Katie Mello

Wow! Abbot Elementary with HouseSpecial! I felt so lucky that we got to make these promos for their season 4 premiere. This was such a fun concept, that the children had made dioramas of the teachers and classrooms. The clients and actors were very gracious about our tiny versions of them. In the end a giant billboard was put up in California featuring enormous versions of our puppets! Very cool. I was puppet lead. Margaret Meyer did finishing and costumes. Emily Meyers art directed and built the inspired sets. Great job everyone

This was absolutely one of my favorite crews to work with! Everyone made such wonderful stuff! This was a passion project short film. I got to be head of puppets and we made some pretty cool head mechanics.

Writer and Director: @pjmagerkoliquorice
Creative Director: @jordanmillingtonliquorice
Executive Producer: @elizabethklinemurphy
Animation Director: Kirk Kelly at @housespecialpdx
Executive Animation Producers: @jragsknits, Kirk Kelly and Lourri Hammock at @housespecialpdx
Animation Producer: @karly.richter at @housespecialpdx
Voice Actors: @jaymesmansfield and @caseytheva
Director of Photography: @johnnolan9
Senior Stop Motion Animators: @anthonyscott.animation @gobblesmac @chrisohlgren @xylebell
Production Designer: @elyjenna
Art Director: @tproost
Costume and Character Designer: @wiederhoeft
Lead Costumer: @thalialane
Senior Costumers: @margarethelen and @katefenker
Sculptors: @katystrutz and @mentalben69
Additional Writing: @austingood1
Editor: @mcamwilliams at @housespecialpdx
Color: @travis.flynn.colorist at @pictureshop
Sound Design: @giganticcranium and @bonwild at @skywalkersound
Trailer: @seismicproductions
Score: @trstonline
Poster Layout: @buero_newyork
PR: @theledecompany

This is a really fun ad. I always love to make fake food, especial with faces!

This little girl imagines all sorts of fun things that could fit into this car. A big dog, maybe two big dogs. Two little sisters, her big uncle, a dragon, maybe an octopus. I was character fabrication lead with HouseSpecial.

This was a small segment for an Apple iphone ad. I made the mouse head and helped a bit with the giant cat heads eyes. The rest of the cat was made by Suzanne Multon, he just looks really great! Margaret Meyer made the suit and hands for the rat.

This is a costume for my dog Bones that I made for fun. When we got him my husband and I noticed how much he looked like an AT-AT from Star Wars. I made him this costume and he became quite the internet sensation. I was even featured on StarWars.com!

Bones is a good sport about wearing this, and he got plenty of love and treats while being photographed by John Nolan.

This is one of my favorite spots. It is a heartwarming tale about a boy and his dog. This was an early spot where we used felt. I think it looks really great. I was the head of character fabrication for House Special.

I was the character fabrication lead at House Special for this one. This was an especially fun job because the puppets are based on actual actors. In the spot there is a train crash with real actors, after the crash the actors and the train itself become stop motion.

Mr.Peanut is a good guy to work with.  He is always wearing new and fun costumes and doing silly things.  This was the first time that the nearly 100 year old character had been brought to life in animation.  I think that we did him right.

Mr.Peanuts world is made up of a lot of interesting characters.  One of the best puppets to make is an animal in a costume.  There are always new challenges to solve with each new animal.  I am especially happy with Chet the chipmunk who is stealing nuts in his cheek.

I was Lead Character Fabrictor for this at Laika, then House Special.

This was a great bunch of spots for Coca-Cola and the World Cup.  Highlighting characters who are opposites coming together over their love of soccer.  

These are some great clay faces, those are tough for the animator, but they sure give a wonderful amount of expression for the puppet.  You can still feel the influence of the "claymation" days of animation in this one.

I was Lead of Character Fabrication on this at Laika.

We got to make the Christmas advertisements for the Mac and PC spots.  It was neat to make the stylized puppets for characters who the world was already familiar with.  Even though they are animated they still have to feel of the origional live action spots.

I was the Lead Character Fabrictor at Laika.

One of the coolest commercials I have worked on.  Directed by Wes Anderson, animation direction by Mark Gustafason shortly after they both made "The Fantastic Mr.Fox".  I often get to work with Mark, who is always a lot of fun.  These little robots are tiny.  There are so many of them they had to be small you you could see their whole world.  You can feel how small they are in the animation. 

I was the Lead Character Fabricator for this at Laika.

