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Storer Studios and Charlie decided to seek a patent on the device and soon afterward, the task of figuring out a way to come up with a more reliable system that could potentially be sold to other producers got underway.
Here’s where the heavens aligned further.
Students from the Atlanta Art Institute came to Storer Studios to tour the facilities and spotted the old homemade animation stand stored in the corner of the sound stage. Their instructor, Tullio Petrucci, had already seen the computer system on the studio’s Oxberry animation stand and Charlie had told him that he wanted to convert it to a commercially viable system.
Tullio said he had a friend who was just the man to do the electronics…Gene Nottingham.
Tullio had a plan: He would get Gene to help out with redesigning the system electronics if the studio would donate the homemade animation stand to the school.
Gene came by the studio a few days later and that meeting marked the beginning of a friendship, a business relationship and mutual respect between Gene, Charlie and Don that would stand the test of time.
Gene and Charlie concentrated on creating a stable solid-state electronic design that could be commercially viable and Don contributed to the final system by lending his considerable expertise in how the system should interact with its operators and picking up the slack created in studio operations when Charlie focused on the computer system project and refining the software.
The creation of Storer Studios in Atlanta in the mid-1960’s seemed like a good idea at the time but in retrospect it was about five or more years too soon. The studio grew but nonetheless struggled for about four years. Eventually, history proved that Atlanta was not yet prepared to support an 8200 square foot sound stage plus editing, sound and animation operations.
Despite valiant effort by all the people who worked for the studio and did their best to make it a success it was not to be. As the demise of Storer Studios became inevitable, Bob and Charlie struck an agreement that permitted Charlie to retain ownership of the intellectual property involved in his animation system in exchange for his interest in the studio.
(More photographs and an industry ad for Storer Studios are in the Storer Studios Gallery section)
Bob also agreed to rent the Oxberry camera and the system hardware to Charlie to allow for further development of the system. The arrangement allowed Charlie to use the equipment for any animation production that he wanted to take on.
Bob Storer’s understanding of the importance of the computer animation system and his generosity in allowing Charlie to obtain full rights to the invention were immensely instrumental in the eventual emergence and success of Cinetron.
When the studio finally closed, Bob moved on to pursue his interest in Motion Pictures and to establish a successful equipment rental and grip service in Miami.