Calabash changes hands in a five-year buyout by longtime animation staffers

After 20 years in business as one of the nation’s most successful spot animation houses, owners Monica and Ed Newman have sold Calabash on a five-year buyout to two long-term employees.

New owners as of Sept. 1 are Wayne Brejcha, 40, chairman/secretary, and Sean Henry, 30, animation director/computer guru. They have been on the Calabash staff for 14 and 12 years, respectively, and consider themselves equal partners.

Calabash Animation Inc., an Illinois corporation, is the name of the new company, changed from the Newmans’ original Calabash Productions, Inc.

As Brejcha and Henry pick up the management reins, the Newmans, who are self-financing the buy-out, are phasing themselves out of the business. They were motivated to sell by wanting “take time off for personal projects and to raise Natalie,” their three-year old daughter, said Newman.

The Newmans continue to work for the new Calabash as freelance animation artists and business-side consultants. An advantage to selling to employees is their long-time relationships with loyal Calabash clients throughout the country, both Ed Newman and Henry said.

Ed Newman told Brejcha and Henry in casual conversations that began two years ago that he and his wife were entertaining the idea of retiring from the company. “Ed thought the two of us would be the appropriate people to buy the company when the time came to sell. We thought about it long and hard and came to agreement.” The deal closed on Sept. 1, 2004.

While the new owners would not reveal gross sales, Henry estimated that “in a good year Calabash probably produces between six and eight 30-second spots for major national advertisers.”

“A lot of work comes from Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey Advertising, New York, Leo Burnett, and most recently McCann-Erickson,” for which Calabash animated the highly-rated and acclaimed MasterCard Superbowl brand icon spot, noted Henry. (See recent client/agency list at www.calabashanimation.com.)

The new owners will rent the Newmans’ River West building at least until the buyout is completed. The 3,000-sq. ft. building, which the couple bought in 1992, has two floors and a half basement and “a gorgeous view of the city skyline,” said Henry.

That’s plenty of space for a permanent staff of seven and as the many freelance animators hired for peak production periods, such as for the recent MasterCard spot, and the computers that constitute the company’s heart.

Wayne Brejcha, a native of Midland, Mich., with a BFA from Eastern Michigan, was determined “on getting into film somehow,” he said. Coming to Chicago in 1985, after working on an indie film, he attended animation classes at Columbia College where he “met a few people linked with actual animation companies.” That led to a job with George Eastman’s Kinetics.

“After I joined Calabash,” Brejcha said with a chuckle, “I was a pretty crummy animator. Ed taught me a lot of tricks and I evolved into an animation director.”

Creative shorts program a change of pace

The new Calabash will continue its proprietary shorts program begun in 2000 as a creative outlet for the animators and to allow the company to expand its horizons outside of commercials.

Calabash’s first film struck lightning with a 2002 Academy Award nomination for “Stubble Trouble,” directed by former staffer Joe Meredith. Staff animation director Gary Whitney’s “Tryst Watch” followed.

Calabash is currently in production is third film, “Botnik,” the story of a beatnik artist who hits a creative block. Staffer Jackie Smessaert is the animation director.

The earlier three shorts have been placed in DVD collections of animation shorts. It’s these kinds of proprietary projects that Newman said he and his wife plan on producing themselves.

Henry’s specialty is computer animation and he heads the fast- growing, popular computer animation department. A native of Defiance, Ohio, he came to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute. His next stop was a staff job with Calabash in 1993.

Ed Newman worked in his native L.A. at Bill Melenda’s animation studio, famous for its “Snoopy” cartoon series. Wanting to shake up his life, he saved a few thousand dollars, bought a backpack and took years hitchhiking around the country. With a sister at SIU, he wound up in Chicago and decided to stay here for a year before setting off for a round-the-world trek.

Love has a funny way of changing things, though, and it was in 1984 that he met Monica, an Ohio native and a graduate of the School of the Art Institute, and married her in 1988, keeping him happily and successfully in Chicago.

The Newmans formed Zephyr Arts as part of their transition into other art forms. Monica Newman will turn in final finished art March 1 for a children’s book she has illustrated for Moo Press, New York.

Calabash Animation, Inc. is located at 657 W. Ohio; phone, 312/243-3433. See www.calabashanimation.com. Midwest rep is Lauren McNamara.