Jay Stephens
March 1st, 2009
Do you know The Secret Saturdays? It is a fairly new show on the Cartoon Network, (Teletoon in Canada) about a family of cryptozoologists who protect the secret identities of friendly monsters.
On my flight from Toronto to LAX, I happened to sit beside Jay Stephens, the creator and executive producer of the show. Jay lives in Guelph with his wife and 2 children, and commutes to LA when a project he is working on goes into production. That’s a dream.
As I squeezed past him to sit down, I noticed he seemed a friendly cat. He could have been a Queen’s Player: not that he was drunk as and trying to seduce me. But in that he was warm, open, interesting, and well put together.
There was a bit of a spectacle two rows behind us. A would-be Eminem, his girlfriend and managers were trying to shuffle other passengers out of their seats so that they could all sit together. It broke the ice, and we shared a few jokes quietly at their expense.
Jay gave me a piece of chewing gum to stave off the ear-popping of the plane taking off. (This was something Julie had warned me about, but didn’t get to the top of my pre-trip list.)
It wasn’t until we flew into the valley that we got to talking a bit about his trip and his profession. He told me a bit about how he used to make comics, and at a comic convention he was approached by a studio who wanted to turn his work into a cartoon. And he’s been traveling to LA for the past four years.
I hadn’t heard of The Secret Saturdays at the time, so it wasn’t until I googled the show and found his website and monster blog that I could appreciate his story, and the success he’s had. Among the list of past projects, Jay also created Tutenstein which won the Daytime Emmy for “Outstanding Special Class Animated Program” (Cartoon) in 2004.
I am encouraged by our encounter, and pleased to have met him.
Follow your passion.
Work hard.
Put yourself out there.
They will find you.
It is possible.
Tags: New Zealand, Success
Posted in Spotlight | Comments (1)
March 10th, 2010 at 1:35 am
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