In celebration of Animation Mentor's One Year Anniversary, we caught up with the three founders, Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena, and Shawn Kelly...

Animation Mentor, the Berkeley-based online character animation school, was selected by San Francisco radio station Alice @ 97.3 as a partner on its Alice's 3-Minute Film Festival. The modern adult contemporary station unveils a new "Morning Show"-themed short film, each year, as part of the celebration. This year's sponsored film is titled "Swat Monkey: The Beginning," and will debut at the 2006 award show April 8 at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco.

I will be forever in debt to Animation Mentor for teaching me the foundations of animation and I mean REALLY teach me the basics. I can't choose one lesson over another because they are all important in building a strong performance. By giving me a stronger foundation, I have also gained more confidence as an animator and that is very precious.

Animation Mentor: Who is your favorite character that you've animated?

That's tough but I'd have to say Gollum. He was always a favorite character when I was growing up, and I always thought he would be an amazing character to animate. When I got the chance to go to New Zealand, I turned down a job that people would kill for to work on him. He is so 3-dimentional and there is so much inner torment; an actor's dream.

Okay, what is an actor's job? An actor's job is to become their character so completely that they can deliver a performance that an audience can believe in. An actor's job is to take the direction from the Director, and to deliver the required story-points, emotions, and actions -- all without any dialogue or narration, if necessary.

I was and have been inspired to put out a sketchbook ever since this whole sketchbook thing blew up. I am a huge fan of sketchbooks. My studio is filled with them. It's out of control really. My studio is filled with them. It's out of control really. This is actually my 4th book.

Did you know that the soon to be released animated feature film "The Wild" took 1.5 million work hours and a staff of 418 people to bring it to the screen?

The Animation Mentor Report is your inside guide to US movie releases and the visual effect companies who made movie magic.