This is one of my very favorite jobs.  A bunch of animals who were made out of vegetables.  I think the puppets look great.  The veggies are very successful, they look real, and the puppets are very functional. Different parts are made of different materials; hard plastic, silicone, and foamed latex.  I love how the light shines through them and the veggies look so fresh. 

I was Lead Character Fabericator for this at Laika.

For Coca-cola and the World Cup.  These spots feature "microFans" who infect you with a love of soccer.  There are some pretty crazy puppets in here including a mustache and beard, and a ladies hairy mole. There is a special place in my heart for the lucky charms characters, I think they are so funny!

In the bats one the "olhos de linces" are lynx eyes.  Bats are "blind" and they buy lynx eyes to see the games better.  I had never heard about lynx eyes being a thing before.

These puppets are made of a mixture of foamed latex and clay.  There are a lot of puppets in each spot, luckily they are not doing very much.

I was the Lead Charcater Fabricaor for these at Laika.

These spots for a Washington state energy company are as charming as can be.  Puppet design by Gesine Krätzner, who I have worked with on many projects.  Her puppets have a loose and noodly feeling that bring joy to the characters.

There is a combination of techniques here, but most puppets are silicone bodies with clay faces.

I am the Lead Character Fabrictor on these with House Special.

This is a short film that we made at House Special.  The whole thing has a flat and theatrical look to it. The main character is thin and angular.  The guard and his dog are low relief, nearly flat characters.  When he is running across the roof tops he is a tiny puppet only 2" tall.

I was quite involved with making the sets.  They were a lot of fun, we came up with a new technique using the laser cutter.

I was Lead  Character fabricator on this one at House Special.

This spot is full of really fun characters.  You can just make out the green slug wearing a Santa hat.  The yellow guy who looks like an ottoman.  There were a lot of different characters in this one, they go by really fast.  In the stills you can really see the guy with 4 arms. 

I was the Lead Character Fabricator on this at House Special.

The parchment puppet was quite a challenge, but I think we were very successful.  The client wanted the puppet to be made out of parchment paper.  It was important to have the papers' feeling and translucency.  We used a lot of clear plastic covered in Parchment.  Our animator Juliana Cox did and amazing job with her.

The aluminum foil characters were different from anything I had done before, they are covered with actual Reynolds foil. I like the birds with their long shinny beaks.  These characters have a lot of personality with a limited material.

More fake food which is always fun to make, I am especially proud of the raw and cooked hamburger patties which I made from silicone.

 I was the Lead Character Fabricator for this at Laika.

These ads for SPAM are pretty funny.  I think this is the first time that SPAM ever advertised on television. 

The bread is great, it was made from different kinds of sponges.  I love the french baguette with the comb over.

It is amazing how much personality you can give to a simple egg. 

I was the Lead Character Fabricator for this at Laika.

So many fun animals to make!  I really loved this moose.  In fact, if you watch the making of you can see me and everyone else saying as much.

The group of puppets they are all a traditional puppet scale of about 8" tall.  For the close-up of the product with the squirrels we used the real machine and made real sized squirrels and a bird.  That was fun since we rarely get to do things that large.

I was Lead Character Fabricator on this for House Special.

I was playing around with felting while we had some downtime at work.  Director Mark Gustafson really liked the look and we used it in this spot to interest people in visiting Portland (where we live).

We made a lot of unique characters and they all had a lot of personality. The felt technique really looks great, and it was fun to do.  This is another example of the joy of characters who do not talk.

The chicken really steals the show, she pops up in every scene.  They liked her so much they added her by herself in the end.

Keep a look out for my faithful companion Bones, in the behind the scenes video.  Mark's dog Sebastian as a felt puppet can be seen in the farmers market.

I was Lead Character Fabricator for this at House Special.

These are some simple and funny spots.  The characters are meant to reflect that.  Made from fabricated sheet foam costumes, simple wire armatures, and clay faces.  This gives them an uncomplicated feeling, but the animator is able to give them a lot of expression.

I was Lead Character Fabricator on these at Laika.

We made so much amazing food for this spot, and it goes by so quickly!  I am especially proud about this fake lettuce.  I still have it at my desk and it still looks good enough to eat.

There are so very many things in the dancing scene, from a pair of shrimp, to lime wedges and tater tots.  The dancing chicken is so plump and juicy.

I was Lead Character Fabricator on this one with Laika.

This was a really difficult project, I think it looks pretty great though.  We made about 16 unique puppets with multiple silicone replacement faces.  They had magnetic hair replacements so we only had to make one hairstyle even though they each had several replacement faces.  The costumes are so beautiful, our costume department did an amazing job.  It was a short build schedule and we moved to a new building across town in the middle of it.  I think the work shows and it looks great. 

