Behind the Blue Genie

Hello fellow friends! This post is going to be about the amazing Eric Goldberg. Now Mr. Goldberg was born in 1955 in a place called Levittown, Pennsylvania. While a teenager he created an animated short called, For Sale (1974) which won the grand prize in Kodak's Teenage movie awards. From there his career shot off working with the famous Richard Williams (director of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?) on some of his films and eventually opening his own studio called Pizazz Pictures. Some of his screen credits include Animation Director of Fantasia 2000 in particular the "Carnival of the Animals" and "Rhapsody in Blue," Co-Director of Pocahontas, and last but not least Supervising Animator on the Genie of Aladdin and Phil in Hercules. You can find this info. almost anywhere on the net but I have a great story that goes something like this... When I was studying in San Diego in 2006 I went to a wonderful convention called Comic-Con International. There I had the chance to meet some of the industry's giants like Eric Goldberg. It was at the ASIFA-Hollywood booth where I actually got to see Eric animate a cat get hit by an anvil using proprietary 2D animation software from DreamWorks on a Cintiq (flat computer that you can draw on). To see that cat move in action and how he was just drawing frame from frame it was a sight to see! After he was done I asked him to sign my sketchbook which I will show you at the end of the post. Here's to you Mr. Goldberg for your inspiration! Cheers!