Meet Beth Sleven | Director, Storyboard Artist, Animator, & Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Beth Sleven and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Beth, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Wow! Nothing like a big existential question to start off an interview with. : )
In all honesty though, for me the answer is, I simply never considered doing anything else. (Actually for a hot second I thought about being an archaeologist, but then I realized that was just because I wanted to be Indiana Jones).
Getting into animation never felt like a decision I made. From the moment I started watching animated films as a kid, I never wanted to do anything else. I became driven to learn everything I could about traditional animation, how it was done, how the stories were told, and what it took to tell them.
Once I fell down that rabbit hole I never looked back, never considered any other path. Working in animation is all I wanted to do, and I’ve been so fortunate to be able to do what I love.
It’s hardly an exaggeration to say I eat, sleep, and breathe animation and filmmaking, so much so that when I got my first feature animation job I brought all my “Art Of” books to work and asked all my animation idols to sign them. Thinking back on it now, I must have seemed like the world’s most annoying kid, peppering them with questions and asking for advice, but all of them were incredibly kind and patient. In fact, I’m still good friends with many of them to this day.
Heck, I still love sitting with other artists, nerding out, and talking shop. It’s something I’ve never grown out of.
So to sum up a very long answer to your very short question, I work in animation and create art because I never considered doing anything else.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
There are a lot of good questions here so I’m going to try and answer them individually.
Diving into my professional work I have to say, I feel so fortunate to have gotten to work on a lot of amazing projects with tons of incredible people.
I’ve worked on everything from Disney preschool shows to Marvel superhero films and everything in between. I animated on “The Night at the Museum”, and “Looney Tunes” films. I’ve storyboarded on comedy, action, and adventure shows, and directed and co-showrun series for audiences all over the world. And I love doing it, I love telling heartfelt stories and bringing vibrant characters to life. Sometimes I’ll be hard at work on a scene and suddenly realize I’ve been smiling the whole time while working because I’m enjoying and immersing myself in what I’m doing.
As to your question about what lessons I’ve learned along the way, there are a lot. But there are three big ones I tell every person who wants to work in film and television.
The first one is simple…don’t be a jerk! The entertainment industry is small, and you’ll run into the same people over and over again during your career. So it’s important to make a good impression, work hard, be reliable, and treat everyone with respect. That way when people are staffing up for a project, and your name comes up people will remember you as someone they want to work with.
The second thing I tell people starting out is that this business is like a roller coaster. There are high peaks where work is plentiful, and low dips where work is scarce. And that knowing it’s a roller coaster is helpful, but doesn’t make weathering the ups and downs any easier.
And the third thing I tell people entering the industry is they should do their own art on the side. It doesn’t matter what kind of art it is, just make sure it’s something you’re passionate about.
Nearly every person I know in animation has a project of their own they are working on. It can be anything: a short, a graphic novel, gallery paintings, or costuming, as long as it’s something personal to you that’s what counts.
For me it’s creating stories filled with monsters, and vibrant otherworldly creatures. And breathing life into dark worlds filled with mad scientists, shadowy villains, and the underdog heroes who have to face insurmountable odds to defeat them.

Myself and so many of the other artists in animation are so incredibly passionate about what we do that we are driven to do it even when we’re not at work. We create stories, worlds, and characters constantly because there’s something in us that drives us to do it. Compels us to bring them out into the world and share them with everyone!
Your question “What do I want the world to know about me and my art?” makes me think of an old adage, “Animation is a medium not a genre”. That phrase has rung in my ears since the day I heard it. Animation is a huge sandbox, and too often it feels like people only want to play in one corner of it.
I want to play in the whole sand box. I want people to know that I’m someone who wants to push the envelope of animation.
I’ve been able to work in comedy, action, drama, scifi and fantasy, on both live action and animated projects, because I know the core foundations of storytelling, character development, and filmmaking. And I want to take all of that knowledge and push the boundaries of what people think animation can do.
Let’s make animated horror films filled with monsters, epic period dramas, and hardboiled noir thrillers. In animation there is absolutely no limit to what kinds of stories we can tell, or how we can tell them.
So I hope people take away from his interview that that’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to tell the stories that haven’t been told yet in animation, in ways they haven’t been done.
And as to the last part of your question, “Has it been easy?”. No, but nothing worth doing ever is. : )

