East Los Angeles College, Cinema Without Borders and the National Film Board of Canada are proud to present the National Film Board of Canada Animation Day, the second edition of the annual East Los Angeles College International Animation Day.
The goal of the ELAC International Animation Festival is to give an in-depth and entertaining introduction to contemporary international animation. Screenings of short animated films from around the world, analyses and Q&A’s with a panel of well-known animation experts, and a tribute to an international animation artist working in the U.S. animation industry are all part of the festival program.
National Film Board of Canada Animation Day will be held on Saturday, May 21st at East Los Angeles College, located at 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, CA 91754. Screenings will be held in the S1 Art History Lecture Hall.
Program:
11: 30 AM Reception – Appetizers provided by Polka Restaurant
12:30 PM Opening Remarks
12: 45 PM An introduction to the National Film Board of Canada Animation by Maral Mohammadian, Producer at the English Animation Studio (NFB) in Montreal via Skype.
1: 00 PM Screening of Oscar winners from National Film Board of Canada:
Neighbours – Norman McLaren, 1952, 8 min 6 s
The Sand Castle – Co Hoedeman, 1977, 13 min 17 s
Special Delivery – Eunice Macaulay, John Weldon, 1978, 7 min 7 s
Every Child – Eugene Fedorenko, 1979, 6 min 28 s
Ryan – Chris Landreth, 2004, 13 min 57 s
The Danish Poet – Torill Kove, 2006, 15 min 4 s
2: 05 PM Panel discussion and Q & A. Mike Libonati, an animator and visual artist that runs ELAC’s animation department and panel moderator introduces the other panel members: Italian/American animator Cinzia Angelini, Animation Industry pioneer and expert Sarah Baisley, Lee Crowe an effect animator and an animation timing director, currently teaches at Cal State Northridge, Editor in Chief of Animation Magazine Tom McLean, Producer at the English Animation Studio (NFB) in Montreal Maral Mohammadian and Bill Recinos art director, producer, animator and creative director with eleven years of experience working at Walt Disney Feature Animation.
2: 30 PM The Making of Mila: Creating a Quality Animated Film via the World Wide Web, A presentation by Cinzia Angelini.
3:00 PM Return Of A Legend: A tribute to Phil Roman , for his return to Phil Roman Studio and winning Windsor MacCay Lifetime Achievement Award.
In this section Sarah Baisley introduces Phil Roman and after receiving CWB/ELAC Diploma of Honor, Mr. Phil Roman speaks to the audience.
3:30 PM: Closing remarks Announcing 2017 Latin American Animation Day an 2018 South East European Animation day.
To attend please RSVP at rsvp.animfest@gmail.com
Free parking will be available in Parking Structure # 4, the corner of Collegian Avenue and Floral Drive.
The Making of Mila
Creating a Quality Animated Film via the World Wide Web” presentation will share with the filmmaking community what a group of 250 artists from more than 25 countries learned while working on the project. The Director will discuss their experiences, challenges, tips and tricks on both the creative and production side of working on Mila and how a high quality animated film is developed and produced via the world wide web. Other topics of discussion will be: The Director’s motivation for choosing such a controversial topic, war, using animation and the journey it’s taken to make it a reality, Artistic Development, Animation and the technical challenges of working with a remote pipeline with 250 artists from more than 25 countries.
Return Of A Legend: A tribute to Phil Roman
Philip Roman (born December 21, 1930 in Fresno, California) is the founder of animation studios Film Roman and Phil Roman Entertainment. Roman is of Mexican American descent.
Early in his career, Roman was an animator for Chuck Jones’s independent studios, Sib Tower 12 Productions and later Chuck Jones Productions. He was a lead animator for 1966’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and also provided an audio commentary along with June Foray on the DVD release of the film.
The animation studio he founded, Film Roman, is best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons and King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox and MTV, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated television specials.
Roman directed the 1992 feature-length cartoon Tom and Jerry: The Movie. He was the director of a few Peanuts specials, as well as director or co-director of twelve of the thirteen prime-time Garfield television specials from 1982 to 1991, and was producer of the final Garfield special, Garfield Gets a Life.
Phil Roman sold Film Roman in 1999 and formed Phil Roman Entertainment. The company produced the animated special Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
Recently, Roman has served as the production supervisor and executive producer in the Mexican-American animated film El Americano: The Movie, set to be released in January 2016. Following Film Roman’s purchase by Waterman Entertainment, Roman returned to the company he founded as chairman emeritus. Phil Roman has won Windsor MacCay Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
Panel Members:
Cinzia Angelini
Cinzia Angelini has worked as an animator and story artist in feature productions for more than twenty years. She began the American chapter of her career at Dreamworks, followed a path that would lead to collaborations with all of the major studios in Hollywood, and is now a story artist at Illumination Entertainment. Her work includes “Prince of Egypt”, “Eldorado”, “Spirit”, “Sinbad”, “Spider-man 2″, “Open Season”, “Meet the Robinsons” and “Bolt”, the “How to train your Dragon” and “Kung Fu Panda” DVD specials, as well the Universal Theme Park ride for Despicable Me, “Minions Mayhem”. Her most recent work includes “Minions”, and several other feature productions coming soon.
Cinzia is also directing her own independent short film, “Mila”, a collaboration of 250 artists from 25 countries around the world, due out in 2016. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children and their dog, Pepper.
