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Slate Culture Feed

Working: Artist Christina Chang on Her Creative Direction for Cartoon Shows

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Tv & Film, Arts, Music

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Karen Han talks to Christina Chang, creative director for the animated series We Baby Bears on Cartoon Network. In the interview, Christina explains what a creative director does and describes the common challenges that animators and storyboard artists face. She also discusses her career journey and the challenges of assuming a leadership role.  After the interview, Karen and co-host June Thomas talk about how production budgets can affect animated series. Then they discuss the benefits of studying other people’s work to improve your own.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Karen and Christina chat about burnout and taking breaks.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews.  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Thanks to Avast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I think sometimes it just comes down to like maybe like ego being artists we all have

0:15.9

like the sense of like we have our personal brands and I think at the end of the day everyone

0:21.0

just you know wants to put their idea out there it's just knowing when someone wants that

0:26.2

more than the rest welcome back to working I'm your host June Thomas and I'm your

0:34.2

other host Karen Han Karen it's great to see you again how are things it's great to see

0:39.8

you again too I'm always happy to see you things are pretty good I'm in sort of like the final

0:44.7

stages of writing for my book which is like both exciting and also very stressful so that that's

0:51.0

about where I am where like every text that I returned to my friends about a monthly I'm

0:55.5

processing with like I'm so sorry oh well let's just keep rolling so you can get back to it

1:04.2

as soon as we're done so who are we gonna hear from this week this week I talked to the lovely

1:10.9

Christina Chang she is an artist who has worked as creative director on the cartoon network show

1:15.9

We Baby Bears and as a storyboard artist on the show it's a spin-off of We Bear Bears yeah she's

1:22.4

an animator of many hats wow so I know how old and out of touch this question will make me seem

1:32.5

but I have to admit I've never seen any of the We Bear Bears or We Baby Bears shows or the movie

1:40.2

and so I have to ask this question that I know a noise animation fans but are they intended

1:46.6

for kids or for adults in fairness to you I think the real thing that a noise animation fans are

1:53.5

people who work in animation is relegating the medium itself to being meant for kids or adults

1:59.6

which is still kind of a big point of contention unfortunately but from show to show I think it's

2:04.5

fine to ask just like you would ask about a live action TV show like is this for teens is this for

2:08.7

kids is this for adults that said I would say that the Bears franchise is mostly geared towards kids

2:14.6

but like all the best kids shows can easily be enjoyed by adults as well awesome and I believe you

2:20.7

ask Christina some questions that are intended exclusively for our slate plus members what will they

...

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