Grant Moran

Emmy Award Winning Writer/Producer

Founder of KEPYR (www.kepyr.org)

The subject of this week’s Member Spotlight is Emmy Award winning writer/producer Grant Moran. Known for his work on shows such as Jimmy Neutron, WordGirl, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Grant attended Dartmouth College and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and worked as a director and dramaturg in professional theater for ten years before making his way into television.

The drama school experience continues to pay unexpected dividends in his current work. “I’m developing a series for a major streamer right now that’s set in a performing arts school. Sort of an animated “Fame” for young kids. My familiarity with that sort of environment was definitely one of the reasons I was hired.”

But it was his love of the classic cartoons by Chuck Jones and Tex Avery that led him to work for Warner Bros. Animation in the 90s. “I still think of the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies as the height of short form animation art. Just gorgeous stuff, and it makes me laugh out loud to this day.” 

Of course, he’s also a big fan of Spongebob, which he points out is interesting from a writer’s perspective because ironically his personal favorites tend to be board driven rather than script driven productions. Having come from a heavily collaborative background in theatre arts, Grant thinks the script is key, of course, but not everything - especially in short form. To him, it’s the magic melding of all the elements - design, directing, acting, editing, scoring, etc - that results in the best stuff. 

Today, Grant spends his time as a freelancer, writing scripts and developing projects for various companies. In addition to the Apple TV project which is being produced by an Irish studio he’s also currently developing a preschool series for an Indonesian company and an original 6-11 series concept of his own for a Colombian studio. 

In describing a common model his career follows, he had this anecdote to share:

“Four years ago Mattel hired me to develop what became Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures. When it went into production I was then kept on as head writer. I do a lot of script writing and story editing for existing series as well, but that path - development through to production - is particularly satisfying because you feel like you’re getting a chance to realize something you helped to create. Also, I just really enjoy development. I’ve always been drawn to the process. My work in theater, for example, was exclusively devoted to developing new plays..”

To learn more about Grant’s non-profit, please visit https://www.kepyr.org/

While he’s not working on entertainment, Grant has taken on a completely different job. After learning that the current global child refugee crisis is the worst the world’s seen since World War II he was surprised to find that there were no organizations rallying grassroots support for those children from among the kids media industry. So Grant took it upon himself to start one, and for the past five years his non-profit, Kids Entertainment Professionals for Young Refugees (KEPYR), has partnered with UNICEF to help spread the word about the crisis among kids entertainment professionals and raise money from our community for UNICEF’s work with young refugees around the world. 

“I had never done anything like this before. I was just a guy looking to donate, and I assumed an organization like KEPYR existed but it didn’t.” He is happy to report that the response has been overwhelmingly supportive. He’s been invited to speak at various conferences, like Kidscreen, and was UNICEF’s guest at a 2019 conference on the refugee crisis at the U.N.

Grant has described The Creators Society as “a godsend.” He wasn’t aware of any similar opportunities to network with others in the industry. Other professional groups either didn’t prioritize networking, or only brought together people in the same job positions. 

“But with Creators Society you get the opportunity to hang out and swap stories with everybody who makes animation happen, and that’s just really inspiring.” He further went on to explain that one can get isolated as the industry evolves more and more towards freelance work from home. For him, Creators Society has created a chance to make new friends on a wider scale.

Grant’s advice for any writers looking to break into the animation industry is the same advice he was given when he was starting out:“The truth is there are a whole lot of talented writers and great spec scripts out there. And all those writers want the same thing you want. So the challenge is to make your samples stand out from all the other material sitting on an executive’s desk. How do you do that? You have to be a sponge for criticism from knowledgeable people, take their notes when they make sense even if it means killing something you were particularly proud of, and be willing to rework your material through as many drafts as necessary until every word is absolutelyburnished, every joke as funny as it can possibly be, until the whole piece from beginning to end is a pleasure to read. I followed that advice, spent six months writing and rewriting one half hour spec script. And when it was done that one live action script opened countless doors for me - including, surprisingly, the door to Warner Bros. Animation which introduced me to a world I’d never imagined being part of and which has changed my life in so many wonderful and unexpected ways.”