Interview with the ABE Toons Talent Search Winner - Alejandra Quintas
A: Thank you kindly! I first heard about ABE Toons from watching 30 Second Bunnies. After I saw a few online, I followed it back to the ABE Toons site! After a couple weeks of visiting it, I saw you guys were holding a Talent Search and entered! I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the win!
Q: Where did you get the idea for your winning entry?
A: I originally thought about making a spoof on childrens TV, like Dora the Explorer, and just make it really ridiculous. Eventually I had the cookies, which I really thought were cute, but I really wanted to use them in something, so the idea eventually evolved into a mock-PSA and I just ran with it.
Q: Ever feel guilt over eating cookies?
A: I actually felt guilty all throughout the process. I kept on telling myself I would only eat them for reference. Once I finished the film, however, I bought about 100 chocolate chip cookies and a few gallons of milk and gave them out to people in the building I worked at and just sat there watching them eat. It was very cathartic.
Q: How did you get started in animation?
A: I remember when I was 3, my favorite movie was Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. I would sit and watch it on a loop, hoping the animated characters would come out and play with me. Yes, even the creepy ones. After that I just grew up wanting to work on something so amazing and fun.
Q: Who would you mark as major influences?
A: I would definitely say that the old Tex Avery and Friz Freleng Loony Toons would be my major influence. They were SO very ahead of their time and it’s still hilarious to sit down and watch them. Later on I saw, with Disney movies and Pixar, that cartoons can be just as dramatic as a live action film, so it’s really let me grow up knowing that the medium can be used to do anything.
Q: What's your dream project?
A: One day, I would really like to make a longer animated cartoon. I would love it to be in 2-D and I would love it to be satirical and just plain fun. I love making people laugh so that would be a huge element of it.
Q: If you weren't an animator, what other vocation would you see yourself in?
A: If I wasn’t an animator I would love to at least work in the animation field as something else. I could never see myself sitting at a cubicle and filing papers like a normal 9-5 job. I think that would be my worst nightmare!
