Pixar speaker booked for Animex festival
By Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette
AN animator from an Oscar nominated film will be among the speakers at Teesside University’s ANIMEX INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL next week.
Up has just been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and in four other categories, including Animated Feature Film.
It was also recently awarded the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature.
Andrew Schmidt, an animator from Pixar Animation Studios who worked on the film, will be among the industry leaders speaking at the Animex Festival, which starts on Monday.
He will be speaking to a sell-out audience on Thursday, February 11.
Animex, which run until Friday, February 12, will bring the cream of the world’s animation, visual effects and computer games industries to Middlesbrough for the 11th annual festival.
James Baxter, head of character animation at DreamWorks, will also be speaking at the event - on Friday, February 12.
Originally from the UK, he moved to California 22 years ago to work for Disney on a range of box-office hits including The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. He moved to DreamWorks SKG in 1996.
During his talk he will premiere clips from the forthcoming film How To Train Your Dragon.
Max Howard, president of Exodus Film Group and a former senior vice-president of Disney Feature Animation and president of Warner Bros Feature Animation, will be the keynote speaker a week today.
During his 12 years at Disney he collaborated on films such as Aladdin, Pocahontas and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? At Warner Bros he oversaw the hits The Iron Giant and Space Jam.
Mark Osborne, director of Happy Product Inc, will also be speaking on Friday.
He has worked on Oscar nominated films MORE and Kung Fu Panda.
Friday will also see a talk from Matthew Teevan, head of Production Starz Animation, who has had more than 20 years animation experience. He is currently working with Miramax Films and Sir Elton John’s Rocket Pictures on Gnomeo & Juliet.
Chris Williams, Animex director, says: “This is without doubt the strongest line-up of speakers we have ever managed to gather for Animex.
“Anybody who has managed to get a ticket for this year’s festival is in for an extra special couple of days with so many top end people being here.
“As well as talking to our main audience we’re hoping to get these people to speak to local schoolchildren and highlight the opportunities that are open to them to work in a fantastic industry. And that journey can begin right here on their own doorstep where they can study animation here at the university on one of our internationally regarded courses.”
To tie in with the start of Animex, a collection of artworks produced by staff in the university’s School of Computing will be shown at Middlesbrough’s Python Gallery.
The collection, entitled ScMART, is open from Friday, February 12, to Friday, March 12. Entry is free with opening times Monday to Friday 9.30am-5pm.
Animex will also feature talks, workshops, screenings and awards
For full details, log on to www.animex.net email info@animex.net or call 01642 342653.
