Walt Disney Facts!

Ok I just came across this on neatorama, it's Walt's Birthday, and here's some fun things you might not know about him.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/12/05/happy-birthday-walt-disney/

Sketch Crawl

We're having a sketch crawl 1:00 this Saturday at Union Station in the main lobby. Hope to see you there! :)

Thanks Jackie!

Thank you Jackie for sharing Botnik with us Friday!

And thanks to everyone who came out!

December Sketchcrawl

We're planning on having a sketchcrawl Saturday, December 6th somewhere indoors. We're thinking Union Station, but are looking for other ideas. Please post a comment with any ideas or send us an email. Please check back for further updates. Thanks!

For you stop motion fans!

November Meeting- BOTNIK!

Come see Calabash Animation's newest short animated film, Botnik! Meet and hear from creator, writer, director, Jackie Smessaert Brennan at Columbia College on Friday, Nov 14th at 7pm. Room 502 at 1104 S Wabash Ave.

Fears of the Dark

Have very many of you heard about this movie called Fears of the Dark? It's by 6 well known graphic designers. Here's the trailer for it-



It looks like it's only playing for a few days at the Landmark, so a few of us are planning on seeing it Thur night at the 7:15 showing. If anyone else is interested in going too, please let us know!!

Free Flash Training!

Acend has got a free training seminar.  I've been to one of their workshops before and they're chock full of info.  Register for their Flash training seminar in Chicago here:

http://www.ascendtraining.com/events-detail.php?eventID=37

November Guest Speaker!

Hi everyone! We're working on getting Jackie, the director of Botnik, to be our guest speaker in November. Please check out Botnik at the Chicago International Film Festival if you can!!
http://2008.chicagofilmfestival.org/FilmsEvents/films.php?search=botnik&submit=search

Sita Sings the Blues

A group of us are going to see Sita Sings the Blues on Sunday at 12:15 at the AMC River East. If anyone else is going to that showing, please look for us and say hi!!

http://2008.chicagofilmfestival.org/FilmsEvents/films.php?title&page=9

Botnik!

Botnik!, an 11 minute short from Chicago's very own Calabash Animation, will be playing at the Chicago Internation Film Festival very soon! Come see Jackie Smessaert Brennan's cool new film in the Short 1: Illinois Filmmakers program.

Botnik! (USA)Director - Jacqueline Smessaert Brennan When an artist is forced to unveil his newest art installation ahead of schedule, he turns to an untested robot for assistance. Unfortunately, this robot does not come as packaged. 11 Mins

playing:
Sunday- 10-19: 12:00
Monday-10-20: 6:20
Monday-10-27: 6:15

Please come see it!

For more on Botnik!, please visit:
Botnik's MySpace page
Jackie's Facebook page

High Fructose Article

They've got an interview with designer/animator Chris Reccardi who's worked on alot of shows you've probably watched, including Powerpuff Girls, Ren & Stimpy, Foster's Home, ect. Check out the interview!

http://www.hifructose.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=208

Sita Sings the Blues

***Edited- I just noticed on the site that the show for this Sunday has changed from 12:45 to 12:15.***

I just found out that Sita Sings the Blues will be playing very soon at the Chicago International Film Festival!!

Here's the info from their site-

SITA SINGS THE BLUES
Nina Paley
Animator Nina Paley interweaves the Hindu epic Ramayana with a modern divorce story with surprising ease in the visually engrossing Sita Sings the Blues. Each aspect of the story has its own unique look, and songs by jazz singer Annette Hanshaw heighten the emotion throughout. The bright colors, easy humor, and vital music combine to make the film an impressive, inventive feat. 82 mins
USA

10/18/08 4:40 PMRE9
10/19/08 12:15 PMRE5
10/28/08 6:15 PMRE9

http://2008.chicagofilmfestival.org/FilmsEvents/films.php?title&page=9

Academy Posts Animation

This page has video highlights, podcasts, and images from the Academy of Motion Picture's animation exhibits from this year.

http://www.oscars.org/events/past/2008/animation/index.html

Interview with Miss Piggy's Creator

Smithsonian Magazine has an interview up with Bonnie Erickson, the creator of Miss Piggy!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/atm-qa-200810.html

