For more information about Rob please visit his website: http://wwwbroadviewgraphics.blogspot.com

Carol began work on the Ralph Bakshi Animated Feature Lord of the Rings. She was solely responsible for the styling, layout, and background painting of five specialty sequences of the movie. She was also invited to be on the faculty of Art Center, where she taught Figure Drawing and Fashion Illustration for the next four years. After the completion of Lord of the Rings, she began work with Richard Williams helping build his then, new Hollywood studio. For the next three years she worked between Art Babbit and Richard on many animated television commercials as Designer, Stylist, Animator, Effects Artist, Director, Art Director, and Background Painter: receiving an American Broadcasters Assn. Award and inclusion in FILMEX. She also worked with Glen Fleck, Inc. as a color consultant on projects for IBM, and continued actively in her freelance advertising and fashion illustration business.

Carol supervised the background department for the 3-D animated feature Starchaser. She trained artists for production, in addition to keying sequences and spending time in Korea training a large crew to paint. She then joined Marvel productions after the birth of her second daughter as a Key Layout and Development artist for a variety of TV and feature projects. She left Marvel to work with TMS productions as a Development Artist on the feature Little Nemo with Brian Froud and Corney Cole. Shortly after Nemo, Carol began work with Disney Television Animation. She used her skills as a Stylist, Painter and Color Key, Art Director, Development and Photoshop Artist on Television, Direct to Video, and Theatrical Releases. Carol also freelanced on theme park designs for Universal and Landmark Productions.

Warner Bros. then recruited Carol to help them start their new feature animation division, where she recruited artists stateside and in England and she helped develop training programs for incoming artists. She acted as Key Art Director for Development and Presentation and Art Director for their first feature Quest for Camelot (overseeing all production and character design, merchandising, maquette building,). Carol was a Location Development artist on the Dreamworks CGI feature, Shrek. , and taught at California Institute of the Arts. She joined Disney Feature Animation where she developed the movie Sweating Bullets with directors Mike Gabriel and Michael Giamo, and finished the production design and layout styling for Home on the Range. She developed character and costume design, as well as location and color styling on The Snow Queen for Disney Feature Animation. Recently she finished Art Directing Disney’s Bambi II, which greatly exceeded studio expectations on every level.

Currently Carol is consulting and overseeing art direction on the new Disney franchise DVD Tinkerbell and the upcoming Fairies Trilogy through Made in Paradise Productions as well as a sequel of Babe for Universal Studios.

Website: http://www.madeinparadiseprod.com

Armand graduated with a Civil Engineering degree at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. Upon learning that Hanna-Barbera started a studio in town, he left his barely started practice and joined the studio to begin a new career in animation. He got involved in the production of such TV shows like The Addams Family, Fender Benders, Yogi Bear, Pirates of Dark Water, The New Adventures of Johnny Quest and Captain Planet and the Planeteers to name a few. He then moved to Philippine Animation Studio to supervise layout on Marvel TV shows X-Men, Fantastic Four and Biker Mice From Mars.

In 1996, Armand relocated to Burbank, California but soon got hired by Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios to work on Mulan and join their Orlando, Florida studio. His film credits for Disney include Mulan, Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear. Then in 2004, Armand moved back to Los Angeles to do visual development and principal locations design for the newly formed Sony Pictures Animation. His film credits for Sony include Surf’s Up, Open Season 2, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, Arthur Christmas and Hotel T.
Website: www.armandserrano.com

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Argentine immigrant parents. In 1976 his family moved to Southern California, where his father started an auto repair shop.  Marcelo graduated from West Covina high school in 1983, and that same year began his formal art education at Otis Art Institute of Parson’s School of Design.

Marcelo began working as a commercial artist in 1985 doing black and white illustrations for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate; his illustrations were featured in 56 newspapers across the United States. Two years later Marcelo embarked on a career in television animation, as a storyboard clean up artist and character designer.

In 1989 Marcelo would establish a relationship with the Walt Disney Company that would span well over a decade, both in feature animated films and theme park design. During which, some of that time he was working as a freelancer while living in St. George, Utah.

