Nick Jr/ Suzan Lori Parks – Playwright

Nickelodeon Celebrates Black History Month
“Meet Suzan-Lori Parks! When she was a little girl, she visited lots of libraries, read tons of books, and wrote oodles of stories… because she wanted to be a writer!”

“When Suzan-Lori grew up, she’d read her stories out loud, and act like all the different people she made up, just like actors do in a play! So she wrote more and more stories. Once, she even wrote a story every day for a whole year! Pretty soon, people were acting them out on street corners and stages. Now her stories are performed all over the world!
For Suzan-Lori Parks, ‘all the world is a stage!
Below are a couple of early storyboard samples.


Learn more about Suzan Lori – Parks and find great Black History Month activities at parents.nickjr.com.

GO HERE FOR ACTIVITY PACKS!

NICK JR/ NOGGIN CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS 3

Here are the other 3 spots I did with the Nick Jr/Noggin team. These were really fun to work on as well as informative. My hats off to the writers and producers over there for allowing me the great opportunity to bring these short clips to life. My personal favorite is George Crum, inventor of the potato chip. According to one version, on August 24, 1853, a customer complained that Crum's french fries were "too thick." The angered cook was frustrated by this remark, so he decided to give the maximal opposite of what the client was complaining about: he sliced potatoes paper-thin, over fried them to a crisp and seasoned them with an excess of salt. When the crisps were prepared, he gave them to the customer, who loved them. The chips became popular, and became known as Saratoga Chips. Crum was able to open his own restaurant with the profits he made selling his new crisps.

NICK JR/ NOGGIN CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS 2

I thought I'd add a couple of my favorite stills for these 3 movies. Also check out the George Washington Carver boards below.



Here is my reference for George Washington Carver's peanut combine.

I just got the OK from Nickelodeon to post these spots I animated. Enjoy and feel free to leave some feedback in the comments section.

These are the initial boards I did for the GWC piece.

NICK JR/ NOGGIN CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS

All this month you can catch a few black history month spots I did on Noggin and Nick Jr. I had the great pleasure of creating commercial spots showcasing African American inventors. When I get the green light from the network, I will post Hi res versions of the spots on my blog. In the meantime, you can get a peek of them HERE on the Nick jr website. Feel free to post comments below. I would love to get some feedback.

Here is my original character design lineup of all of these wonderful inventors.
From (L to R) Lonnie Johnson (Inventor of the Super Soaker), George Washington Carver (Inventor of Peanut Butter), Garrett Morgan (Inventor of the traffic signal), Alfred Cralle (Inventor of the Ice cream scooper), George Crum (Inventor of the potato chip), Jack Johnson (Inventor of the wrench)

This project gave me the great opportunity to experiment with a style I've been doing for some time. These are a few examples above. It's a real simple style that is a mix of my own with a little Abstract and a few other inspirations.


BTW, You can also see an additional spot I did for the network Celebrating Barack Obama and some of his favorite things.
Be sure to leave comments below.