Sarah Baisley
Sarah Baisley served as editor in chief of AWN, 2003 to 2007. In charge of all content creation for popular monthly professional online magazine, three weekly newsletters and daily online news service serving the animation and visual effects industries worldwide (155 countries). Previously editor in chief of Animation Magazine for five years, she is a specialist in animation publicity and journalism and is freelancing now in the wine industry as a journalist and marketing specialist. She headed publicity at Hanna-Barbara, Ruby-Spears, Southern Star and Film Roman studios during the previous 17 years of her career. She is founding member of Women in Animation. She also is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and participates on panels concerning topics about the animation and visual effects industries. Currently she is a retailer and journalist about wine and spirits.
Lee Crowe
Lee is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, who studied animation at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. She began her career in Los Angeles at Tom Carter productions, with freelance gigs at Richard Williams and Kurtz and Friends. Her first long term job was at Film Roman followed by Filmation and BRC, where Lee did work as a character assistant animator and storyboard revisionist. Lee worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation doing character cleanup on the movies “The Little Mermaid” and “Brother Bear”, and as a special effects assistant on “The Rescuers Down Under”. She has also worked as an effects animator for Don Bluth, Ralph Bakshi (“Cool World”), Turner Studios (“Cats Don’t Dance”), Warner Brothers (“Space Jam,” “Osmosis Jones”), and Dreamworks (“Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron”). Lee returned to Film Roman as a Timing Director on the TV show “King of the Hill”, followed by a stint at Fox animation as a timer and storyboard artist on “Family Guy”. She has her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and has taught animation at the college level since 2004. She currently teaches at Cal State Northridge and is a Timing Director on “The Simpsons”.
Mike Libonati
Mike has been an animation and visual effects instructor for over 15 years. His students have had their work presented at Siggraph, CTN Animation Expo and various film festivals throughout the country. In addition to teaching, Mike works in 2D and 3D development in Los Angeles for various clients for both film and television including projects for Disney, Universal and Fox. Mike has also worked on renderings for architectural lighting design on projects such as the Coex Mall in Korea, Asia’s largest underground mall, and Tesla Motor Company in Los Angeles. Mike has a Master’s Degree from CalArts in Experimental Animation. He currently teaches animation at ELAC.
Tom McLean
Editor in Chief Animation Magazine. Tom McLean joined Animation Magazine as its editor in January 2014, and previously served as its online news editor and as a freelance contributor as far back as 2006. McLean has more than two decades of experience as a professional journalist and his writing on animation, film, television and comic books has appeared in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, VFX World, AwardsLine and Publisher’s Weekly, among others. McLean also wrote the book Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen (2008, Sequart) and appeared on-screen as an expert on the X-Men franchise in the 2013 Sequart documentary Comics in Focus: Chris Claremont’s X-Men. He previously worked on staff at Below the Line, Variety, the Daily Breeze, The Idaho Statesman and the Arizona Daily Sun. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the University of Arizona in 1991. A native of Edmonton, Canada, McLean lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.
Maral Mohammadian
Producer at the English Animation Studio (NFB) in Montreal. Maral studied film and music at Carleton University. Her experimental films have been screened at several festivals in Canada and the United States and have earned awards in Canada.
Recruited by the NFB’s English Animation Studio in 2006, Maral was the first associate producer of the Hothouse program for emerging animation filmmakers. In that capacity, she oversaw four editions of Hothouse and collaborated with the NFB Quebec Centre and Pop Montreal on two editions of the Making Music project for emerging filmmakers.
She was production manager of the StereoLab 3D film studio before serving as line producer for the French Program’s webdoc Ici chez soi (Here At Home).
Before returning to the English Animation Studio as a producer, she also served as interim producer at the Quebec Centre for nine months.
Bill Recinos
Bill Recinos is an art director, producer, animator, creative director, and art instructor.
He worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation for eleven years, on their golden age animated films: The Little Mermaid, Mickey in The Prince & The Pauper, Beauty & The Beast, Aladdin, Fantasia 2000, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, andAtlantis: The Lost Empire.
Before joining the Disney studios, Bill worked at several film and animation companies in film productions such as: Heavy Metal, Fire and Ice, and Ghostbusters. In 2000 he was hired by an animation company in Montreal to work as an animator and storyboard artist on several 3D projects for The Discovery Channel. “When Dinosaurs Roamed America” – “Living with Monsters” – “Mega Mammals” and more.
In 2002, Bill founded Shadowmotion productions as Producer and Creative Director. He helped create animatics and FX simulations for the Marvel film X-Men, open titles for Chasing Papi for 20th Century Fox, and produced commercial videos and films.
In 2012 Bill founded Virtual Animators an online Professional training service, where he
currently holds the titles of CEO and Director. Bill’s TV and Film credits can be found on his IMDB page
Organizers:
East Los Angeles College
East Los Angeles College (ELAC) is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). ELAC is one of nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) The College was established in 1945 and is situated in a secure, comfortable environment in the suburban community of Monterey Park, conveniently located 8 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Our multicultural student body of over 30,000 students complements the communities that ELAC serves. ELAC grants Associate in Arts/Science (A.A./A.S.) degrees as well as Certificate Programs.
Cinema Without Borders
Cinema Without Borders (www.cinemawithoutborders.com) is an international cinema webzine dedicated to covering and discovering the news, reviews, trends and new artistic milestones in independent film and filmmaking worldwide. Cinema Without Borders presents awards at several international film festivals and organizes international film events.
The National Film Board Of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) creates ground-breaking interactive works, social-issue documentaries and auteur animation. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 14 Canadian Screen Awards, 11 Webbys, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
Partners of National Film Board of Canada Animation Day are:
Animation Magazine, The Consulate General of Canada, Polish Film Festival Los Angeles, South East European Film Festival Los Angeles, Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles, Latino Weekly Review and Polka Restaurant.
To attend please RSVP at rsvp.animfest@gmail.com