Life in Biki­ni Bot­tom is al­ways ex­tra­or­di­nary. Un­der­sea life has a dif­fer­ent take thanks to Richard Pursel, writer and sto­ry­board artist, who has been re­spon­si­ble for many episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants.

But he ad­mits he nev­er re­al­ly con­sid­ered art as a ca­reer as a young boy. Grow­ing up in Michi­gan, Pursel con­sid­ered art as fun. But when he moved to Cal­i­for­nia to study at col­lege, he re­alised that art was his ca­reer path.

Pursel is in Trinidad as one of the speak­ers at the 13th edi­tion of the An­i­mae Caribe fes­ti­val which be­gan on Mon­day and ends to­mor­row in Trinidad. To­ba­go will have its one-day af­fair on Sat­ur­day.

Speak­ing to vis­it­ing stu­dents at the UTT's John D Cre­ativ­i­ty Cam­pus Cin­e­ma on Mon­day, Pursel re­lat­ed his life sto­ry be­fore be­com­ing an an­i­ma­tor.

"I knew I want­ed to be in film," he said. "I was a shy guy but I wasn't the type of kid to work a hus­tle."

But his taste for an­i­ma­tion widened as he sub­mit­ted his work for an open­ing for an­i­ma­tion spots at MTV. A friend of his even­tu­al­ly hired him as a pro­duc­tion as­sis­tant at an an­i­ma­tion com­pa­ny, al­though he was more like the go-get-it guy.

"I was get­ting wa­ter for the crew," he said. "I wasn't do­ing much an­i­ma­tion."

When there was an open­ing at Warn­er Broth­ers, Pursel said he was re­lent­less in try­ing to get in. It was al­so at that point in his life, af­ter two years of study­ing, he de­cid­ed not to fin­ish col­lege. The door opened wider for him when a pro­duc­er of the car­toon Ren and Stimpy said he need­ed some writ­ers who could draw. His in­ter­est in this com­bi­na­tion laid the foun­da­tion of his rep­u­ta­tion as a fun­ny an­i­mal writer for Tom and Jer­ry, Ben 10, Cow and Chick­en as well as the Su­per­hero Squad.

But for Sponge Bob, it was not as easy as ap­ply for the job and be­ing ac­cept­ed based on his ex­pe­ri­ence.

"I had to take a test!" he said. "I had to do three to five sto­ry premis­es for them."

In­spi­ra­tion, he says, comes dur­ing his bike ride from home to the stu­dio. "By the time I come to work, I have sto­ries in my head," he said.

He shared this ad­vice with as­pir­ing an­i­ma­tors: "Make sure you have some­one more ex­pe­ri­enced to look at your work. Men­tor­ship helps in get­ting where you need to be."

�2 An­i­mae Caribe ses­sions will be held at UTT Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts un­til to­mor­row.

�2 On Sat­ur­day, the AC Team joins up with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for work­shops and screen­ings in Spey­side, To­ba­go.

�2 Vis­it the Face­book page An­i­mae Caribe for more in­for­ma­tion.

TO­DAY'S SCHED­ULE FOR AN­I­MAE CARIBE FES­TI­VAL

FEA­TURE AD­DRESS 1

Roge­rio Nunes:

The Art of An­i­ma­tion

TIME: 9 � 10 am

Brazil­ian artist in­de­pen­dent an­i­ma­tor and pro­duc­er. Nunes has di­rect­ed and pro­duced an­i­mat­ed doc­u­men­taries, and artis­tic an­i­ma­tions for vi­su­al arts projects. He is cur­rent­ly pro­duc­ing the Heart of Dark­ness project for a fea­ture an­i­mat­ed film in­spired on Joseph Con­rad's nov­el.

BUSI­NESS PAN­EL

The Busi­ness of An­i­ma­tion as it re­lates to po­si­tion­ing and cap­i­tal­is­ing on re­gion­al and glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for the Caribbean.

GLOB­AL PER­SPEC­TIVE

TIME: 9 � 10.45 am

Speak­er 1–AJ Cote

CEO at One World An­i­ma­tion Cana­da, the first suc­cess­ful out­sourc­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ja­maica & T&T stu­dios.