Early Animation Screening with live music

Chicago Cinema Forum presents

MAGIC IN CINEMA
Early Silent Films with Musical Live Accompaniment

Wednesday, September 17
Doors at 7pm / Films at 8pm

- - - - - - - -

Films by Georges Méliès, Edwin S. Porter, R W Paul and Lotte Reiniger

Music by Jeff Parker (of Tortoise) and Shannon Harris

- - - - - - - -

Sonotheque
1444 W. Chicago
312.226.7600
www.sonotheque.org

Doors at 7pm / Films at 8pm / $8 Cover

- - - - - - - -

"Magic in Cinema"

Since Spielberg and Lucas gave birth to the modern blockbuster in the late-70s, mainstream cinema has been addicted to special effects. These days, CGI (computer-generated imagery) is ubiquitous, and the drive to create ever-more "credible" illusions seems so often to be the contemporary blockbuster's ultimate raison d'être.

Yet special effects--or rather the use of magic in all its forms--have been a crucial aspect of cinema since its infancy at the turn of the 20th century. "Magic in Cinema" will showcase some of the most mystical and mesmerizing moments in early film history with a selection of films (1896-1905) by Georges Méliès, the first wizard of cinema, a recently restored print of Lotte Reinger's animated film "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1926), Edwin S. Porter's "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" (1906), R W Paul's surreal "The ? Motorist" (1906) and other equally mystifying celluloid treats.

Music for Reiniger's "Prince Achmed" will be composed and performed by guitarist Jeff Parker of Tortoise. The scores for the Méliès, Porter and R W Paul films will be composed and played by producer/musician Shannon Harris. They each, individually, will score new compositions and perform them live for the first time. Both sections are approximately 1 hour with a short break in-between.

Curated by Gabe Klinger

Films Selected by Joe Bryl

- - - - - - - -

Filmmaker & musician bios and more information at www.chicagocinemaforum.org

Acting for Animators Workshop

Hi everyone,
Received this email from Maria Ricciardi for a CHICAGO ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOP.
The course being taught by Ed Hooks in Chicago and it's October 4th.

Chicagoanimators.com Interviews

I've edited and uploaded a few interviews today onto the forums at ChicagoAnimators.com
Including:

Dave Pryor - local chicagoan, alumni of Startoons, and animator of "Alien for Christmas"

Bobby Beck - Pixar animator and one of the founders of AnimationMentor.com

Glen McIntosh - ILM Charater Animator, worked on films such as The Spiderwick Chronicles, Transformers, Star Wars, Jurassic Park

Bob Rissetto - Local Chicagoan, animator and illustrator

Michael Daley - Storyboard and Story artist from San Francisco

Bruno Werneck - Another local Chicago artist, works on film and video game concept art

More Princess & the Frog Pictures!!!

The character design blogspot has some nice images:

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-pics-from-princess-and-frog.html

Cartoon Skeletons

An exhibition at the natural history museum in Basel, Switzerland, imagines what may lie beneath the skins of cartoon characters. Best of both worlds for me! Check it out!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/2579628/Cartoon-skeletons.html

Art Institute MUST SEE!

The Art Institute of Chicago's holding a special exhibit on Bill Peet
August 23, 2008–May 24, 2009

There's more info on their website:

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/peet

Found out about this through Mark Kennedy's blog: http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/

New Interviews!

There's some more Comic-Con Interviews posted now at
ChicagoAnimators.com

Its under the events topic

:)

Many more to come!

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

OK if you need ANYthing animation...it's going to be in here somewhere. They had a booth set up at comic-con and it was AMAZING.

http://www.animationarchive.org/

LA WIA chapter

Last Thursday night at Comic-Con a group of us WIA Chicago members got to hang out with the LA chapter for a bit. It was really great meeting with everyone there, especially Jan Nagel and Rita Street. :)

Back from the Con!

Alright everyone! Fresh back from SanDiego today. I actually got quite a few interviews and will be posting them at chicagoanimators.com as soon as I upload them. I got interviews with quite a range of people from Pixar, Dreamworks, Cartoon Network, Comicbooks, ect. Hopefully I'll be able to post a list shortly, just before posting the whole interviews.

San Diego Comic-Con

I'll try to take some interviews of artists/animators while I'm at my first Comic-con so I can post them either here or on my blog.

I'm thinking of a three question format, just to make things quick and would love your input. If you have any good potential questions to ask, or any requests on artists/animators to bug with these questions, let me know!

Kristine

Sketch Crawl today!

