Behind the Screen: The Making of "What is Your Superpower?!"

-

Created for Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) by our graduate animators, What is Your Superpower?! involved the usual deadline pressures (“Is it July already? What happened to June?”) punctuated by moments of pure creative genius (“Are you thinking what I’m thinking? How hard would it be to morph Craig’s head into a goldfish bowl?”)

The making of What is Your Superpower?! also involved several unusual challenges. Mid-project, Exceptional Minds moved its whole animation team home due to the pandemic to continue collaborating over Zoom, which presented its own set of challenges. (“Zoom “lag" can make an animation render like a 2D drawing and appear as incomplete work. Oh Zoom!”)

Still, the pandemic didn’t stop the crew from filming fellow artist Kate Jorgensen at Nickelodeon near a “secret” door that only a few in the industry know about (Howie Hoffman, an industry veteran who knows the back doors to more studios than he cares to admit, was the Exceptional Minds creative director on the project).

Exceptional Minds is a professional training academy and working studio for young adults on the autism spectrum. We are a 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization based out of Los Angeles, CA, specializing in training young adults with autism spectrum disorder for meaningful careers in post-production and digital animation. Subscribe to our Newsletter here.

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Popular posts from this blog

Letter To His "Future Employer" Breaks Hearts and the Internet

-
Image
The profound effect one's authenticity can have on the world should never be underestimated. And authenticity, a word that is often used in an effort to be so, more often than not just happens. It however seldom happens by design and almost always happens unexpectedly and in the most delightful ways. In the case of 20 year old Ryan Lowry, a young man with autism and a whole lot of ambition, he took to LinkedIn to share a direct, authentic appeal: "I am interested in a job in animation. I realize that someone like you will have to take a chance on me, I don't learn like typical people do...but I learn quickly, once you explain it, I get it. I promise that if you hire me and teach me, you'll be glad that you did." In this handwritten letter, Ryan is simply asking for a shot! And not the shot we are all eager to have in our arms but a shot at a life of personal, professional, and financial freedom and efficacy. With nearly ONE MILLION people Ryan's age on the ne
Read more

Remote Possibilities: Autism and the Different Normal

-
Image
Zoom photo of Exceptional Minds' staff and students during "Round Table." A pandemic wasn’t on the list of challenges for most young adults on the autism spectrum.  No one could have predicted that they would overcome so many social stigmas in the workplace, only to have the very foundation crumble beneath them.  And, yet, many individuals with autism are coming out the other side of COVID-19 stronger than before.  Now months into the largest unanticipated social experiment in the history of business, companies are discovering that employees with autism are adapting to working remotely.  Many, in fact, are good at it.   Companies report that their team members with autism excel at complex projects and communicate better in remote work settings, a new finding for a population that is twice as likely to be under- or unemployed than people without disabilities. At least one global IT firm has concluded that hiring more people with autism is the answer to
Read more

The Making of a Superhero

-
Image
What is Your Superpower?! ,   our animation studio’s most complex project to date  was commissioned by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) for their 30th-anniversary celebration. This video is both a powerful message of inclusion and a shining example of a true philanthropic partnership. Artists are employed on films such as Marvel's The Avengers series and Oscar winners Green Book and Black Panther . Graduates also go on to careers at media companies such as Disney, WarnerMedia, and ViacomCBS. Exceptional Minds Studio's What Is Your Superpower?! was also released during the foundation's September 25th Annual Volunteer Leadership Workshop, which gave Mitsubishi Electric employees a chance to meet our second-year students Becca David (shown upper left) and Leona Tates (lower right) and 2019 graduate Jake Riess (upper right). The event also kicked off MEAF’s 5K run/walk/roll employee fundraiser benefiting Exceptional Minds. “The original concept was to foll
Read more