Mark Simon

I have worked in the entertainment industry for 30 years and have been a professional artist for over 40 years. My background includes live action and animation production, print, writing and teaching. I was also bullied in high school. That's the subject of my memoir, Attacked! After brutal attacks on my entire family, I became the first person in the country to hold parents responsible for the actions of their kids in a court of law. I now own Storyboards & Animatics, Inc., based in Atlanta, a company which provides storyboards, illustrations, cartoons and comic book illustration to the entertainment and print industries. We are now the largest storyboard supplier in the Southern United States having worked on over 5,000 productions, ranging from feature films to television series, live action, animation, commercials, industrials, books, magazines, newspapers and more. Our clients include Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Black Lightning, Dynasty, Woody Woodpecker, Disney, Universal, Viacom, Sony, HBO, Nickelodeon, Steven Spielberg, Fox, USA Networks, ABC, AT&T, Yamaha, NASA, and many, many others. I also co-founded www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com with my producer wife, Jeanne. We help people to develop, package and pitch their TV concepts. My animated shorts have won over 200 international awards. We also animated Disney's iconic character, Tinker Bell, for the hugely successful Disney Cruise Line. The series of animated shorts, Timmy's Lessons In Nature, which I developed (along with Travis Blaise and Jeanne Simon), directed and produced, and won Grand Prize in Nickelodeon's and Animation Magazine's first-ever Nicktoons Film Festival. I am also the author of 12 entertainment industry texts. My book Storyboards: Motion In Art, 3rd Edition, is used around the world to train storyboard artists. Facial Expressions is a photo reference guide for artists of all disciplines. Prior to storyboarding and producing animation, I was an art director in live-action film and TV in Los Angeles, CA and Orlando, FL. While in Los Angeles, I designed many feature films, music videos and commercials. I then became the second art director at the new Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, FL in 1989. I have also done Second Unit directing for Nickelodeon and on Steven Speilberg's seaQuest DSV as well as working as a Special Effects Supervisor for NBC and Fox networks. I currently storyboard on Stranger Things, Black Lightning and The Walking Dead and lecture around the world at major conferences, conventions and schools.