We're still having the sketch crawl today despite how hot or stormy it may get. We can sit inside and draw. Hopefully the zoo will be a lot less crowded due to the yucky weather and we can draw without kids peering over our shoulders. ;)

Sketch Crawl Reminder

Reminder-

The next sketch crawl will be July 12th at 2pm at Lincoln Park Zoo. We will meet inside the gorilla house. See you then! :)

Presto! Pixar Short

Pixar's got a bit about Presto on thier website.

http://www.pixar.com/shorts/presto/index.html

Chicago Animators- New Online Community!!!

There's a new online Chicago animators' community! Patrick Cheng graciously created it. Below is his email-


Hello, this is Patrick.

After some preparation, a few others and I have created a new online forum for Chicago Animators known as ChicagoAnimators.com.

We wanted to create a comfortable, online hub for Chicago animators, be they professionals, students and/or hobbyists of any form to be able to speak with each other, and ultimately, to create a tighter knit of an Animation community here in Chicago.

We hope you can join us to help mold a community in Chicago for animators, so please come visit:

ChicagoAnimators.com

Please don't forget to tell others about it!

Attached to this email is a banner sized image of our logo. If you would like, please feel free to put it on your blog or site to help spread the word of this new community.

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Patrick Cheng

July Sketch Crawl

The next sketch crawl will be July 12th at 2pm at Lincoln Park Zoo. We will meet inside the ape house. See you then! :)

Sketch Crawl June 14th

I'm reposting the sketchcrawl info because it's buried below so many other posts:

Mark your calenders for Sat, June 14th at 1:00 will be the first sketchcrawl of the year. We're meeting at Millennium Park on the lawn of the Jay P. Pavilion. (the big band shell) The first 15 minutes will be our official meeting. So, please come with any ideas as to what you want WIA to do this year. We are working on scheduling guest speakers, but if there's anything else you are interested in doing, please let us know at the meeting. Thanks. See you then!

Women's Portrayl in Film and TV

There's an interesting article on AWN about the portrayal of women in tv and movies. Gender In Media: Females Don’t Rule Please take the time and read it. If not, at least read the quotes below-

"Historically, there are multiple reasons why female lead characters are less abundant than males in the television, film, and animation industries. Male writers and/or creative talent were the predominant architects in the building of the animation industry; and, as many writers do, they wrote from the perspective they knew, observes Helppie...."

"'And as more female executives came to the forefront with the power to greenlight productions or oversee creative storylines, stronger female identities and less stereotypic portrayals were encouraged. The networks and children's broadcasters also pushed to have more engaging, leadership-driven, and less stereotypic, female roles in their programming.'"

After giving sad figures on the lack of women in the industry, Dr. Smith adds, "Maybe the answer is that for change to occur even more women are needed in the creative process where key decision-making occurs at the pitch and story development level...."

author- Jane Nagel

The Animation Show

The Animation Show is in Chicago this weekend (at the Music Box) and Bill Plympton will be there tonight.

"THE ANIMATION SHOW is back with an all new collection of incredible independent animation! This year MIKE JUDGE has gathered together over two dozen of his favorite funny short films from around the world. It's a ground breaking program of eye-popping adult animation from tomorrow's next great animators. Friday, May 23rd marks the all new ANIMATION SHOW 4 kick's off at the Music Box Theatre with special guest BILL PLYMPTON in attendance! The Animation Show crew will be on-hand for preshow fun with give-aways and VJ set by animator Run Wrake. After the show Plympton will discuss his new short "Hot Dog.'"

http://musicboxtheatre.com/animationshow.html

Memorial Day Figure Drawing Marathon!

Memorial Day Model Marathon
Monday, May 26th, 2008
7 am – 7 pm

12 hours of models in multiple studios for quick sketch drawing. Lunch and refreshments are included. $20 for members, $25 for non-members. No need to pre-register.

"Identify the famous artists in the link below, and move to the front of the line at the BBQ grill."

http://paletteandchisel.org/~files/marathon-masters.jpg

The Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts
1012 N. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 642-4149

Women Animator at the Cannes Film Festival

Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that I am at the Cannes Film Festival! I have been talking up "the 3 artists" and I even meet some people from WIA-LA. I hope you all have a wonderful summer, I will be at Nickelodeon! But I will keep in touch through the blog! See you all soon, hopefully! Also if we are not friends on facebook, please friend me, I will be keeping in touch through there also. Good luck to all of you! -Jennifer Nelson

Sketch Crawl and Meeting

Mark your calanders- Sat, June 14th at 1:00 will be the first sketchcrawl of the year. We're meeting at Millinium Park on the lawn of the Jay P. Pavilion. (the big band shell) The first 15 minutes will be our official meeting. So, please come with any ideas as to what you want WIA to do this year. We are working on scheduling guest speakers, but if there's anything else you are interested in doing, please let us know at the meeting. Thanks. See you then!