Speak­er 2–Joan Vo­ge­le­sang

An­i­ma­tion in­dus­try ex­pert– Glob­al Overview of the Busi­ness of An­i­ma­tion Q&A

FEA­TURE AD­DRESS 2

Cai­phus Moore

Fine Artists and their Role in the Gam­ing In­dus­try

TIME: 10.15 � 11.15 pm

The Fine Art of An­i­ma­tion & Gam­ing a sur­pris­ing plat­form for fine artists. Hear how a Trinida­di­an fine artist be­came a se­nior de­sign­er at EA Games with sev­er­al games be­hind him, Simms, and much more.

BUSI­NESS PAN­EL

Per­spec­tive of the Re­gion­al An­i­ma­tion In­dus­try

TIME: 11 am � 12.45 pm

Speak­er 1–Ja­son Lind­say, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Full Cir­cle An­i­ma­tion T&T

Speak­er 2–Cor­ret­ta Singer, pres­i­dent Ja­maican An­i­ma­tion Net­work

Speak­er 3–Roge­rio Nunes, di­rec­tor of Kar­ma­tique Imgs Brazil. Latin Amer­i­can Per­spec­tive. Q&A.

FEA­TURE AD­DRESS 3

Shilpa Ranade, In­dia

Cul­ture & Art in An­i­ma­tion

TIME: 11.30 � 12.30 pm

Shilpa Ranade teach­es An­i­ma­tion at IDC, IIT Bom­bay. She com­plet­ed her MPhil in An­i­ma­tion from the Roy­al Col­lege of Art, Lon­don and has di­rect­ed short an­i­ma­tion films for Chan­nel4 UK. Her films won ac­co­lades in some of the most pres­ti­gious an­i­ma­tion fes­ti­vals. She has al­so il­lus­trat­ed nu­mer­ous books for chil­dren.

AC 14 SPE­CIAL SCREEN­INGS

Shilpa Ranade, In­di­an Film, Di­rec­tor Present for Q/A.

Goopi & Bagha are two wise fools, one lives to sing and the oth­er to play the drum. De­spite their acute in­ept­ness, their pas­sion for mu­sic knows no bounds.

Break Out Ses­sions

AC Room 1, 2, 3.

TIME: 1.15 � 4 pm

Fine Art of An­i­ma­tion & Gam­ing with Cai­phus Moore, games de­sign­er EA Games & Simms 2

3D Jew­el­ry De­sign Work­shop with Coret­ta Singer, Ja­maican An­i­ma­tion Net­work

Sto­ry­board­ing Work­shop with Richard Pursel, Sponge­bob Square Pants.

BUSI­NESS PAN­EL

LO­CAL PER­SPEC­TIVE

TIME: 1.30 � 3 pm

TTAN & JAN � T&T An­i­ma­tion Net­work, Ja­maica An­i­ma­tion Net­work Coun­try Overview

Ryan Khan, Oliv­er Milne & C Gui­ness–Us­ing An­i­ma­tion in Mod­ern Day Me­dia.

AC NET­WORK

HOT SPOTS

UTT APA FOY­ER

(3 pm � 5 pm)

A space to meet and net­work and have a "cup­pa cof­fee" dur­ing the event.

Mak­ing the Deal Lounge–A meet­ing space for one-on-one dis­cus­sions

Stu­dio Show­case Hall–An in­ter­ac­tive dis­play where stu­dios can dis­play pro­mote their busi­ness.

AC 14 SPE­CIAL Screen­ings � Na­pa The­atre 2

TIME: 4 pm

Nor­we­gian An­i­ma­tion from Uni­ver­si­ty of Vol­da Nor­way.

AC SCREEN­ING OF SUB­MIS­SIONS

TIME: 6 pm

The Beau­ti­ful Art

of An­i­ma­tions

Na­pa The­atre 1.

Net­work­ing Par­ty Mi­crosoft Rooftop

TIME: 7 pm

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mi­crosoft Trinidad to cel­e­brate the Busi­ness of An­i­ma­tion, "let your hair down" chiller lime.