Cool Park Slope Artist Alert: Joe Bennett

Joe BennettAnimator Joe Bennett lives in a studio apartment on 3rd street. By day, he works at JWT, the global ad agency that *I'm pretty sure* Mad Men's Sterling Cooper is based on. His clients include Rolex, Bloomberg and Microsoft, just to name a few. By night, he animates for himself at home -- creating odd projects that are repeatedly recognized by popular animation news blog, Cartoon Brew. His installations -- most recently a crude animation that accompanied audio pulled from an episode of Cops -- have appeared in shows from Brooklyn to Istanbul.

What I like most about Joe's work is how often his characters are just plain gross. They have weird faces and often make disgusting, gutteral noises (see here and here). Am I less of a lady for saying this? Possibly.

From Odin's Afterbirth: Chapter 2I recently ran into Joe, and asked him the few questions I could think of off the top of my head, before he had to run out the door and straight into Don Draper's midtown office. 

What or who is your biggest influence when it comes to animation? 

There are a lot of animation directors that I like, but I lean more toward Robert Altman's work as a film director. Brewster McCloud, Nashville --- they all have a similar flow and pacing that I try to emulate in my work. Altman also lets his actors ad lib. He gives them a lot of creative license. I have one guy do all of the voices in my animations, and I give him the same liberties. The end result is a more natural dialogue. I let him explore and become each character. 

Where do you drink?

I usually find myself at Washington Commons. Good beer. GOOD BEER.

What's Your favorite thing about Park Slope?

The park!

When have you been fucked in Park Slope?

My brownstone has a covenant against window AC units. I had already owned a window unit, which I had to toss. I went without AC for an entire summer. I finally bought a windowless unit, which cost like, $400. So that sucked. Also, Park Slope is also the only neighborhood where I've been asked not to use bad language while in a bar. This request came from a mom with her kid. 

Breeders being breeders.

I'll leave you with my favorite animation de la Bennett, Bedtime Stories with Abraham Willosby. See how many strapping house boys you can count.

To check out more of Joe's work, click HERE. 

And if you want to nominate someone for FiPS "Cool Park Slope Artist Alert," drop us a line and show us their work!