In 2003, Marcelo Vignali returned to Southern California to join the creative team at Sony Picture Animation. Since then he has worked on a variety of Sony projects. In addition to Surf’s Up, Marcelo has also worked on Open Season (2006), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), and Hotel Transylvania.

For over 25 years Marcelo Vignali has carved out a name for himself in various industries, from commercial illustration, television animation, computer gaming, theme park design to feature animation — from Disney’s Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, to Surf’s up, to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — enjoying the reputation of being one of the entertainment industry’s top talents.

Marcelo currently resides in Los Angeles, California, and is working on Sony Pictures Animation’s latest animated picture, Hotel Transylvania.

Join Marcelo at CTN-X 2009
CTN Member Marcelo Vignali

He was the Production Designer of Pixar’s The Incredibles (2004) for which he won an Annie Award. His artwork has appeared on the cover of The New Yorker and has been published in several books including The Art of (The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., and Up), The Ancient Book of Myth&War and The Ancient Book of Sex&Science. His work has been exhibited at Nucleus Gallery in Los Angeles, and the MoMA and Gallery Met in New York City.

Lou has also done voice acting for Pixar, most recently lending his voice to Ratatouille (2007) as the character Linguini. He is currently working at Laika in Portland, OR. doing production design and development work on various projects.  Lou is excited to be attending CTN-X this year and will be part of a panel and career spotlight. He will also have a table where he’ll be selling some of his prints and originals. Please stop by.

Help us welcome Art Director and illustration artist extraordinaire Lou Romano to CTN-X 2009.

http://www.regonline.com/ctnaniamtionexpo2009

For every animated film a color script is created, which is essentially an at a glance look at the color keys and tones for the entire film. A color script gives you a good look at how the color arcs in a film relate to the story. A color script is an overview of the entire movie’s visual and color arc. Join these  Art Directors from Laika, Pixar and Sony as they casually discuss the power and relevance of “the color script”. This panel is 45 min after which time all participants will retreat to the “Shop Talk Lounge” to carry on the conversation.

Moderator Charles Solomon:

An internationally respected critic and historian of animation, Charles Solomon has written on the subject for “The New York Times,” “TV Guide,” “Newsweek” (Japan), “Rolling Stone,” “Los Angeles Times,” “Modern Maturity,” “Film Comment,” “The Hollywood Reporter,” “Manchester Guardian,” Amazon.com and National Public Radio’s “Day To Day.” His work has also appeared in publications in Canada, France, Russia, Britain, Israel, the Netherlands and Japan. His recent books include “The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation” (Abrams, 1999), “The Disney That Never Was” (Hyperion, 1995), “Les Pionniers du Dessin Animé Américain” (Dreamland, Paris, 1996) and “Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation” (Knopf, 1989; reprinted, Wings, 1994), which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the first film book to be nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Soloman also contributed the animation article to “The International Encyclopedia of Communications” (Oxford University Press, 1989) as well as essays to the exhibit catalogues of “Japanese Animated Films: A Complete View from their Birth to ‘Spirited Away’ and Beyond” (Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004) and “Il était une fois: Walt Disney” (Grand Palais Museum, Paris, September 2006).

He has also done animation programming for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Annecy, Ottawa and Sundance international film festivals and lectured on animation history and aesthetics at UCLA, USC, CalArts, NYU, the School of Visual Arts, La Cinèmatheque Quebècoise, CSU San Bernadino, the California Academy of Science, The Walt Disney Studios (Los Angeles, Orlando and Paris), PIXAR, Turner Animation and DreamWorks Feature Animation.

Andy Gaskill

Andy Gaskill was drafted out of art school to work at the Disney studio when he was twenty-one.   He flew out to Los Angeles from Philadelphia and he has lived in the movie capital ever since.

He participated in the first animation training program at Disney, supervised by veteran animator Eric Larson.  Other veteran animators still working there at the time included Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsberry and Les Clark.  Andy recalls, at the time he didn’t appreciate the amazing artistic resource these men offered, and only in maturity did he realize these men actually shaped his childhood.   At age five, Andy saw Lady and the Tramp and was so moved by the spaghetti scene that he acted it out over and over with his friends! Later in life, he discovered Frank Thomas had animated that scene, thereby conferring a sort of honorary parenthood on Frank, (or was it perpetual childhood for Andy?)

