Animatics & Storyboards, Inc. - Principal Characters

Mark Simon
President

Mark is a creative powerhouse overseeing two companies that he built. Animatics & Storyboards, Inc. is now the largest storyboard house on the East Coast, having worked on over 2,000 productions, and A&S Animation, Inc. is character development and production animation house.

Mark is intimately involved in every project, from conception to delivery (But please, don’t tell his wife). His diverse background as a director, producer, storyboard artist, production designer, animator, cartoonist and overall nice guy is unique and envied in the industry. (There’s even a contract out on him, but let's not go there.) Mark is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading storyboard artists and scholars. He is the author of many animation articles for various industry magazines (Create, Digital Content Creation, and others) and three books for Focal Press:

Storyboards: Motion In Art, Second Edition
Facial Expressions
Producing Independent 2D Character Animation

Mark Simon and Rigo Mora Mark’s Storyboarding book is now being distributed in, and used by, universities around the world. He is a bleeding-heart advocate for artist’s rights and the importance of storyboards in filmmaking. Mark teaches storyboarding at the university level, and tours the world lecturing to anybody who’ll listen.

To the right, Mark spent a week in Guadalajara, Mexico training a studio in the art of storyboarding. He is pictured with project director Rigo Mora, known as a production partner with Guillermo Del Toro.

For more information on Mark's lectures go to www.MarkSimonBooks.com.

Mark’s been a production designer in film, TV, and animation; directed award-winning animations; was a syndicated cartoonist; and owned an award-winning advertising firm. He has directed award-winning animations such as Timmy’s Lessons in Nature, My Wife is Pregnant, Swinging Cinderella, and The Winkles. His design and illustration work have been seen on Disney’s The Waterboy, Amblin’s seaQuest DSV (along with 2nd unit direction), many Nickelodeon series, and numerous comedy and science fiction series and feature films.

Mark began his professional career late in life, at the age of 12, designing his own line of skateboards for Schwinn Bikes. He then became the superintendent of his family's custom home building business. After stints running a small advertising company, winning design awards, publishing weekly cartoons in a Texas daily and collegiate newspapers, publishing a magazine, winning even more design awards and building custom homes -- while still in high school and college, no less -- Mark graduated and moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry. He quickly rose through the ranks as a construction coordinator, set designer, art director and eventually, storyboard artist. In 1989, he and his wife, Jeanne, moved to Orlando to serve such projects and clients as Nickelodeon, Amblin Entertainment’s seaQuest DSV and the mouse guys. Mark has created and directed numerous award-winning animations and has worked on some of the industries biggest productions. His designs and illustrations can be seen in Disney’s The Waterboy, Amblin’s seaQuest DSV and Universal’s McHale’s Navy, not to mention the hit PBS series, Dragon Tales.

He also designed and directed the CG special effects and compositing on Fox’s In Search Of... was the special effects supervisor for NBC’s Miss Miami. Mark co-developed and co-directed the Timmy’s Lessons In Nature animation series now in theatrical distribution and he also created, directed and wrote the animation series My Wife Is Pregnant. He also co-developed and directed the series A Message From God, now on PAX, NBC and the WB. He has won over 70 international awards for his animations.

Jeanne Pappas Simon
Vice President and In-house Writer

Jeanne Pappas Simon At Animatics & Storyboards, Inc. Jeanne applies the creative, writing, character design and production management skills honed from her experience as a producer for MTV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, the mouse guys and many others.

Jeanne’s work as a producer, line producer and unit manager for such shows as Nickelodeon’s Clarissa Explains It All, Roundhouse, International Blue’s Blues, Gullah Gullah Island, Allegra’s Window, Cartoon Network’s Carrot Top’s A.M. Mayhem, and TNN’s Roller Jam have helped her earn a place as one of the most respected, "in-demand" producers working in television today. Weinerville, which Jeanne produced for Nickelodeon, was nominated for an Ace Award (the highest achievement in the cable television industry). She also developed a new Gen-X network for Ted Turner and Scott Sassa. Jeanne created and wrote the award-winning animation The Winkles which won two international awards. She also wrote the award-winning Swinging Cinderella. She helped develop and produce the show, ZigZag for the Animal Planet. She is currently writing on Timmy’s Lessons In Nature for A&S Animation, and A Message From God, which she developed for Raven Moon Entertainment. Like Mark, Jeanne enjoys speaking and created a seminar for Women in Film on film scheduling and budgeting."

Jeanne began her career just outside St. Louis, Missouri as the news director for an independent station where she was bitten by the showbiz bug. Her path led her back to St. Louis where she produced commercials, documentaries, and industrials. Quickly realizing that the Midwest wasn’t exactly a mecca for TV or film production, she packed up the truck and moved to Beverly. At the Corman school of film production, she actually paid to work 18 hour days (just kidding, sort of). After leaving Corman studios and catching up on several weeks of lost sleep, she coordinated for shows such as 1st and Ten for HBO and Lethal Weapon II special unit. Once Jeanne and Mark decided to team up, in the marital sense, they decided to move to the land of a thousand t-shirt shops...Orlando.