Jim Keeshen's "Day of the Dead"

In our November 2005 weblog posting entitled "Jim Keeshen Productions," we discussed the fact that AET animation professor Jim Keeshen used a number of teachers and students at Santa Monica College's Academy of Entertainment & Technology to work on his animated short, "The Day of the Dead" (a.k.a., "Dia de Los Muertos"). We followed up on Christmas 2005 with our "Love Me Tender" blog article in which we revealed that Dave Fontana, another AET professor, worked on "Day of the Dead." We followed up a few days later with another blog entry entitled, "Dave Fontana and Jim Keeshen Productions."

Just when we thought we were done, we've found yet another person who worked on Keeshen's "Day of the Dead": Isabelle Decencière. Originally from Peru, Isabelle moved to France to study drawing at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Valence. Later, she moved to Los Angeles, California to return to school where she studied graphic design, fine arts, visual arts, and traditional 2D animation and 3D animation. Isabelle learned such programs as Flash, Premiere, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Maya. These programs would be invaluable to her future career path.

She has worked on video game projects for MobyGames, Gray Matter Interactive Studios, Inc., Treyarch Invention, LLC, and Activision. At Activision, she worked on two Call of Duty games. She also has credits for children's books under her belt. Clearly, she's a very talented woman.

Isabelle states: "Towards the end of my stay (six years and half) I take part in a project of short film of animation called "The Day of the Dead" or I create the characters and the layouts, which the Americans call "inspirational drawings"." You can view her illustrations for the "Day of the Dead" HERE. This was part of a website that I designed for Jim Keeshen Productions during 2004. At the time, he did not tell me the story behind the color illustrations I placed online. The website is currently offline and I only place this part back online for reference to this blog article. I have changed the back button to return to the SAVE SMC website rather than the index page of the "Day of the Dead" website which no longer exists.

Since she came to Los Angeles in 1995, this places her work on Jim Keeshen's animated film around the years 2001 to 2002. Between 2002 and 2003, Isabelle traveled back and forth between the United States and France. Here's the section from Isabelle's website in France in which she discusses her work on "The Day of the Dead":

The illustrations which you will find if you press on the button "illustrations" of this page are some of the drawings of inspiration which I made for a short film of animation called "The Day of the Dead". This short film was carried out by Jim Keeshen. Being given that it did not leave yet to the light, I do not know if I have the right to speak about the splendid-enrich-insane history which it tells. What I can say to you it is that it is indeed (a) magnific (b) enrichissante and (c)folle. I hope that one day it will be born and will gain a great success, which would return to me very happy as (which knows?) rich person and famous.

Well, it appears Isabelle was never to become rich and famous on Keeshen's film. In fact, she was just another person Keeshen used to get one step further in his own career. For some reason or another, they had a falling out and Keeshen then dumped the project in the lap of Cecilia and myself, both students at AET. Did Keeshen use Dave Fontana before Isabelle or after? It is unclear.

What is known is that he ultimately abandoned both Fontana and Isabelle to finally settle on the Korean animation studio in Seoul which is owned by Keeshen's long-time friend, John Petrovitz. NIC Entertainment, Inc. in Burbank, California is a company owned by Petrovitz. Both Keeshen and Petrovitz worked on animated projects for Disney, Mattel, and Colgate. Interestingly, Petrovitz credits himself in 2000 as director of Overseas Productions for Film Roman, the company which ultimately replaced Jim Keeshen Productions on the "Family Guy" show created by Seth MacFarlane. In 2004, Petrovitz credits himself as Director of Overseas Production for Jim Keeshen Productions' "Day of the Dead."

Remember the cow illustration that Dave Fontana created for Jim Keeshen Productions? Well, Isabelle Decencière also did a paper mache project entitled "Cow's Story." Brigitte Ouvry wrote the story while Isabelle created the paper maches and photographed them. According to her description of the story, the farmer's wife doesn't like the fact that the cow is eating all her beautiful rose bushes and manages to send the cow to the moon. According to Isabelle, the story was never published or finished. In Fontana's illustration, the cow is flying to the moon on the back of a pink pig. Did Keeshen misappropriate this story from Isabelle? Here's the two pictures for you to compare.





A little know fact about Isabelle Decencière's work with Jim Keeshen is that in addition to working on his "Day of the Dead," she also worked on the Title VI-A Federal Grant project for Santa Monica College's alleged International Institute of Trade (I2). Both projects were done in the year 2001, the first under Jim Keeshen Productions and the second under Studio Animatics. Isabelle is created as both an animator and for the design of the project. Here's the screenshots I made from the federally funded project for animated language modules:









So, one wonders if Jim Keeshen used some of the money given to him under the Title VI-A grant to pay Isabelle Decencière for her work on his "Day of the Dead" project. In any event, as we've discussed in previous blog entries that include our emails to Robert Sammis, Jim Keeshen obtained the federal grant money through Studio Animatics, a company which did not exist, but in which he used a California federal tax identification number. Additionally, in his consultant contract, he claimed that he was not a district employee. Although he was to use his own equipment and pay for the project with his own expenses, it seems apparent that he used Santa Monica College's facilities and students to create the work he could not do himself.

As we stated in our Verified Complaint under the California Public Records Act, Jim Keeshen claimed that he was using the school to finish his "Day of the Dead" film. He stated to me: "When I'm in the position that I can say, ‘You know what, f--k you all, I'm leaving, goodbye,’ go in there and execute the rest of your plan." He was referring to my obtainment of public records belonging to the school, including those for his questionable Studio Animatics contracts with Santa Monica Community College District. Given the facts we've provided on this blog for the past several months, it seems more important than ever that I go forward with uncovering the details behind Jim Keeshen's use of our beloved public school for his own purposes.

Welcome to another year!

Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP


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