About

About us

Joni’s father was an architect. He taught her to draw, sketch, and create at a very young age. In high school, she took college prep courses, went on to become a high-acuity Registered Nurse — where her career landed and remained for more than 40 years. 
It was when she retired from Trauma/ICU/VIP Duty nursing that her passion for writing & creating books/animation for little ones surfaced. 
Joni is a prolific writer who enjoys creating characters for animation to perpetuate her storylines and entertain preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary audiences. “Tale of the Nite-Kite” is her second production. In 2016 Nowak financed, produced, and directed her first attempt at a film short, an 8-minute, 2D animation for preschoolers entitled “Sebastian Calls 911.” As the title suggests, the video detailed the problems Sebastian encountered when his Grandpa Slo Mo had chest pains and Sebastian had to get help in a hurry. Joni wrote the story and created the original sketches, which became the foundation of her first book and the guidance for Moses Meriga to animate the storyline in classic 2D.  Meriga again took Joni’s original sketches, this time for “Tale of the Nite-Kite,” and developed the 3D look of Joni’s characters, created the modeling packs, and directed the 13-minute animation. As was the case with “Sebastian Calls 911,” Joni’s sketches became the basis for the hardcover book that parallels the animated storyline; both books were designed by Randy Martin.
Those who know Joni will attest to her vision, determination, and success… and those friends are no doubt unsurprised that Nowak has at least 5 more video/film/ book concepts ready for production in 2023.

Joni Nowak

Executive Producer/Director-CEO/President
of Waterside Production Group

our crew

Khurram Khan

Animation Director

Jill Abramovitz

Actor/Singer/Lyricist

Ben Sullivan

Music/Orchestrations/Music Direction

Johan Sugarev

Sound Design

John Lorince

Post Production/Producer

Jean Czarnecki

Assistant Illustrator

our cast

Marty Allen

Narrator/VO Actor

Jordan Wilder

VO Actor - Sebastian

Becky Shrimpton

VO Actor - Charli/Dart

Larry Mauro

VO Actor - Fletcher

Jeremy Ernst

VO Actor - Edison

Who is the Waterside Production Group?

In the Spring of 2020, Joni Nowak founded The Waterside Production Group (WPG) to produce her double-barreled dream of animated shorts paired with accompanying hard-cover, 10″ by 10″, full-color children’s books. Today, WPG is fast becoming a rising star producer of high-quality 3D animation, as well as beautifully illustrated children’s books, which follow the storyline of the animation. Their productions are targeted primarily at preschool/kindergarten audiences.  Waterside Production Group is committed to producing and creating the highest-quality, relevant content in the children’s market today. 

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