Disney became a baseline for Andy for many years, culminating in art direction credits for Lion King, Hercules and Treasure Planet.   The crash of hand-drawn animation in the early 2000’s sent many artists scurrying to learn 3d skills, and Andy was one of them.  Today he works at Sony Pictures Animation, performing visual development and art direction functions.

There is a message Andy wants to communicate to anyone who is new to the business:  no matter what technique animation might employ; hand-drawn or CG, the most important attributes of a movie have nothing to do with technique.  The two most important attributes are: Story and design.  Get good at those.

Dave Goetz

David Goetz is an Art Director and visual development artist for Walt Disney Animation Company.

He art directed Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis, was the Co-Art Director on Meet the Robinsons and is currently art directing Rapunzel.

At the CTN expo, he will take part in a panel discussion on color scripting.

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Lou Romano

Lou Romano (b. 1972) was born and raised in San Diego, Ca. He began drawing and painting at an early age and studied theater arts, performing in plays throughout high school. After graduating in 1990 he studied animation and film at Cal Arts from 1990-92.   Lou has worked as an illustrator and designer on various projects including The Powerpuff Girls and The Iron Giant (1999). He was the Production Designer of Pixar’s The Incredibles (2004) for which he won an Annie Award. His artwork has appeared on the cover of The New Yorker and has been published in several books including The Art of (The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., and Up), The Ancient Book of Myth&War and The Ancient Book of Sex&Science. His work has been exhibited at Nucleus Gallery in Los Angeles, and the MoMA and Gallery Met in New York City. Lou has also done voice acting for Pixar, most recently lending his voice to Ratatouille (2007) as the character Linguini. He is currently working at Laika in Portland, OR. doing production design and development work on various projects.  Lou is excited to be attending CTN-X this year and will be part of a panel on color scripting. He will also have a table where he’ll be selling some of his prints and originals. Please stop by.

Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi

Born and raised in Tokyo, Dice moved to NY in ‘93. After graduating from School of Visual Arts in 98, he started his career as a staff illustrator for Lucas Learning Ltd. in San Francico. Two years later, Dice moved back to NY to work for Blue Sky Studios as a visual development/color key artist on their blockbuster film projects such as Ice Age, Robots and upcoming Horton Hears A Who. After his long adventurous 7 year run at Blue Sky Studios, he has recently accepted the new challenge to join as an art director at Pixar Animation Studios.

Dice has actively been pursuing his illustration career outside of animation as well. His graphic novel, Noche y Dia is a part of critically acclaimed anthology Out of Picture. He is currently working on this second graphic novel, Dream of Kyosuke for Out of Picture issue #2. He also has been involved with a few potential children’s book projects.

Meanwhile, Dice continues to create his plein air oil paintings that have been featured in numerous gallery exhibitions. His last show at Windham Fine Arts Gallery was a huge success with a nationally praised painter Xiangyuan Jie. Dice currently lives in San Francisco and is an art director at Pixar Animation Studios.

Title: 1+3+5=The Making of 9
Sponsored by The Creative Talent Network
CTNX09: Filmed Nov 2009; Posted June 2010
Length 45 min
You don’t want to miss this rare opportunity to meet up with the front end creative team  from the ground breaking Focus Features film “9″ .

This informal discussion with the creative team takes us from the independent pioneering start of a filmmaker  to the acclaimed  feature film release  headed for academy nominations. How did they make “9″?

Moderator Aaron Simpson

Aaron is the Founder of Cold Hard Flash (coldhardflash.com), a popular news and entertainment site focusing on the rapidly expanding universe of Flash animation. Animation Magazine called the site “one of the 13 platforms reshaping our world.”

Simpson is an Emmy-nominated Producer of “Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island,” a Flash-animated series that aired on Kids’WB! in 2005. In addition, at Warner Bros., he produced over a dozen development shorts while producing the “Johnny Test” pilot for the 2005-2006 season. Prior to Warner Bros., Simpson was Senior Producer of Original Content at Sony, where he helped architect a forward-thinking entertainment portal, Screenblast. Also, in 2006 and 2007, Simpson held the title of Vice President, Animation & Development at JibJab Media.

