Rough Draft Studios

Rough Draft Studios, Inc. is an American animation production studio based in Glendale, California, with a second studio in Glendale and its sister studio Rough Draft Korea located in Seoul, South Korea. The studio was founded in Van Nuys, Los Angeles by Gregg Vanzo in 1991. Rough Draft Studios and its divisions have produced specials, commercials and direct-to-video work for companies such as Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, 20th Television Animation, MTV Animation, Film Roman, Disney Television Animation and Nickelodeon Animation Studio.

Founding

Rough Draft Studios was founded in a Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California garage by Gregg and Nikki Vanzo. While working on The Ren & Stimpy Show, Nikki approached John Kricfalusi, creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, about taking the animation to Korea. Nikki founded and runs Rough Draft Korea.

Growth in business

After working on The Ren & Stimpy Show, many other shows requested the assistance of Rough Draft Korea in animation and ink & paint. In 1992, Rough Draft Studios had produced animation for its first feature film, FernGully: The Last Rainforest. In the same year, the studio began producing animation for The Simpsons and then for Beavis and Butt-Head in 1993. Also in 1993, Gregg's brother Scott Vanzo was brought on board. Rough Draft Korea quickly built a strong portfolio in the animation business with shows like their first series produced outside of South Korea The Maxx in 1995, which was nominated for an Annie Award. Claudia Katz, who had joined Rough Draft Studios in 1994 to produce The Maxx, and Rich Moore, joining in 1995 after having worked with Gregg on The Simpsons, completed the core of a Rough Draft Studios which would help "drive the cartoon boom of the late ‘90s". It was also in 1995 that Rough Draft Studios moved to Glendale, California, where they enjoyed further success.

Technology

Rough Draft Studios is known for its blending of 2-D with computer animation, or non-photorealistic rendering which it first used on The Maxx and further utilized with Matt Groening's projects like Futurama, The Simpsons Movie, a few episodes of The Simpsons after the film and Disenchantment.

Filmography