Meet Christine Camille “Cece” Jones | Storyteller

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christine Camille “Cece” Jones and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christine Camille “Cece”, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Growing up, I was inseparable from my sketchbook. School outings to the theater, family dinner party, Disneyland, you name it, it didn’t matter where I was going, my sketchbook was coming with me! Any sliver of free time I had I spent drawing.

Drawing helps me process the world around me and connect me with others. It’s helped shape the person I am today. God has done and continues to do so much for me through the arts and I want to be able to do the same for others through my work as an artist. I have a lot of different passions and skills, but I can’t imagine myself working in a non artistic or creative field.

Creating and consuming art in its various forms has always been a key part of my life. When my brother and I did well in school, my parents would reward us with a trip to the late great bookstore Borders (rest in peace big homie Borders, you will be missed) and let us each pick out one book of our choice. They had no problem with my $10.95 manga volume selections, but after we each picked out DC and Marvel encyclopedias that were upward of $50 a pop, one book of our choice quickly became one book under $20.

My parents are storytellers themselves and have their own careers in the entertainment industry. Growing up, one of our go to family activities was a movie with family friends followed by a character growth examination and plot analysis deep dive over dinner. We’d sit in the restaurant talking long after we finished our meals and the check was taken care of. We love consuming stories, deconstructing stories, and making stories of our own. We just love stories! I feel so blessed to explore and flesh out stories through my drawings as a storyboard revisionist and other creative outlets.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Professionally, I am where I am today largely in part thanks to many of the people mentioned in my shoutouts. The journey was and still to this day is not easy. After college, I spent 3 years improving my craft and applying for storyboard and design jobs within animation while working as a full time production assistant. In that 3 year span there were times where the job rejections were taking their toll on me and I wanted to quit. My faith, my family, and my community kept me going through the lows. At the time of typing this response, I am unemployed and actively seeking my next full time gig in animation as a result of the streaming bubble bursting and work stoppage. Those three pillars that kept me going in my lows as a production assistant are those same three pillars that keep me up today as I seek reentry into the work force.

A lesson I learned quickly is that if you’re working 40 hours or more a week in a fast pace high stress environment, a little kindness makes a world of a difference. Pancake breakfasts, tea tastings, and four o’clock fitness pre-pandemic, virtual board game and synchronized pizza delivery lunches during the pandemic, and the occasional karaoke night post pandemic. I’m so grateful for the daily kindess of fellow crew members and crew initiated activities that made crunch periods that bit more bearable.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
What a great question! In no particular order, these are the spots I’d take them to:

Art
– Giant Robot and Giant Robot 2
– Gallery Nucleus
– LACMA
– The Ghetty
– Any and all KCRW free music events

Food
– Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles
– Porto’s
– Okayama Kobo Bakery & Cafe
– MacLeod Ale Brewing Co (all about their puddings and pizzas)
– Smorgasburg at ROW DTLA

Nature
– Fryman Canyon
– Eaton Canyon Trail
– El Matador Beach (get in the water)
– Santa Monica Pier (do not get in the water)
– Griffith Park

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people to shout out. It truly takes a village and I am no exception.

First and foremost, I want to give glory to God for holding my hand through all of this. I wouldn’t be here without Him.

Shout out to my parents for their continued love and support through the ups and downs of my artistic pursuits. Even through this most recent dry spell in the animation industry, my parents have been nothing but supportive.

Shout out to my grandparents Nana and Pop pop for believing in my dreams since day one. My mom can tell the story best, but when I was three years old or so I was caught drawing directly on the wall of my grandparents’ music room with one of their many golf pencils. Before Pop pop could scold me and have me erase it, Nana interjected something along the lines of, “Don’t touch that! Cece is an artist and that’s an original that’s going to be worth millions one day!” Again, my mom can tell the story better than I can. I wish my grandparents were still with us today to see how far I’ve come since my first “mural” thanks to their support.

Shout out to Richard Gasparian and all the people at The Simpsons. Summer of 2017 was my first ever internship and my first working experience in animation. The team was nothing but kind to me. I left with newfound friends and encouraged to continue pursuing my career.

Shout out to Lauren Arnold and all the people within Development Production and DreamWorks TV as a whole during the time of my internship in the summer of 2018. Lauren, my production assistant at the time, took me under her wing and prepared me for making the transition from an intern to a full time production assistant.

Shout out to Ben Jaffe and the entire Archibald’s Next Big Thing crew in house and out of house for being the first team I worked with as a full time production assistant. It’s been about three years since the show wrapped and I still look back at it fondly. Special shout out to Emmanuel Deligiannis and Nico Selma for giving me constructive feedback on my Archibald storyboarding practice test to help me improve as a storyboard artist.

Shout out to my first storyboard directors Leah Artwick (Fright Krewe) and Emily Jourdan (Gabby’s Dollhouse) for believing in me and helping me make the transition from production assistant to storyboard revisionist. Grateful for the constructive feedback and support from the Fright Krewe storyboard team and Gabby’s Dollhouse storyboard team (Donovan Cook, Anna Brown, Apol Vick, Breanne McCullough, Michelle Andrea Thompkins Lima, and Dean Jackson).

Shout out to Morenike Dosu, Daujenae Harps, Shabrayia Cleaver, Chris Copeland, Justin Copeland, and all the other leads and members of DreamWorks’ Black Employee Network for being a constant source of encouragement for both myself and those impacted by our outreach programs.

I know I’m forgetting some people. There are just far too many people for me to shout out by name, and I know that list will only ever get longer and longer.

Website: https://www.bloppart.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloppart/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-cece-jones-68a73011b

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bloppart

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bloppart

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwEMU_U_MFJXLiHyEDqRjvg

Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13655381/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Image Credits
The first photograph of me was taken at a work event at DreamWorks that provided employees with headshots. The second picture of me was taken by a family member. The remaining images are images I drew some of which is fanart of characters from pre-existing intilectual property.