Panels
One on One Spotlight with Dave Master
Title: One on One Spotlight with Dave Master
Sponsored by The Creative Talent Network
Length 45 min
Moderator Henk Dawson:
I started my Seattle, Washington-based illustration and animation business in 1989. Since then, I have been working with clients such as Apple, ESPN, Fox, FedEx, IBM, Hasbro, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Pepsi, Taco Bell, The Federal Reserve, Volvo, and Warner Books. I have received accolades both for illustration work and animation endeavors, including a permanent placement in the California Museum of Science. I have taught at the School of Visual Arts in Seattle; has been a speaker for the 3D Design Conference in Los Angeles, AIGA’s Currents Conference; Apple’s Symposium; Lectured at the Society of Illustrators/New York. I feel privileged to do what I love – It is icing on the cake, when someone else loves it too.
Panelist Dave Master:
Dave Master, “Learning Activist”: Connecting Learners to their Aspirations
Dave Master’s professional experiences converge at he nexus of arts and technology; classrooms and careers; learning and mentoring; social networking and individual expression. Master has been honored with major awards from a broad array of professional communities: the arts, animation, technology, communications, and education. The programs he has developed have been recognized internationally for their achievements and success. Master is recognized as leader in a number of fields, as well as a person that effectively bridges and connects divergent fields.
Master founded ACME Animation VTN (Virtual Training Network) while Director of Artist Development at Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Dave’s many years of classroom experience, successfully connecting his students’ aspirations with career opportunities enabled him to develop unique curricular experiences, classroom management techniques, and performance evidence evaluation approaches. Dave’s wide network of contacts and respect within the industry enabled him to engage his friends and colleagues in the field to learners and young artists through widely available interactive teleconferencing. Dave was able to both scale and sustain the concepts and methodologies he so successfully employed in his classroom with his students. At ACME,, Dave supplied vision and curricular leadership in various programs in the arts, media and animation, later connecting all of the major animation studios with students across the nation via weekly teleconferencing sessions on a national scale, reaching diverse and mostly under-served learners in a variety of learning settings.
From 2000 to 2003, Master served as La Bounty Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies at Cal Poly Pomona University, where he developed special trans-disciplinary projects, integrated curriculum design, exhibition of evidence to experts in various fields, the development of conceptual designs for both traditional and distance learning communities.
From 1994 through October 2000, Master was the Director of Artist Development and Training for Warner Bros. Animation, in California and London. Master directed internal Artist Development, international university program outreach, and Warner Bros. Apprenticeship training. Under his direction, the WBFA Artist Development Department also provided an extensive program of weekly classes in drawing, acting, improvisation, and specialized seminars and guest lecturers on a variety of art and animation sub-specialties. While at Warner Bros., Master developed the Artist development and “professional “ramp-up” programs for “the Quest for Camelot”, “Space Jam”, “Iron Giant” and “Osmosis Jones”. Dave was fortunate to work under the leadership of such Directors as Brad Bird, Bill Kroyer, Tom Sito, and others. Master also had a TV project go to the pilot stage while at Warner Bros. While at Warner Bros. Dave developed and launched the ACME VTN (Virtual Training Network) within his Artist Development department.
Before signing on at Warner Bros., Master was a media, animation, and communications technology teacher at Rowland Unified School District and was in “the trenches” for 17 years, as well as the frontlines of educational reform at the national level. Many of Master’s students successfully transitioned to university film and media programs, while many others now work in professional media careers at all the major studios. Master’s students produced over 1800 films and won more than 900 awards, including first place in statewide, national and international student media festivals. The Rowland Animation program was the only high school level program that effectively competed with university level programs. Dave’s years “in the trenches” were the “incubator” for his effective classroom management, evaluation, curriculum design methodologies and the development of his unique conceptual designs with regards to sustained connections to the professional fields.
Master has been an advisor to a number of prestigious national commissions such as the National Fine Arts Standards Commission; the Systemic Arts Advisory to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities; Goals 2000 Arts Education Partnership; and, the National Endowment for the Arts, Education Projects Review Panel. Dave has served on the Boards of Directors of ASIFA- Hollywood. He was a founding Director of the Los Angeles Student Film Festival. He presently serves on the Claremont Graduate University School of Education Board of Visitors.
Dave has received a number of honors, including the International Animated Film Society’s “June Foray Award,” for “significant and benevolent impact on the art and industry of animation”; the “National Technology Teacher of the Year” award, and LA Music Center’s prestigious “Bravo Arts Educator Award”. Dave Master was the 2008 recipient of the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers) Eastman Kodak Gold Medal “…for his many contributions…developing long-distance video-conferencing and on-line training programs advancing the educational process of teaching animation to students of all ages.” Dave was the first animation educator to receive the award in the forty-two year history of the honor.
Master’s diverse and unique professional experiences put him at the nexus of learners and mentors; classrooms and careers; curriculum and practice; the arts and technology; and, the development of global social-networking platforms for individual expression.
