Meet the Team:
Executive Producers:
ANDREW AMBROSE LEE: Andrew Ambrose Lee is the creator, executive producer, writer, director, editor, occasional voice-actor, and the in-house yoga instructor for the animated series Tabloids. He is currently studying Communications and Theatre at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, but in truth he spends most of that time taking naps where he dreams that he is an underwater astronaut and is married to Alf. He also thinks that he is funny. Don’t indulge him. He would like to thank everyone involved and anyone watching for making this childhood dream become a reality. Making this show has simultaneously been the hardest, most frustrating, stress-inducing endeavor, AND his favorite thing to do on earth, but thankfully has leaned towards the latter. He would like to stress that he could not have done this without the help of his loving, passionate, and talented writers, voice actors, and animators that he is so lucky to also call friends. Additionally, Andrew is a big fan of chicken wings. If you see him on the street, feel obliged to buy him chicken wings.
PETER COWLEY: Peter Cowley, who also voices Robby Bobby, is a confused and scared mass communications student and radio DJ at Parkland Community College. It's like that show Community, but no one laughs! By night, he works in a restaurant teaching people how to eat a steak. Peter would like to thank everyone involved with Tabloids for being such great sports, and genuinely some of the coolest people he has ever met. His hobbies include: transferring to a nice school, listening to music, dying for his country, making someone's day, and spreading whatever happiness he has among his friends. For Tabloids, he is a staff writer (barely), an audio editor (not much of one), an executive producer (you think you're so special), and the voice of Robby Bobby himself! (That's actually true. Sorry.)
DAN DRAKE: Dan Drake is an artist/animator/writer/director/and maybe some other things no one even knows about. He is an all around jack of all trades and master of none. In his spare time, he is mean-spirited, devoid of compassion and cannot be trusted. He has on occasion created some art and then constructed the illusion that the art is all moving around and stuff. Dan is most well known for having made some pictures that appeared as if they were in motion for previous projects. He is currently doing that sort of thing with Tabloids. Otherwise the project would just be called, Tabloids: The Still Image. Occasionally he can be found writing things, such as words. He has recently dabbled in placing a series of words together in succession, sometimes resulting in sentences. Dan is happy to be working with the talented group behind Tabloids: The Now Much Less Stationary Web Series.
DEREK SCHNEIDER: Derek Schneider is a student at Parkland Community College and the University of Illinois. He is a writer, audio editor, and the voice of Nathan Tomlinson on Tabloids. In his free time, Derek enjoys writing short fiction, working for the University of Illinois, and getting inspiration from rainy days and sunsets.
MEGAN WOLTER: Megan Wolter attends Indiana University and is majoring in media. She is obsessed with telling stories, good coffee, and nomadic living. When she isn't busy working on school, her newest short production, or Tabloids, she can be found writing her next story or watching one of her favorite TV shows and calling it "research" for potential future jobs.
Writing:
RAMY AKRAM-AHMED: Ramy Akram-Ahmed is a Mass media radio student at Illinois State University where he is a DJ for WZND radio. Ramy also attended Parkland College for a year prior. Ramy works at a wide array of restaurants as a cook, and on the weekends likes to play soccer with his friends. As a writer on the show Tabloids, Ramy loves the ability to use skills he thought he would never use again from high school speech. Ramy also loves the rest of Tabloids staff for hard they work on such a fun one of a kind project.
HELEN KIM: Helen Kim is currently a graduate student at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. When she isn’t at work or in classes, Helen is always on the hunt for a delicious cup of coffee at various cafes in the city or browsing on craigslist. She has one black cat named Felix but is not a cat lady. A lover of comedy, Helen has always dreamed of being able to write for a show. She is excited to have had the opportunity to be a part of the Tabloids team and make her dream into a reality.
SEAN WILKINSON: Sean Wilkinson (pronounced SHAWN, not SEEN...if I had a dime for every time somebody called me SEEN I would...oh wait, I'm writing a bio) is attending Parkland College in the fall of 2015. Sean is an accomplished musician, playing bass, guitar, cello, and writing songs about how he feels. He loves photography, movies, meeting new people, and of course, Michael Cera. He loves to meet new people, explore the beauty in the world around him, and one day hopes to travel to the beautiful country of Iceland. His experience with working on Tabloids has been "incredible" and is blessed to have worked with such knee-slappingly funny people.
Animation, Audio, & Videography:
SARAH BLANKENSHIP: Sarah Blankenship is an Animation student at Webster University. She is an art director, animator, and storyboarder for Tabloids. Working on this series has been a lovely experience- along with the fun, talented, dedicated team, the story and characters are a joy to work with! When she is not animating, Sarah is drinking tea, playing video games, and painting.
ADAM V. NAPIER: Adam V. Napier enjoys creating artwork as a video game artist. His passion for creativity has lead him to pursue a career as a creative director or lead artist. Being a natural problem solver, Adam continues to perfect his skills and process of video game art development. During his college and ongoing professional career, he demonstrates leadership, project management, and passion to keep production moving forward.
HAYNE RYU: Hayne Ryu is a computer science and anthropology major at the University of Illinois. Hayne's main role in Tabloids is an animator with a focus on storyboards and design. Before arriving at the U of I, she was at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but now enjoys her love-hate relationship with coding.
MATTHEW ROYSE: Matthew Royse is the audio editor for the Tabloids series. At the moment, he is studying game development and game design. He is the CEO of a semi-established game development company called “It’s A Geek Thing.” He will be attending Full Sail University seeking a degree in game development in the fall in hopes to fully establish it. When not working on Tabloids or coding on his computer, you can find him playing video games or watching movies... on his computer. When he wants to take a break from being on a computer, he puts his hands to work on building computers (it’s completely different!). He also sleeps sometimes.
ELI STAUFFENECKER: Eli Stauffenecker attends Parkland College for Game Design and Design Media. He started working on the show after getting to know Andrew through a mutual friend of ours and is very thankful for the opportunity. My experience with the show is that I've done a few storyboards for Andrew upon request and that I've tried to give him tips and help with how the show might be animated and the different kinds of shots! My favorite kinds of animation are Disney and Pixar and those kinds of hand drawn and CG animations, and anime, specifically Studio Ghibli and Gainax/Studio Trigger animations.
NIYA VANEATON: Niya VanEaton is a human that studies digital media at Parkland College. She creates story boards and helps out with the animation for Tabloids. Although she has already known many people working on this series, she's gotten to meet some pretty cool people who are nice, funny, and seem to have some good values. She was hoping that by helping create this series, she would become a funnier person, but decided to leave that up to the writers instead.
PATIENCE WARD: Patience Ward is a mass communications and photography student at Parkland College, who has no idea what she is doing. For Tabloids, she helps with video and photo-related promotion and provides general moral support. When she’s not working on videos and pictures, she enjoys making music, telling bad jokes, writing about everything, and bragging about how artsy she is. She dreams of someday traveling the world and space. And she would like to take a moment to mention how much she appreciates everyone she has gotten to work with on this project so far. They are all very hilarious and amazing people who don’t make too many name puns, which is always nice.