Chase Rebecca ’19 discovers his career in animation
ANIMATION IS EVERYWHERE: multiple motion pictures from all the major studios; streaming service content; YouTube and social media platforms; and sophisticated stories in video games, which often play out like interactive animated movies. There was a time, though, when animation was restricted to one particular time and place: Saturday morning cartoons. Chase Rebecca ’19 is just barely old enough to remember this time, as he grew up more in the waning days of cartoons airing weekday afternoons on cable TV. That era made a big impression on him, inspiring his own ideas to add to the wacky, fantastic stories he saw on television. Since he graduated from North Central, he’s made that goal happen.
Rebecca is a character set up artist for NewScape Studios, an emerging company in the growing world of animated content. As is common in animation, Rebecca has already worked in several places even in a young career. His biggest break was with Bento Box Entertainment, developing the Netflix series “Saturday Morning All-Star Hits” or SMASH. SMASH is the brainchild of Saturday Night Live writer and cast member Kyle Mooney, who created and also stars in the series. A live action story that satirizes the height
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of Saturday morning children’s television, SMASH includes animated clips that parody the cartoons kids loved in the ’80s and ’90s. That’s where Rebecca came in. His work on SMASH, which primarily involved hand-drawn animation, helped Rebecca get onboard with NewScape and into his preferred role doing set up art for digital animation. If animation is about bringing the impression of life to static images, Rebecca’s job is to compose those images as lifelike as possible.