Simpson recently produced the development pilot for Comedy Central’s animated series Gay Robot. As a sought-after animation consultant, his client list has included Nickelodeon, Animax Entertainment, Mondo Media, Six Point Harness and Sony Pictures TV Animation.

In 2005, Aaron was a judge at KOCCA’s Star Project Awards in Seoul, and he has presented at SXSW, Digital Hollywood, Flashforward and FITC Hollywood. In September 2006, he was featured in the Flash Tenth Anniversary online video presentation at adobe.com, and more recently Simpson was nominated to chairman of the board for the upcoming 2010 Platform International Animation Festival, which is now the biggest animation event in the United States.

Panelist Shane Acker

Shane Acker is an award-winning director, animator and designer. “9” is a feature length production based his student Academy Award winning short and was produced by Tim Burton and Timor Bekmambetov.

The 11-minute short “9” premiered at Sundance in 2005 and has garnered numerous awards including the “Best in Show” at the 2005 SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006.

Shane has a multidisciplinary background, studying architecture for several years before becoming a filmmaker. He is a graduate of UCLA’s School of Arts and Architecture where he received both a Masters Degree in Architecture and a MFA in Animation. Adept at Maya, Form-Z, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Premiere, Flash, and more, Shane works in 2D and 3D with élan.
  
Shane is currently an artist in residence at the Gnomon Workshop and a visiting professor in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University.  To learn more about Shane’s work, you can visit his website at www.shaneacker.com.

Panelist Jeff Bell

Jeff most recently served as Visual FX Supervisor for the Focus Feature’s theatrical film Nine, due for release in Fall 2009.

He acted as Lighting Supervisor, Lead Lighter, and worked with Attitude Studios and the Technology team at Starz to engineer an asset transfer pipeline to enable animation and lighting data transfers into either companies pipeline.

From 2003 to 2007 Jeff was VP of Technology for Starz Animation and IDT Entertainment, in charge of guiding 30 Technical Directors and Software Engineers in building in house visual systems and production pipelines.

Jeff also served as CG Supervisor for 20th Century Fox’s theatrical film Everyone’s Hero, released in 2006.
Panelist Christophe Vacher

Christophe Vacher is a French artist who has provided backgrounds, visual development and art direction for Walt Disney Feature Animation and the animation industry since 1989. He worked in different animation studios before joining Disney’s Paris-based animation unit for three years, where he painted backgrounds for such animated films as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Runaway Brain” and served as head of background for the 1995 feature, “A Goofy Movie”.
Relocating to California in 1996, he continued his association with Disney, where his credits have included painting backgrounds and concept artwork for “Dinosaur”, “Hercules,” “Tarzan”, the Stravinsky Firebird finale for “Fantasia 2000″ and “Treasure Planet”.
He also worked on Dreamworks’ “Shark Tale” doing concept Artwork and paintings.

He shares his time between personal artwork for galleries, covers for books, cds and video games, and movie studios work. In 2004, he got into Art Direction, first on a CG animated short movie for Studio Arts in Los Angeles, then for the animated segment of Disney’s live action movie “Enchanted”, and eventually the CG feature film “9″, produced by Tim Burton and directed by Shane Acker.

At CTN Expo, he will be part of the panel from “9” to discuss his role on the movie along with the Director, the Producer, the Production Designer and the Director of Animation.

To see more of his work, go visit his website:
http://www.vacher.com

Panelist Fred Warter
Fred Warter was born in southern California with a paintbrush in his hand. One of his earliest grade school teachers first recognized his artistic abilities and would give him extra credit for any illustration that would accompany his academic assignments.  But it was his passion for illustrator Frank Frazetta and Mad magazine which truly solidified his illustrative direction.

After high school he studied illustration at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California, graduating with honors in 1983. After graduating he landed a job as a character animator for Don Bluth Studios.

Mentored by the animation legend John Pomeroy, Warter animated on the landmark animated video games Space Ace and Dragons Lair II.  In 1985 he worked as a background painter for various television studios including Marvel, Hanna Barbera, and Disney Television animation. In 1991 he art directed the Emmy®-nominated television series Darkwing Duck.

