Marza Animation president and 21-year Disney Animation Studios veteran to lead master class, ‘Disney/Pixar Storytelling Process On A Shoe-String Budget,’ on November 4 at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey.
LOS ANGELES -- Animation Magazine's World Animation and VFX Summit has announced the addition of three Master Classes for the Masters on November 4, at the California Yacht Club, in Marina del Rey. These classes are taught by industry experts and will cover financing, story and the business of building a successful animation studio.
Chuck Williams, a 21-year Disney Animation Studios veteran who is now the President of Marza Animation Planet USA in Burbank, CA will be leading his Master Class titled, "Disney/Pixar Storytelling Process On A Shoe-String Budget." Chuck will delve into producing Disney's Academy nominated Brother Bear and share his insights while working on the classics: Beauty & the Beast, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Aladdin, and others. Chuck ran the Disney shorts department under John Lasseter and Ed Catmull for three years.
With big studio feature experience, Chuck's Master Class will address the challenges in producing quality storytelling at much lower budgets. He will also touch on the specifics of the creative process, from concept to script to cut story reels, the advantages of animation over live action storytelling, and strategies for budgeting, scheduling and managing this process.
"Story is an elusive beast that's difficult to discover, develop and track," says Williams. "I've spent many years on this trail and look forward to sharing my perspectives and the strategies and management styles that have worked for me."
If you are looking to finance your project, Jose San Román from Ilion Animation Studios in Spain will cover this aspect of filmmaking in, "Discovering a New Asset Class to the Financial Community”. San Román's topics will cover how animation movies fair, including those that have a majority of production under CGI (like Gravity or Avatar); the revenue lines that come with it and how to approach a value model of such production, risks to take into account and how to approach the risks themselves which are very different to live action, and what the expectation is for animation in the next 10 years. If you'd like to learn about the financial and global animation market you'll want to be part of this in depth talk.
Our final Class features, Michael Hirsh, a sought after industry executive who is now Chairman of The Entertainment and Media Finance Group (TEAM) and Vice Chairman of DHX Media. Hirsh will share his expertise in a class titled, “World Domination Through Animation”. Hirsh is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and entertainment executive who co-founded Nelvana Limited in 1971. Nelvana became one of the largest internationally recognized creators and owners of notable family and children's brands and content in the industry. In 2000, Nelvana was sold to Corus Entertainment for $540 million (CAD). In 2004, Michael led a consortium that acquired Cinar. It was bought for $190 million (CAD). He then became CEO of the new company which was rebranded Cookie Jar Entertainment. Cookie Jar became one of the world's largest privately held children's entertainment companies.
Hirsh will include his global insights on the animation industry's trajectory from a business point of view and touch on brand curation and all the dominant layers within the animation business. He will answer questions related to building a great animation business and also highlight and breakdown all facets of the current period of disintermediation and disruption in the industry.
Source: World Animation and VFX Summit
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
