Jenn Ely — A Path of Her Own (Archive Edition)

Jenn Ely — A Path of Her Own (Archive Edition)

This week on the Story First Podcast, we're revisiting a conversation from the archives with director, production designer, visual development artist, and illustrator Jenn Ely. Jenn has worked with some of the most respected storytellers in animation, including Henry Selick on Wendell & Wild and Guillermo del Toro on the Academy Award-winning Pinocchio. Her career has also included work with Laika, DreamWorks, Netflix, and numerous publishing and commercial projects. What makes Jenn's story particularly interesting is that she didn't follow a traditional path into animation. She began as a fine artist and painter, found mentors, kept learning, and gradually built a career by following her curiosity and commitment to the work. Brian and Jenn discuss storytelling, visual development, artistic growth, mentorship, and the dedication required to build a creative life. A conversation about craft, persistence, and finding your own way.

Taraneh Karimi — Drawing From the Inside

This week on the Story First Podcast, Brian McDonald talks with artist, art director, mentor, and visual storyteller Taraneh Karimi. Known for her work with Disney Animation, Netflix Animation, Disney Lorcana, games, publishing, and visual development, Taraneh has built a career helping shape stories through images. In this thoughtful conversation, Taraneh and Brian discuss creativity, emotional truth, lifelong learning, and the role storytelling plays in helping us make sense of our lives. They explore the relationship between visual language and narrative, the challenges artists face as they grow, and why meaningful work often comes from a deeply personal place. A conversation about art, storytelling, and learning to create from the inside out.

The Power of Simplicity

This week’s Story First Podcast is an archive episode from You Are a Storyteller, my old podcast co-hosted with Jesse Bryan. In this conversation, Jesse and I discuss the power of simplicity in storytelling and communication. We explore why people often mistake complexity for sophistication, why clarity matters, and why simplicity is usually much harder to achieve than clutter. One of the recurring ideas in my teaching is that strong storytelling is often about removing the unnecessary and communicating with precision. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Brian (BKO) O’Connell: The Art of Showing Up

This week on the Story First Podcast, Emmy-nominated director, storyboard artist, and filmmaker Brian Kalin O’Connell joins me for a deeply personal conversation about storytelling, artistic growth, and what it means to keep showing up for the work. Brian has worked at ILM, Lucasfilm, and Pixar, where he contributed to projects including The Clone Wars, Luca, Turning Red, Incredibles 2, and more. But this conversation isn’t really about credits. It’s about practice. As often happens on this show, the subject of lifelong learning comes up. Brian and I talk about the difference between fans and practitioners, the danger of surface-level thinking, the emotional truth behind storytelling, and why the best artists remain students for life. We also get into stop-motion animation, Ray Harryhausen, Charlie Chaplin, comic books, visual storytelling, style, vulnerability, fear, and the challenge of bringing your authentic self to the work.

Brian McDonald & Jesse Bryan: Storytelling and the Underworld

This week’s episode is an archive conversation from my old podcast You Are a Storyteller, co-hosted with Jesse Bryan. We recorded this discussion shortly before the release of my graphic novel Land of the Dead, illustrated by Toby Cypress. In this episode, Jesse and I explore many of the ideas found in the book, including the journey into the underworld, transformation through hardship, and the separate but related idea of “angels from the sky” — figures who enter the land of the dead and help others see things differently. We also discuss story structure in everyday life and the idea that storytelling begins not with books or movies, but with ordinary human conversation. Land of the Dead was later praised by Gene Luen Yang as “Brilliant. Indispensable advice for writers in particular and humans in general,” and by Charles Johnson as “Magnificent. A pleasure to read.” If you enjoy this episode, illustrator Toby Cypress has also been a guest on the podcast in a separate conversation about storytelling, comics, and art.