Animator brings art to life for Cosgriff students

IC photo by Marie Mischel

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Pete Oswald, an animation designer for DreamWorks, showed J.E. Cosgriff students how to draw Steve, a character he created for the film “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”

SALT LAKE CITY —The film world came to J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School on Oct. 19 when Pete Oswald, an animator who recently worked on the film “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” showed students how to draw several characters from movies he’s worked on.

Using an overhead projector, Oswald began with a rounded rectangle. The students, armed with a piece of sketching paper and pencil, followed along as Oswald added a circular head, long arms, short legs, and a curling tail. Within 15 minutes the sketch became recognizable as the character Steve.

“It takes four years to make these films,” Oswald said. At the beginning of the process, directors describe character to the animator; in Steve’s case, a monkey. The animator will draw his vision of the character in numerous poses and modify it as the director wants. “We’ll do hundreds and hundreds of iterations until we find ‘that’s the character,’” Oswald said.

A graduate of Judge Memorial Catholic High School, Oswald attended kindergarten and first grade at Cosgriff before transferring to St. Olaf. He earned a degree in animation from Loyola Marymount University. He worked on the Cartoon Network shows “Johnny Bravo” and “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” before working on the film “Madagascar 2.” He credits his Catholic education for his work ethic and philosophy.

This was Oswald’s second presentation at Cosgriff; he visited several years ago at the invitation of his mother, Nedda Oswald, the school’s art instructor.

Having a working artist make a presentation shows students how much work it takes for animation to appear on television or in films, Nedda Oswald said, adding that she teaches a segment on cartooning. “It’s part of my curriculum anyway; having Pete here just rounds it out.”

Pete Oswald said he hoped his presentation showed students that “doing something they love can be a job, but it’s not just all pure inspiration. You have to go to school for it, you have to get an education.”

He advised students to follow whatever they want as a career. “There is a way to love what you do for a job,” he said.