BY MATT HERSH

Bryan Waterman’s animation career started as a small project before he left for college.  Now, he’s producing his first full-length animated film with a comedy legend.

Waterman, 22, recently announced the “Waterman Movie: Where in the World is Ready Espanosa,” which will feature the voice of comedy star Leslie Nielsen, famous for acting in movies such as “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun,” among others.

Nielsen will provide the voice of a famous explorer who gets lost on a deserted island.

For Waterman, a lifelong Salem resident who grew up watching Nielsen’s films, the project is the biggest opportunity he’s ever had in his career as a writer and producer of the online  flash animation series.

“As a kid growing up, I had two goals,” he said.  “One was to have my own animated series, and the other was to work alongside Leslie Nielson.”

Though he’s finally realizing these goals, Waterman said he never knew his animation career would take off so rapidly.

It started humbly as an experiment when Waterman placed a five-minute pilot episode of “Waterman: The Animated Series” on Newgrounds.com, where aspiring animators can show off their work.

The cartoon features a fictionalized version of Waterman and other characters based on his friends, family and acquaintances, who find themselves in humorous situations ranging from extreme ping-pong tournaments to trying to save themselves from their murderous armadillo neighbor. Though the characters appear in each one, every episode tells its own story and is full of obscure movie and television references.

“I thought about seven people were going to look at it,” Waterman said. “But within two hours, more than 20,000 people had watched it. Within a week the number was up to 100,000, and I thought maybe we should actually take a crack at this.”

Waterman and his team of friends, who added voices and animation work, went on to  produce eight similar episodes, which received a positive reception on the site, winning awards based on viewer ratings.

Throughout the series, Waterman had used the music of Reel Big Fish, one of his favorite bands, “borrowing” it to add life to the cartoon. But when he decided to produce a DVD containing all the episodes, he contacted the band to get their consent.

Waterman said the band members had already heard about his cartoon and enjoyed it. They offered to appear in the next episode where they debuted a new song. 

This small taste of fame pushed Waterman to outdo himself. He attempted and successfully completed a 22-minute episode which was met with rave reviews.

“It was the best one we’ve ever done,” he said. “People loved it and we wondered how we could outdo ourselves even more.”

With his sights set on a full-length movie, Waterman decided to seek out Nielsen. The task was more difficult than he could have guessed.

After a year of making contact with every possible connection he could think of from movie studios to small playhouses where Nielson had spoken, Waterman hadn’t gotten far. 

Waterman eventually reached Nielsen’s secretary, who promised to discuss the project with the actor.  However, she died shortly afterward and Waterman was about to give up hope.

“I thought about other options and considered scrapping the whole project,” he said.  “A month later I got an e-mail from Leslie Nielson that read ‘Love the idea, call me tomorrow.’”

The two talked for three hours the next day and agreed to meet in person to discuss the project.

Nielson signed on to the project and recorded his lines at a studio in Florida.  Waterman and his production team are working on putting the movie together with the goal of releasing it on DVD by the end of the year.

Though his animation and movie career has only recently begun to yield profits, Waterman said it’s the right fit for him, and he has bigger things planned.

“I’m really hoping the next step will be television,” said Waterman who is also working on two television pilots. 

“Hopefully the Waterman Movie will pick up a lot of attention and maybe some one will be interested in one of the pilots we’re working on.”

For more information, visit www.watermanstudios.com.