Sketch Crawl in works

Check back soon for the next sketchcrawl date!

WMS Open House

WMS Networking Evening

WMS would like to invite you to its Networking Evening May 5th. This evening will provide the opportunity to tour the WMS facilities and network with your colleagues.

We will have industry professionals onsite from the following groups:

Art
Software Engineering
Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
Game Development
Product Assurance
Project Management
Research & Development

Registration is not required; however we would like to confirm with you the group you will meet prior to the evening. If you know in advance that you are attending please respond to mflanagan@wms.com

We look forward to showing you WMS and discussing current trends in the industry with you over refreshments.

Please feel free to pass this information to other industry professionals who might like to join us.

Looking forward to meeting you,
WMS

Event Details

Monday May 5th
4:00pm-8:00pm

WMS 3401 N California Ave
Chicago, IL 60618

Columbia College Chicago Animation Production Studio Screening

APS Screening
Friday, May 16, 2008

6:00-Reception
7:00-Screening
1104 S. Wabash
8th floor screening room

Come and join the Senior Animation Production classes of CCC for their senior short animation film screening. Get their early, sitting is limited.

For a map go to: http://www.colum.edu/About_Columbia/Maps.php It is number 3 on the map.

Ollie Johnston 1912-2008

the end of an era

Pixar Movie Realeases

Ain't it Cool's got a breakdown of all the upcoming Pixar movies as presented to the press the other day. They go way in depth into the plots of Wall-e and Up which I didn't fully read so as not to spoil the story. The Bear and the Bow is much shorter, and spoiler free really.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36333

more links

Here's a listing of quotes. But more importantly, scroll down and check out the interview list that this guy's got. Some nice Ron/John interviews, Glen Keane, Deja and Baena.

bloggerlink

Disney/Pixar

Check this out! This is the line up for Disney/Pixar the next few years. And for the first time a woman will be helming a Pixar film! Seems all the upcomin Pixar movies will also be in digital 3D.

Variety article

Seems the director, Brenda Chapman, comes from Illinois! This is not her first directing credit, she directed The Prince of Egypt.

wiki article

April Get-Together

Happy Spring everyone! The next WIA "gathering" will be at our apartment on the North-West Side of Chicago Saturday, April 12th at 5:00. Please bring money for pizza and feel free to bring any of your own work you'd like to share with the group (portfolios, animation, artwork...) Look out for an email from Katy about the details. If you're not on the WIA email list, please send Katy an email at chicagowia@yahoo.com.

Hope to see you then! :)

-Catherine & Sarah

Spring :D

Spring is here! (despite the snow) We're trying to put together more meetings, sketchcrawls, and a social. So, please check back in a week or so for April's event(s).

Also, like Katy said, please think about what you want to do for the meetings- speakers? demonstrations? events? also, where do you want the sketchcrawls?

Thanks.

No March Meeting!

ATTENTION! NO MARCH MEETING

As you know, for the past few months we have had speakers and demonstrations on various animation topics.

Before we go ahead and try to schedule more, I would like to get some feedback from you - the members - on what you liked (or did not like) about the presentations. Also, if you have ideas for topics you would like to see presented or learn more about - let us know! I know we all have a variety of interests and I think we can all benefit if we began to share our ideas.

You can reply to this blog or email me directly at chicagowia@yahoo.com

Thanks, Katy

Reminder!!!!!!

Hi everyone. This is a reminder for the next WIA meeting, which will be Wednesday, Feb. 20th @ the 1104 S. Wabash building, in room 413.

Feb. Free at Art Institute!

Admission to the Art Institute is FREE for the month of February! The Edward Hopper exhibit opens Feb. 16th and it'll only be $11 for the whole month! (it goes back up to $21 March 1st)

Oscar Nominated Animation Shorts Screening

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/Chicago/Chicago_Frameset.htm

The landmark is screening all the animated shorts nominated for this years Oscar starting the 15th.

3D Animation and Compositing

Hi all this is when we are having our next meeting.

