mike smith 1

mike smith, there are so many memorable moments.
all in london, mid eighties, before ROGER RABBIT
happened.
the images are from a music clip, mike
did, one of many. there were all the GRACE JONES
and ART OF NOISE music videos. his work was unique,
very inventive and completely different from what
everybody else did. what an animator! he showed me
a lot of his original animation and for me it was
unimaginable that this would move. but it did!
I have no idea how he always came up with all
these new, fresh ideas.
what a c r a z y time -
there was the gang - mike, chuck gammage, rob
stevenhagen and - of course - uli meyer! we spent
so much fun time together, through all the soho
pubs and the best malaysian and singapore restaurants
there! mike's studio was FELIX FILMS, right in the heart
of soho.
I remember, it must have been in the first months of
ROGER RABBIT - mike asked harald siepermann and me
if we wanted to do some sketches for a new tv-channel.
they wanted the animated logo very unconventional,
because it was for a younger audience, just music clips.
harald and I never did any work on it, it just sounded
too weird. well, much later we learned, that was - Mtv.