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Ooooo this is a really fun question! Of course I’m a big nerd so a lot of my itinerary would involve art. : )
Day one: The Beach – On the first day I’d 100% take them to the beach. California has some incredible beaches where you can rent a bike, skates, or scooters and travel up and down the boardwalk for miles. But my favourite thing to do is grab a burger from a beachside restaurant and sit on a blanket chatting and people watching. Then go running into the ocean, letting the waves chase you up and down the beach.
Day Two: LA Zoo – I love going to the zoo and bringing art supplies to sketch, and paint animals as you sit and watch them. I used to go all the time with friends but I haven’t done it in a while, and I’d love to do it again with a visiting friend.
Day Three: The Getty – This museum is full of amazing art and it always has visiting exhibits with new and interesting pieces.
I’d take my friend there to check out whatever their newest exhibit is, and we could hang out and walk in the garden as well. It’s a place filled with inspiration and I always come away feeling like I’ve learned something new.
Day Four: Volunteer at an animal center – There’s a small animal therapy center out by me that allows people to come and volunteer. You get to help clean, and care for the animals. Then as a treat after a long morning of mucking stalls and scrubbing water troughs they let you hand feed and pet all the animals. It’s hard but rewarding and something totally different to do with a friend. And you’ll definitely get some unique stories out of it.
Day Five: Outdoor movie night – As a chill night before they leave I’d treat my friend to an outdoor movie night. We’d set up a projector outside, put on a fun movie, eat Costco pizza, and do crafts while we hung out. Fancy? Not at all. Super chill and fun? 100%.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are two people who deserve more than a little credit actually. And it’s my Mom and Dad.
Both of my parents were in the medical profession, which is a career that has a very strict pathway to success. You go to college, then med school, then do a fellowship, and a residency, then start or join a practice. Boom, you’re a doctor! It’s a very clear cut, well ordered pathway, and one that couldn’t be more different then the one I took.
There is no set pathway at all for getting into animation. Some people go to school, some are completely self taught (which is not something they recommend for doctors). Some people start as a PA, some immediately sell their own show. Heck, I know people who were well on their way to becoming lawyers or architects who left school and started working in animation.
To think about that is actually rather freeing, because it shows there’s simply no right way to be an artist. But for my parents who came from a world of rigid rules and set pathways to success it must have seemed horrifying. But neither of my parents even blinked when I told them I wanted to work in the animation industry.
And I don’t think I can ever adequately express how grateful I am, and fortunate I am to have parents who never tried to convince me to do something else, or have a back up plan. All they said was, “We don’t care what job you do. You could be a custodian, or the president of the United States. It doesn’t matter, just work hard. Work harder than anyone else. Because fair or not you’ll have to work twice as hard for half as much respect.”
And so I did my best to follow their advice. I went to the local zoo constantly and drew. I went to life drawing classes and drew. I read art books, and took classes, and sought out as much information as I could.
I’m not sure they meant their advice to be so prophetic, but they were right. Being an artist means you never stop learning. You never stop working to get better. I still watch online tutorials, learn new software and workflows, and take streaming classes from artists I admire. An artist’s search for growth and knowledge should never stop.
So I really do owe a huge debt of gratitude to my parents for their support, love, and encouragement.
But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also thank anyone, and everyone who’s ever given me a word of encouragement. No matter how small those words might have seemed, they meant the world to me.
As artists we tend to doubt ourselves every now and then, or at least I do, and every one of those words of encouragement from every one of those people was like a lantern in dark times, beckoning me to continue on, to keep going, to not give up.

Website: https://bethsleven.com/

Other: https://my.proportfol.io/qwf19Is1K8