes crunch time. It seems I have been moving from crunch to crunch since I landed my first animation gig. First it was animation boot camp on Jimmy Neutron. Then I moved on to help finish the film, The Ant Bully. After that I headed West to work on a cool theme park attraction for DisneyWorld. Now I find myself in Austin fighting to finish Area 51-Blacksite to get it to eager gamers by September. Sprinkle in there some freelance gigs for Reel FX and my church, and you a recipe for The Shining. Well... except for the isolated haunted hotel... and I'm not a writer... and I'm not really going insane... and I don't have access to a hatchet... and my son isn't weird... and my wife is way prettier... and we're not in the an arctic tundra... but everything else is spot on for sure.
So what does one do to stay sane while working 12 hour days, six days a week, you might ask? The answer, my friend, is theme parks. In California we had Disneyland. Now, we have Sea World less than 2 hours away. And in between we have 11 day vacations to the mother of all theme parks, DisneyWorld.
Yes... all work and no play makes Tonymation a dull animator. But with theme parks, I can snuggle up with my inner child and forget that the real world exists. It's a pretty healthy relationship... I give the theme parks cash, and they give me the juice that will nourish me until the next visit.
God Bless Walt Disney and his genius invention the theme park. And God Bless America!
