Many who frequent Animation Scoop are aware of the great work that Women in Animation is doing. Apart from the initiative at the cornerstone of their work to create gender equality in the animation industry, reaching “50-50 by 2025”, they strive to educate women all stages of their careers. To that end, they host a variety of panels, events, and gatherings, from which many aspiring animators, and those working inside the studio already benefit.

Former events include ‘What is a Show Runner, Anyway?’ And both Zootopia and Kung Fu Panda 3 screenings and panel discussions. (see their past events here). Even if you aren’t a member of the animation profession, you can still take part. Most of their L.A.-based events are open to non-members for a small entrance fee, on a first-come first-served basis. The next event is Storyboarding Secrets on June 28th, and for fans, it sounds like a great way to get an insider’s look at how some of their favorite animation is built from the ground up.

Here is the announcement and information from the Women in Animation website:

Next Tuesday, June 28 is our STORYBOARDING SECRETS panel with talented board artists Lorna Cooke (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron), Larry Leker (The Other Side of the Wind), Linda Miller (The Fox and the Hound), Randall Myers (We Bare Bears), Christina Sotta (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and moderator Craig Miller – RSVP here.

When
June 28th 2016 – 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (PDT)
Location
The Animation Guild, 1105 N. Hollywood Way Burbank, CA 91505
members: free
non-members: $15
RSVP Required – Seating is limited and on a first come first serve basis

Some of the top animation board artists tell you their secrets for taking words on a page and translating them into images and visual storytelling that bring a project to life. Plus how to get and keep jobs.

Panelists Include:

Lorna Cook
Co-director of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a winner of four Annie Awards. Her extensive credits as an animator include: The Land Before Time and Universal Pictures’ An American Tail. Ms Cook was an animator on two Academy Award winning films from Walt Disney Pictures: Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Ms Cook spent several years as a valued story artist at Disney as well, including being a key story artist on The Lion King, Mulan, and later was co-head of story on DreamWorks The Prince of Egypt.

Larry Leker
Larry Leker has worked in film for over 40 years, starting on Orson Welles’ final unreleased film, The Other Side of the Wind. After that, at age 18 he blundered into animation with Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings and found it paid better than my previous job as a short order cook. The longer he did it, however, the more he find he’s still a order cook. He has cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a thousand snacks between, spending decades slaving over story, layout, painting, art direction, scene planning, animation, checking and directing for Ralph Bakshi, H&B, Don Bluth, Disney, Dreamworks, and dozens of smaller studios. More remarkably, he still cares about what he does. They say breakfast is the most important meal and it’s true, so these days he sticks mostly to story because if we don’t get that right we might as well go back to bed.

Linda Miller
Linda Miller considered it her destiny to grow up a nd work for Walt Disney. She went to Art Center College for two years of life drawing. In her last year at Art Center, she submitted a portfolio to Disney and entered their animation training program. She worked as an animator on The Small One and The Fox and the Hound before leaving Disney to help start Don Bluth Studios. She stayed with Bluth for ten years, animating on The Secret of NIM, the Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace games, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and other projects. Over that time, she became involved in character design, story, and directing. Since leaving Bluth, she has worked for many studios, doing storyboards, character design, and visual development. She has directed episodes of Dilbert and The Oblongs, and with Alex Mann, created and scripted the Porchlight Entertainment TV special, A Martian Christmas. Currently, she is doing the job she wanted to do when she started out: Character Designer for the Disney Junior show Sofia The First.

Randall Myers
Randall Myers was born and raised in Southern California. After graduating from Palmdale High School, he attended California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in Valencia California. He has worked for all the major animation studios in the Los Angeles area, which includes Disney Animation, Warner Bros Animation, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. Randy has worked both on animated feature films and animated TV productions that total more then 40 projects. During his time working in animation, Randy has been nominated 5 times for an Emmy award and has won twice. Randy also found time to go back to Cal Arts and taught animation for two years. Currently Randy is the Supervising Producer on a new show at Cartoon Network called We Bare Bears.

Christina Sotta
Christina Sotta attended Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and TV where she studied animation for three years. In the spring of 2011, she left to begin work at Warner Bros. Animation. Since then she’s worked her way up from a storyboard clean up artist on the popular television show Young Justice to a storyboard artist on the DC Direct-to-Video animated movies. She’s had the opportunity to work for the likes of Bruce Timm and James Tucker on projects including Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, and the upcoming Batman: The Killing Joke.

Moderator: Craig Miller
Moderator Craig Miller has been writing, developing, and producing for TV and films for over 25 years with the majority of his work in the children’s and young adult market. His 104-episode series Pocket Dragon Adventures was seen seven days a week on the BBC and in well over 100 countries around the world. He has over 200 credits, ranging from the multiple Emmy-winningCurious George and The Smurfs to Beast Wars and The Real Ghostbusters.

Miller has been a speaker on animation topics at the Annecy Animation Festival in France, Cartoons on the Bay in Italy, the Interactive Entertainment Festival in Scotland, and Animayo in Spainas well as for the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE), KidScreen Summit, the Writers Guild of America, Women in Animation, the Geena Davis Conference on Gender in Media, the San Diego Comic Con, and many other events.

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Leslie Combemale

Leslie is a freelance film critic and interviewer at Cinemasiren.com. She began representing artists and animation art in 1988, co-founding ArtInsights in 1994.

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