WIA
presents
Emily Berveiler
A Columbia graduate, that now works in the world of professional 3D commercial animation and effects, will speak about the How to's of 3D animation in a production pipeline.

Wednesday, February 20th
1104 S.Wabash Building
Room 413
6:00 pm

Hope to see you all there. A flyer soon to come.

Flash Meeting

We had a full house at the meeting tonight. Patrick gave a great presentation about Flash animation- it's history and the basics. Here are some recommended books and links Patrick suggested in his handout-

How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS3
Hollywood 2D Digital Animation: The New Flash Production Revolution
ColdHardFlash.com
Keyframer.com
Newgrounds.com
Frederator.com
Flashkit.com

We are currently planning next month's meeting. Check back in a week or so for the date.

Q&A with Stevie Wermers-Skelton, Co-Director of the "How to Hook Up Your Home Theatre" short

The following is a Q&A with Stevie Wermers-Skelton, hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question for this interview, there were some great questions. It'll be a nice topic for discussion at our meeting on Wednesday. I sent a thank you to Tamara Boutcher, producer of "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" for helping me get our questions to Stevie.

And now on to the interview:

Did you always want to work in animation or did you start out on a different path?

I started on a different path. Even though I had always drawn when I was a kid, I wasn’t sure I could ever make a living at it. So I aimlessly went to junior college for a few years and worked several office jobs that were uninteresting to me—mostly accounting stuff.

What/Who inspired you to go into a career in animation?

It wasn’t until I saw “Beauty and the Beast” when I was 25 that I decided I wanted to do something else with my life. Obviously, toiling away in an “office space” type of environment had me stuck in a rut—so I then decided “what the heck” and applied at Cal Arts. And here I am. (Who knew??)

How did you find yourself working for Disney, what’s your background?

I went to Cal Arts for two years , but never completed the four year program, because it was the mid-90s – post – ‘Lion King’ era and Disney was aggressively pursuing new talent. So after only my sophomore year, I was thrilled to be offered an internship with them in the fall of ’94 in Florida. I then graduated to a position as an inbetweener on “Pocahontas” and shortly afterward I took a test to move myself to the story department, and have pretty much been at the Company ever since.

Did the idea to use Goofy or the idea for the Story come first?

The idea to use Goofy came first. Our Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter wanted to make new shorts starring Disney classic characters. Kevin Deters (co-director of the Goofy short) and I both thought Goofy would be the most fun. Then Kevin had the idea, and I thought it was intriguing. So we went with it.

When writing/directing the short were there any unexpected challenges, and how did using Goofy as a character influence the direction of the story?

Initially, some of our colleagues thought that using the classic characters might be a bit too old-fashioned and that the public wouldn’t find them interesting. We thought otherwise, obviously, feeling that if we could put Goofy back up on the big screen it would fill many people with the “warm and fuzzy” nostalgia of the old shorts as well as introduce a whole new generation to these characters.

Goofy influenced the story by his sheer good-natured attitude. Instead of getting angry or frustrated like Donald, Goofy just seems to take everything in stride. This made it easier to make the short a bit more modular, because the character doesn’t dwell on things that have happened to him…he just moves on to the next task.

What was the creative process that led to choosing to do a modernized version of a classically styled Goofy short?

Like I said, we wanted to recapture the feel of the classic shorts for nostalgia, but also update it with a new and more relevant subject matter, sort of for a “one-two “punch. Plus, we just really admired the look of those early shorts, and simultaneously thought, hey, why not re-use some of the original backgrounds from them? This way we had a template to follow to keep us on track artistically, and we could save labor by not having to paint new ones. It just made sense.

Were there any other looks to the design of the short you played with or was it automatically decided that it would be stylized after the classic shorts?

It was automatically decided.

Were other classic Disney characters considered for this renewed effort by Disney to do 2-d films?

Yes. There were several fun ideas that were considered.

I read that this was animated on a Cintique. Is this true?

Half of the animators drew on the Cintiq, while the others just kept it “old school” and used paper.

If so, why was this technique chosen and was all the animation done this way or just certain parts?

The Cintiqs were the obvious choice of tool to use (with the “Harmony” software by Toon Boom) because of its ability to recreate the feeling of paper drawing.

How did the animators adjust to using a computer rather than pencil and paper? Did they have to adjust or were they already used to working digitally?

