CREDITS - CREW

David Blumenstein
Writer, Director, Animator

David Blumenstein is a 24 year old cartoonist living in Melbourne, Australia. He refuses to watch a cop movie without a "gun and badge" scene.

After completing a bachelor degree in Fine Art for some reason, David got the chance to study at RMIT University's Centre for Animation & Interactive Media. The student short he directed was Shit Party, an autobiographical cartoon about a guy who attempts to take a dump on New Year's Eve. It screened at a number of film festivals in 2002, both overseas (Tenerife International Animation Festival, Baltimore's MicroCineFest) and local (Melbourne International Film Festival, Brisbane International Animation Festival).

Once Shit Party was completed, David vowed never to animate again. Shortly after this, he began work on Herman, The Legal Labrador, a short epic which would end up taking over two years from script to screen, leaving David with a great deal of pride and an unfortunate twitch in his left eye.

When not recording dog puke noises into a microphone, David writes and draws a comic book called Nakedfella Comics, manages an online cultural journal/scam, McGinlay's Internet Possibility, and does freelance design and animation, his recent favourites being a CD cover for Cumbersome Records and a titles sequence for TV's The Panel.

Which voices did David do? >>
What music did David do? >>

Jeremy Parker
Producer, Executive Producer

An enigma wrapped in a riddle, sitting at a Macintosh. Jeremy won an AFI award for his 1989 animation Picture Start, which he won't show to anybody. He has since worked on stuff for the Australian Children's Television Foundation series, Lift Off, and produced shitloads of student work in his capacity as lecturer and senior supervisor at RMIT's Centre for Animation & Interactive Media. When I, his ex-student, asked him to produce Herman, Jeremy asked, "What will I have to do?" David explained that a producer's job is to be "a mover and shaker". Despite Jeremy's refusal to move or shake, he has proven invaluable as a guide to the art of animation and the psychology of filmmaking. Translated, this means he points out where David fucked up and tells him to get back to work.

Jeremy did so well at this, David made him Executive Producer as well because why the hell not.

Jacob Zhivov
Production Manager, Sound Recordist

Jake recently completed the Honours year of Bachelor of Information Management and Systems at Monash University. He is also currently employed at Monash as an assistant lecturer. He served as production manager on numerous theatrical productions during his time at Melbourne High School. Jake once had his photo taken with World Wrestling Entertainment head man Vince McMahon and "wrestler" Stacy Keibler. You would think I could pull up a better picture of him.

Adam Wajnberg
Creative Consultant

What does this title mean? It just means that Adam helped massage some life into his character by replacing the somewhat stilted lines with others that suited him better.

Adam's actorly info >>

Jim Kalogiratos
FX Co-ordinator

Once a lowly podiatrist, Jim tired of checking people's feet for bunions and decided to turn his skills to a much more challenging and lucrative pursuit: 3D animation. Jim now works as a lowly production manager in a lowly 3D animation studio. Jim constantly worries about selling out to "the man", but he upholds his sacred black heritage by keeping an active interest in Culture Jamming.

Jim's vocal contribution >>

Martin Parbo
Foley

Martin was very helpful in this area, and I'll leave it at that.

Chris Dea
Post-Production Supervisor

Chris likes clouds, lazing and a few other things. Chris doesn't like cooked apricots of any description but enjoys them raw. Chris presses buttons lots and sits in darkened rooms looking at monitors - he enjoys this. When Chris exits after eight hours of that he is usually blinded by the light outside for about one minute, two minutes if it's a really bright day.

Tim Wilson
Unit Publicist

Not as corpulent as Fat Albert, not as queenie as Richard Simmons. In fact, Tim has lost a lot of weight since this photo was taken. Tim has no awards for publicity excellence, but boasts a significant role in a number of front page exposés on resource wastage by the Bracks Labor government, thanks to his work for Victorian state opposition MP David Davis. Tim is currently working as an independent consultant on international trade matters.

Scott Pollard
Chief Model Maker

Scott mutilated a toy dog to make this lovely Herman toy. It has pants on (not visible here) and it barks and walks around. Scott is probably Australia's only professional Dalek operator. Despite this, Scott doesn't get laid very often.

Larry Boxshall and Ben Hellwig
Very Special Associate Producers

Larry and Ben are not credited as such in the film itself. Why? Because they got their titles by performing a very special service for the film AFTER its completion: presenting it to a rapturous (?) audience at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con!

The Comic-Con's Independent Film Festival picked Herman to close their Sunday animation session. However, their rules require that a member of the production team be present for the screening so they might say a few words and answer questions. Unfortunately, prior commitments (and, yes, the fact that a last-minute plane ticket to the States costs mucho, mucho dinero) meant I couldn't go.

Thankfully, these two stalwart gentlemen, who only knew me as the guy who comes into their comic shop and never buys anything, agreed to take some time out of their San Diego Con experience to be the film's "Associate Producers", and, reportedly, did a fine job at it. Their Aussie accents put it over, and the free "Herman" comics they gave out sealed the deal. Good work, fellas!