Warter also continued his illustration career and in 1992 completed a massive illustration project for the video and illustrated children’s book Annie Oakley for Rabbit Ears Productions. The project achieved several awards including the Cine Golden Eagle Award, and The National Educational Film & Video Festival Silver Apple.

In 1995 he worked as production designer on the classic A GOOFY MOVIE for which he was nominated for a best production design Annie.  The next few years were spent working as a visual development artist for Pixar, Disney Feature animation, DreamWorks and Warner Bros. on such timeless films as A BUG’S LIFE, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, THE ROAD TO EL DORADO, SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON, THE IRON GIANT and HOME ON THE RANGE.

In 1998 he accepted the assignment to art direct Disney’s THE LION KING II and went on to art direct LADY AND THE TRAMP II, PIGLETS BIG MOVIE and THE FOX AND THE HOUND II.  In 2007 Warter took on the challenge of production designer on visionary Shane Ackers’ feature, 9.

In 2008, Warter returned to Disney to art direct the John Lasseter executive produced global hit, TINKER BELL.  He is currently art directing TINKER BELL AND THE GREAT FAIRY RESCUE, the third film in the Disney fairies franchise.

Warter lives away from the hectic hustle and bustle of Los Angeles in the beautiful San Luis Obispo area north of Santa Barbara, California, with his wife and two children, five horses and three dogs.

Panelist Robert St. Pierre

Robert St. Pierre is a Production Designer, Visual Development, and Layout Artist with 19 years experience in the animation industry.

Originally born and raised in New England, Robert attended Paier College of Art, a private art school located in Hamden, Connecticut. He then transferred to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where he earned a BFA in Illustration in 1990. Following graduation he continued to advance his studies in Architectural Rendering, Production Design and Directing for Live Action Film at UCLA, in West Los Angeles.

Prior to his graduation, Robert was approached by recruiters from the Walt Disney Studios, seeking participants for a storyboard-training program. After successfully completing this program he sought out opportunities in the Background Layout and Environment Design areas of production within the studio. This in turn lead to a position in 1993, that involved working on a feature property through Disney’s Paris studio in France. Since then Robert has continued to work as a Layout Artist for Warner Brothers Feature Animation, Disney Direct to Home Videos and Walt Disney’s Feature Animation. He has also freelanced for numerous other studios.

Robert has advanced his career through accepting additional challenges and responsibilities as a Layout Supervisor and Production Designer. Projects have encompassed work ranging from direct to home video, to feature length films. This work has included international projects based in Germany, France and Australia. And the most recent international task involved the making of the movie “9“ in Luxembourg.

In addition to his numerous television credits, Robert’s direct to home video and feature format screen credits include “A Goofy Movie“, “Another Goofy Movie“, “Space Jam“, “Lady and the Tramp 2“, “Mulan 2“, “9” and “The Princess and the Frog“. Robert has also worked on numerous projects as a visual development and conceptual design artist. These undertakings range from animated and live action film, to parade float and interior design work. He has also taught part time and conducted lecture series in Layout in Animation and Professional Portfolio Presentations.

Currently, Robert is working for Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Studios.

Panelist Jinko Gotoh

Producer of 9, Jinko Gotoh has worked for over 25 years in a wide range of media, with particular concentration on the evolution of animation as an art form. Fostering cost-effective methods of production while also nurturing the creative process, she is currently a freelance consultant and producer for the animated feature industry.

On the Academy Award-winning Finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, she oversaw scheduling and budgeting in her capacity as line producer/associate producer.

She worked for four years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, overseeing the move into digital animation and its extensive application on such features as Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag’s Dinosaur and (in IMAX) Fantasia 2000.

Earlier, Ms. Gotoh was the CGI producer on Joe Pytka’s Space Jam, which blended live-action, visual effects, virtual environments, and traditional and CGI animation.

She has served as executive vice president of the production and consulting service Butch & Co.; president of Entertainment Alia, which produced television commercials and large-format films, and where Ms. Gotoh was among the first producers to cross music video directors over into directing commercials; and director of the entertainment group of the Dentsu advertising agency, setting standards and buying practices for advertisers booking American talent for Japanese commercial endorsements.

She was born in Japan and raised in California. At Columbia University, Ms. Gotoh earned a BS in Applied Math as well as an MFA in Film.