“I’ve loved animation since I was a kid, particularly the Warner Bros. shorts — Road Runner was my favorite,” says John Kuramoto. “But the trouble is, I can’t draw very well. So I never really considered animation as a career. Fortunately, technology came to the rescue.” After stints in prepress, in Hollywood and at Walt Disney, Kuramoto made his way to Gary Leib’s computer-crammed New York apartment-cum-animation studio, Twinkle.

Now Kuramoto uses After Effects, Photoshop, Maya, Motion, Shake, Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro to develop character animations, cartoons, shorts, compositing and visual effects for TV and film projects. In one of his highest-visibility efforts, Kuramoto created the animated sequences in the indie hit “American Splendor.” So while Twinkle may be tiny, it shines bright.

“Even the minutest crumbs of visual stimulation to that radio show audience were like puff pastry offered to starving prisoners.”

At one Power Mac G5 sits Leib, a New Yorker cartoonist, MTV animator and sometime rock musician. “I’ve always been the techie guy,” he confesses. “I founded Twinkle so I could combine my interest in technology with my love of cartooning.” An elbow away at the other Power Mac G5 sits Kuramoto, who, despite his admitted inability to draw, turned a childhood love of comic books into a hot career as an animator. “I learned it all by doing,” he says. “I’d take artwork by my favorite comic book artists — Doug Allen, Charles Burns, Kim Deitch, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Lane Smith, Chris Ware — cut it apart, then reassemble the pieces as digital puppets for animation in Flash.”

Finding “Lost Buildings”

Kuramoto’s latest project sprang from his longstanding admiration for the celebrated cartoonist and designer Chris Ware. While Kuramoto had previously created one small project for Ware — what he calls “a little Flash tchotchke” for the launch of Ware’s graphic novel “Jimmy Corrigan” — he itched for the chance to work more closely with his idol. So when “Lost Buildings” came along, he jumped at it.

The project was based on a live stage show about the Chicago buildings of architect Louis Sullivan, performed by Ware and his pal, public radio host Ira Glass (“This American Life”), together with historical preservationist Tim Samuelson. Glass and his station, WBEZ-Chicago, wanted to turn “Lost Buildings” into an animated DVD to be used as a premium during Public Radio International (PRI) pledge drives. Kuramoto was flattered to be asked to help. “Chris told Ira we were the ones to do it,” he says.

“Lost Buildings” had somewhat casual origins. “It was kind of a lark,” says Glass. “Several times a year one of us will say, ‘Oh, that would be a fun thing to do!’ and next thing you know, you’re up for four nights in a row. It was very much in that model.” His producers wanted the live stage performance to contain some visual component. “We like to add something listeners can’t get free, just listening to the radio,” he says. “I mean, a radio show is the most static stage presentation possible, and it’s kind of embarrassing to sell tickets just to hear someone read a script.”

Preserving Architecture

As the project jelled, Ware overcame his reluctance to sign on. “I’m kind of a hermit,” he admits cheerfully. “I wanted to do the thing with Ira, but I didn’t want to travel or meet anyone new. And since I already knew Tim, and the Sullivan buildings were in my own city, and the topic was about old stuff I really like to draw, it was perfect.” And, Ware says, it’s timely. As he puts it, “This project is a tiny piece in today’s growing interest in preserving the beauty and eloquence of turn-of-the-century architecture.”

Glass wrote a script to accompany Ware’s drawings. “The performance is cool because it’s a collaboration between two masters of their particular mediums,” notes Kuramoto. “So if you weren’t lucky enough to see them perform it live, the DVD is the closest thing to it.”

Ware describes the role played by his drawings during the four (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Hanover, New Hampshire) performances. “The visual component was a surprise to the live audiences,” he says. “People thought they were coming to listen to a regular ‘This American Life’ episode — they didn’t know they’d be seeing anything other than a couple of guys reading on a stage.” In that context, the minimalist style of his slide show had a striking effect. Says Ware, “Even the minutest crumbs of visual stimulation to that radio show audience were like puff pastry offered to starving prisoners.”

Next page: The Art of DVD Creation