ASIFA-SF character sheet: David Chong 

Dave Chong has belonged to ASIFA-SF for over two years, and he represents an important segment of our membership: he’s a student on the way to becoming a professional animator. Not that he’s only a student, however; he already has a full-time job as a consultant/model maker for a design firm (yes, he’s contemplating an encore career).

Models play a seminal role in Dave’s animation history. In 1995, he worked as a model builder on Henry Selick & Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas. "That was the most inspiring animation event in my life—getting to work in the Character Fabrication department at Skellington Productions. I got to meet some of the most interesting and skilled people in the stop motion film industry. But it wasn’t until I started taking classes at De Anza College that I really considered animation as a profession."

Right now, David is drawing pictures the traditional way, working on his second short. His first, CCCP-TV (pictured above), was a single-gag cartoon about an Eastern Bloc weightlifter who takes things a little too far. His new project, The Acorn Explorer, is a more ambitious tale about Sammy the squirrel, on a quest to find the squirrel’s holy grail, the Gold Acorn. The film is animated in Toon Boom Studio and will be about 3 minutes long.

Chong says, "I would like to direct my own feature film one day. In the meantime, I’d like to get a job using the animation skills that I’ve picked up at De Anza. I’m ready to turn this expensive hobby into a real job—and I’m ready to start at the bottom if necessary."

"Character Sheet" is a regular feature of the CableCartoon, introducing the membership of ASIFA-SF. If you have a blog, a class or especially a new film that you’d like to promote and would like to have your profile published, contact CaliforniaKid on the CableCartoon.