Candy Kugel: The Reigning First Lady Of Indie-Studio Animation
One woman who climbed the ladder of the Independent Animation Studio since the tumultuous ‘70’s

This commercial caught the eye of the network that would become MTV. They contacted the studio, and with a week before airtime, commissioned them to do a spot based on NASA photos of Armstrong walking on the moon. “They said, ‘this is the logo, look how weird it looks’ – it was an ‘M’ with the ‘TV’ on it - and I said, ‘you know we can’t center the ‘M,’ because the ‘V’ would be outside TV safety.’ So all of a sudden it got shifted, which was seismic in 1980, because you always centered the logo on the screen. The ‘V’ was not in balance with that big ‘M’.” To animate that funky design we recognize so well today, Candy used techniques that, by our 21st-century standards, would be considered rather arcane. “It was thin white Japanese rice paper, and magic marker bottom-lit with mattes around it. It had to be a bottom-lit element to work easily with the transparencies within that fast timeframe.” Quite a task in a pre-Photoshop industry.

Perpetual Motion Pictures broke up in the early 1980’s and producer Buzz Potamkin hired Candy and Cafarelli as his creative team and Kraemer as his assistant. By 1985, Potamkin had relocated to Los Angeles permanently and the three remaining form Buzzco Associates. Today it’s a studio that prides itself on its indie feel. “The experience that we have in animation makes us invaluable to people who want to have old-fashioned type animation, who want to have character,” says Candy, who now assumes the title of producer/animator/designer/co-owner. “And we can experiment too, but we need to have some craft behind the motion.”

Their projects have found a wide audience in recent years; Candy’s 1997 short film “Knitwits” opened the New York film festival in 1997, and her two other more recent films, “Command Z” and “(It Was…) Nothing At All” have received high praise on the festival circuit. It’s not just entertainment, either; Buzzco received a first place award at the 1997 Annecy festival for the educational film, “Talking about Sex.” “We use our films not just as an artistic outlet, “says Candy, “-- because when we don’t have work its so much better than arguing -- but also to try out new techniques.” Currently, Candy is planning to make their next film on Maya as a CG piece.

In all, Candy appears to be an indie animation whirlwind at the top of her game. “I love what I do,” she says, as she and I get ready to leave SVA for the night. I left that night feeling that without her passion for animation, the industry would be short one talented lady who did her part to push the doors open a little wider for other women about town. Animators today, in and out of the New York community, owe much to Candy Kugel. And I for one gladly give her a tip o’ the hat.