The artists who had animated with the computer adjusted quite well. Dale Baer actually found that he prefers this technique to drawing on paper, simply because it is so much easier to make corrections, and you can see your work instantly. (Although to keep a bit of the old-school feel, he has taped a peg bar onto the bottom of his cintiq tablet! Very cute.)

How long did this short take to create?

The short took about 15 months total with 3-4 months story and editorial and the rest production.

How many animators worked on the Goofy short?

There were six extremely talented and well-known animators who helped us out: Dale Baer, Andreas Deja, Mark Henn, Alex Kupershmidt, Randy Haycock and Eric Goldberg. Like Kevin says, it was an embarrassment of riches, “kind of like calling the SWAT team to get a cat out of a tree.”

Did the animators have any particular challenges animating such an iconic character as Goofy?

Only that we wanted the animation to be as good as the John Sibley stuff from the 40’s. Before we started animation on the short, we had a meeting with all the guys and we watched our favorite animated Goofy scenes from that era—analyzing them in trying to figure out what made them so appealing. I think the guys ended up doing a great job, and I think they had a lot of fun doing it as well. They certainly weren’t limited to any realistic movements , (being that Goofy is so pliable) which I’m sure was a welcome change!

How did you feel being able to produce/direct a Disney short, especially with such a beloved classic character?

Quite honored, actually. Like I said, so many people, including myself, have a “warm and fuzzy” nostalgia for Goofy, so you really don’t want to mess it up. We had a certain responsibility to make sure that Goofy came across just right, and do him justice. We had no intention of “updating” him with trendy hip-hop clothes and putting him on a skateboard, if you know what I mean.

What was the best thing about directing/producing this short, and what was difficult?

The best thing was getting to know a whole new set of people, and learning about what exactly they all do in the pipeline. Working in the story department for so many years had given me a very limited and myopic view of the entire process. Not until you start heading up something do you fully realize just how much labor goes into these things. I’ve always known, I suppose, just didn’t appreciate it as much before.
As far as what was most difficult, I would have to say it was just trying to keep track of everything since Kevin and I were working on 2-3 different projects simultaneously. Again, I had been so used to being focused on ONE aspect of the process for so many years, that it was difficult to suddenly be pulled into several directions at once. (But I’m getting used to it.)

What are you working on now?

Right now Kevin and I are in the midst of our second short, entitled “the Ballad of Nessie,” which is a tall-tale Mary Blair-ish style of cartoon. It was my second year film at Cal Arts, so it is really a labor of love for me.
We are also working on some other things, most of which I can’t discuss right now... (sorry!)

What are the plans on future Disney 2-d shorts? Are we going to see more classic characters in their own shorts in the future?

I’m sure hoping there will be more. There hasn’t been any call specifically for 2D shorts, just shorts that are entertaining. We usually let the subject matter dictate in what medium it should be told. And I have a feeling that at some point there will be some new shorts that have other classic characters.

Did you go into the film knowing that you would be the first woman to direct a Disney short or did you find out later?

No, I didn’t know. And honestly, I don’t like to shine any kind of spotlight on it. I just think of myself as another employee, someone who was in the right place at the right time, and is just trying to do her best.

Interview with Tamara Boutcher

Tamara Boutcher, from the new Goofy short got in touch with me answering the questions that everyone gave me. I will post them shortly!

South Beach Intl Animation Festival

If any wants to enter, here's the link to the South Beach Animation Festival:

www.southbeachanimationfest.com

"As the producer of the South Beach International Animation Festival and past president of our local chapter of Women Of the Motion Picture Industry, it is my pleasure to invite your members to enter our festival.
Please, find information and entrance form visiting our website at www.southbeachanimationfest.com."
Thank you.
Noreen Legault-Mendoza

FLASH

Hello all!! This is a reminder about the next WIA meeting.

A FLASH DEMO
by
Patrick Cheng

A local Chicago freelancer, that will give a brief history about Flash and a demo of how to use Flash in todays Animation Industry.

Wednesday, January 23rd
1104 S. Wabash Building
Room 415
6:00pm

I will later post a flyer. Hope to see you all there!

Persepolis

Persepolis starts this Friday at the Landmark. It's about a 9 year old girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution who has to flee her country. Definitely worth seeing!

Keaton Fans!

Any Buster Keaton fans out there? If so, The General will be showing at the Music Box next weekend- Jan. 12th and 13th at 11:30 am. :)

Hey! This is the 100th post! Yay! :D