JUDGE PROFILE
Spotlighting Alumni and Members of Our Judge Memorial Family
Pete Oswald ‘99, Bestselling Author and Illustrator By Sam Oswald ‘22
As my time as a Judge student
Pete got his first job in the anima-
comes closer to an end, I’ve been
tion industry through his professor
reflecting on the experiences and
at LMU, who offered him a position
lessons I’ve learned over the past
as a Production Assistant at Car-
3+ years. I am fortunate enough to
toon Network.
have an older brother who has also gone to Judge, and we spent some time discussing his own experiences. My brother is Pete
“It’s the lowest level entry you can get on any production whether it’s TV or film, I wasn’t good enough to get an artistic job at
Oswald, a class of 1999
the time. I just wanted
graduate, who is now
to find a way to get in
a #1 New York Times
anywhere, so I took the
bestselling author and illustrator for children’s books. He also works in animation as a produc-
over five movies for Dreamworks,
two or so years getting
Sony, Laika, and Warner Brothers.
coffee, running errands, Pete Oswald ‘99
tion designer and art director.
delivering mail, all that
“One of the most unique experi-
stuff.”
ences I’ve had was with Laika, a stop-motion film company, where
“I spent most of my time on the fourth floor with Mr. Bettin, where I took a ton of classes for all sorts of types of art, from painting and drawing to ceramics. I loved Judge because I was able to take a lot of different types of classes, and it helped me get such a great understanding of what subjects I was truly passionate about.”
“Honestly, I loved it because I got
we worked on ParaNorman. That
to interact with every single per-
was so cool because I was so
son on the production team, from
used to looking at everything on
the directors and producers to the
the computer, but here they were
artists and the other production co-
making everything by hand. It was
ordinators. So I really got a sense
so cool to see all the stop motion
of how production works. And,
puppets and walk around and look
I continued working on my own
at the sets and even go to the cos-
portfolio and was lucky enough to get a shot as a designer on Foster’s
It was at Judge where Pete decid-
Home for Imaginary
ed that his passion for art would
Friends, which was my
become his career. So upon grad-
first official art posi-
uating from Judge, he attended
tion.”
Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, majoring in animation. At the time, it was one of the few schools offering this field of study. 8
job and spent around
CONNECTIONS
FALL 2021
From there, Pete’s animation career took off. He’s now worked on