I was Lead Character Fabricator for this at House Special.

This is a service to help people stop smoking.  These are some pretty puppets, along with some pretty art direction over all.  I remember that I particularly enjoyed making the tiny dog. 

I was the Lead Character Fabricator on this at House Special.

This was an ad we did for Target and their on line movie streaming service. We created a bunch of sculptures of iconic movie characters and painted them with Target red. Tony Merrithew, Toby Froud, Ben Adams, and Scott Foster sculpted.I was head of character fabrication.

We all really learned a lot about facial animation on these.  They are very life like puppets of recognizable personalities, a very difficult task.  Some have silicone faces, some foamed latex.  They all have very complicated mechanics underneath.

I was a part of the Character Fabrication team on this one at Will Vinton Studios.

These are some beautiful commercials. The puppets do not do a whole lot, but they do look good enough to eat.

I was Lead Character Fabricator for this at House Special.

A fun octopus sitting at a desk.  Silicone is so great for under sea creatures.  This guy talks a lot and his mouth is computer generated.

I was the Lead Character Fabricator on these at Laika.

I make a lot of snowmen, I think this is the only "SnowMom".  I think this is a pretty nice take on the traditional Christmas snowman character.

I was the lead Character Fabricater for most of these spots with Laika.

It's not every day that you see stop-motion puppets interacting with the real world.  Here we have some traditional holiday charactrs doing just that.  I really like the reindeer. 

I was Lead Character Fabricator at Laika for this.

This wrinkly old dollar bill was made from a real 1920's dollar.  It is a testament to our animator that we were able to get so much personality from something so simple.

I was the Lead Character Fabricator for Laika on this one.

These spots were fun with a mixture of real sets and drawn characters.  I helped make the sets and cars.

I was a part of the crew on this one at House Special.

These are as simple as a puppet can get.  When students are starting to animate and they want to make their own puppet this is what they should be making.  There are very few moving parts, and what does move is very simple.  The animation is everything to bring these guys to life.  Though they do look awfully cute just standing still.

I was Lead Character Fabricator on this at House Special.

I made the cookie flying saucer.  It was quite big, maybe 16" across.  It was supposed to be made of boards and metal.  I think it turned out pretty cool. The animation is a mix of live action sets and props and drawn characters.

I was part of the crew on this at Laika.

This spot was modeled after "creature Comforts".  Beautiful characters with some clay features but mostly foamed latex.  Tony the Tiger is all clay, I do not think he has been done like this again, but it looks pretty cool!

Done with Bent Image Labs, I was a part of the Character Fabrication team.

We took over this job from Aardman, so we did not make all of the puppets.  I made the watermelon, plum, untwising sargent and the chicken.  The chicken was really cool and I wish he had had more screen time.

I was a part of the character fabrication team at Bent Image Labs for this one.

The PJ’s Will Vinton Studios

(This is the description of the show taken from Wikipedia)

The PJs is an American stop-motion black sitcom, created by Eddie Murphy, Larry Wilmore, and Steve Tompkins. It portrayed life in an urban public housing project, modeled after the Cabrini–Green housing projects in Chicago.[1] The series starred Eddie Murphy, and was produced by Imagine Entertainment by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, The Murphy Company and Will Vinton Studios in association with Touchstone Television, marking the show as Disney's first adult animated series. The original run of the series debuted on Fox on Sunday, January 10, 1999, following the network's coverage of the NFC Divisional Playoffs. Two days later, the second episode aired in its regular Tuesday night time slot, following King of the Hill. The title is an abbreviation for "the projects", referring to the show's public housing highrise.

I was a mold maker and character fabricator on the first season. During the run of the show I did many different jobs in character fabrication including foam running and puppet hospital, and I learned a lot.

These puppets remain some of my favorites still. I love the character design by Colin Batty.

On the 3d season I was the co-lead of pre-production with Scott Tom. We also did pre-production for at TV show called “Gary and Mike” at the same time.

Slacker Cats,

Will Vinton Studios,1999

This was a pilot for a stop motion TV show about cats. It was not picked up. Many years later the show was made in 2-d animation.

I was a general mold maker and character fabricator on this one.

King of California is a pretty great movie staring Micheal Douglass.  We did a small animated dream sequence.  It is actual paper and cut-out characters.  The director wanted a Monty Python feel.

I was a part of the team at Laika on this one.