Celebrating its 10th year as a global producer/distributor of award-winning childrens and family programming, PorchLight Ent. has signed animation veteran Mark Young to the newly created post of svp, animation production, to run its just opened new 4000-square-foot animation studio and post facilities in Sherman Oaks, California. Corporate offices will remain in west Los Angeles.
Mark Young is a multi-talented creative executive and a consummate professional, said Bruce Johnson, PorchLights president. Over the years, weve worked together on numerous projects ranging from films to theme park attractions to animated series and specials. Its great to be reunited with him as we continue to grow the PorchLight Animation division of PorchLight Ent.
Young, an alumnus of the Harry Love animation gag-writing training program at Hanna-Barbera, became a staff writer/producer at the cartoon studio and eventually headed development at HB. Young and Johnson often worked on projects together during the 1980s at Hanna-Barbera.
From there, Young became one of the founding producers at MGM Animation. His writing and producing credits include THE PINK PANTHER SERIES, ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN 2, the Emmy Award-winning HALLOWEEN TREE and a series of Leapfrog animated specials.
Young is supervising production of 13 new episodes of TUTENSTEIN, PorchLights Emmy-award winning series for Discovery Kids. Targeting kids 6-14, TUTENSTEIN is currently seen on Discovery Kids Channel, NBCs Saturday Morning Discovery Kids Block and Jetix Europe. With Mark Young on board, the entire production of the series is under strong creative management, working closely with Discovery Kids and with our co-production partner, Telegael, said Johnson. Fred Schaefer will continue heading development for PorchLight Animation, and will expand his role in international co-production activities.
Both Johnson and Young told AWN they chose the location to make it easily accessible and attract top creative animation talent to ensure the level of quality on PorchLights shows and be ready to take on new series and feature commitments. They also wanted to maintain greater creative control, having previously farmed out pre- and post-production.
The new facility, located on the third floor of an office building at 14945 Ventura Blvd., classic animator desks with discs, where artists draw the characters and backgrounds. The color department, equipped with Dell computers and Wacom tablets, uses Adobe Photoshop for coloring the characters and backgrounds. Key creative elements are then shipped overseas. The second TUTENSTEIN season will be done by DQ (formerly known as Dataquest) in India, then return for post in PorchLights new facility, running Final Pro Edit on a 30-inch Apple flatscreen monitor. This vastly simplified setup also handles graphics for the companys needs.
Los Angeles-based PorchLight Ent., (www.porchlight.com) is a multi-faceted company focused on the production and distribution of family entertainment. Since its formation in 1995 by veteran entertainment execs Johnson and William T. Baumann, PorchLight has produced the award-winning animated children's series, JAY JAY THE JET Plane (PBS), ADVENTURES FROM THE BOOK OF VIRTUES (PBS), and the animated longform movies THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS: A MOUSE TALE, THE HAUNTED PUMPKIN OF SLEEPY HOLLOW and THE CHRISTMAS DINOSAUR; as well as more than 20 live-action feature films. In addition to TUTENSTEIN, PorchLight is also producing the animated series FOUR EYES for France 3 and Nickelodeon Asia and a series of videos for Leapfrog, the leading electronic toy company. PorchLight also distributes its library of more than 100 movies and 500 half-hours of childrens programming to the global market.
