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Jay Surridge grew up chasing gophers in the foothills of Alberta. During his youth in Calgary he developed a knack for counting and a taste for fatty foods. This led him to pursue a degree in business at the University of Alberta (and a traumatizing youth as a pudgy kid). Then one sad day while he was balancing the amortized fiscal value of accounts receivable using the previous month's accruals as a benchmark, something snapped in Jay and the left side of his brain took over.

Reds became redder, birds sang more happily and arms wiggled like noodles (ok, maybe that's because he seemed to have a problem dislocating limbs). Jay dove headfirst into the world of animation after attending the Vancouver Film School and graduating from the Classical Animation Program. His short film "A Tack Attack" competed successfully in various international festivals. "I was panicking at the end of the year because I didn't have a solid idea for my final short. Then one of my friends stabbed me with a pencil, it took me awhile to react and BANG, an idea was born. From that point on, I knew this was what I wanted to do until my mid life crisis" mumbles Jay.

Upon graduating Jay started to dabble with Flash in various projects, creating numerous characters and animating till his hearts content. He then started to work as a storyboard artist on Cartoon Network's "Ed, Edd and Eddy" at a.k.a cartoons under the glare of Danny Antonucci. Jay grunts, "Being an outline based show, I learned a lot about character development, gags and story flow. It was intense, but fun." After leaving the show, Jay worked on a variety of other freelance animation projects, but he was getting eager to start making shorts again. "After attending Accency and watching my short on the big screen, I got the itch to start working on my own stuff again." It was time to scratch.

Jay joined up with an unorthodox artist named Jon Izen. "Jon's original idea was to create a chair with wheels and become a millionaire on the patent. Then as he rolled his chair away to get back to work, he sadly realized he was too late," chortles Surridge. So they set out to draw as ugly as they wanted to and the formation of Pork and Beans Productions had begun.

The rush of the internet allowed P&B to flex their newborn muscles and experiment on various styles as they aided in developing and animating web shows for studios such as Mondo Media, Icebox, and The Romp. But this didn't stop the craving to chew on pencils for the P&B crew. "The whole Flash thing was great, and allowed us to get a base for the studio to start from. Now we're shifting back to TV, hopefully our quirky little designs will have the same effect there," stammers Surridge.
P&B is now creating a couple of shorts that are going to hit the festival circuit next year, so keep an eye out.

Jay's thoughts on production:
As an artist it's easy to get so involved in the project that you lose sight of the other stuff that keeps the show moving on. I'm a big fan of trying new things and experimenting with styles, but the trick is to do something new within the time frame you have and the budget restrictions. So as a director and producer, it's key that you are able to identify artists strengths and place them were they will push themselves. It's a great feeling when it all comes together in the end (plus the fact it's time to sleep). Then it's on to the next project.

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