Alison Snowden is an Oscar-winning filmmaker who works in Vancouver with her partner, David Fine. Together they have written, directed and created award-winning animated TV shows and short films, including the Oscar-winning short film, Bob’s Birthday and the acclaimed TV series, Bob & Margaret, the highest rated Canadian made animation series ever!

Alison was born in Nottingham, not far from the Major Oak, the tree Robin Hood called home. She studied film in the UK at The National Film and Television School where she met her husband and creative partner, David. They have been collaborating ever since.

Their films have won numerous international awards and nominations including awards at Annecy, Ottawa, Chicago, Zagreb, Canadian Genies, BAFTA nominations and two more Oscar nominations. They also created 52 episodes of the kids series, Ricky Sprocket Showbiz Boy for Nickelodeon and Teletoon.

Alison and David have also directed numerous animated TV commercials as well as developed and written for other productions, including the award winning UK series Peppa Pig. They co-developed the series Shaun the Sheep for Aardman Animations. David and Alison have also written and directed live action short films and documentaries.

Their latest short animated film is Animal Behaviour, produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Animal Behaviour is a 2d drawn animation film, produced using 2d animation software. The film is about a group therapy session, with animals and has been in official selection at numerous international film festivals and also won the grand prix at Brazil’s Anima Mundi Animation Festival.

Becky Neiman-Cobb joined Pixar Animation Studios as a production assistant in 2004. Since then, she has worked as a graphic designer, production coordinator, and departmental manager for a number of feature films including the Academy Award®-winning Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Inside Out. Neiman-Cobb served as the production manager for Finding Dory, and most recently as the producer of the original short film, Bao, release in summer 2018 in front of Incredibles 2. She is currently the associate producer for an upcoming feature film.

Prior to joining Pixar, Becky was a creative director, photographer and graphic designer working in the music industry in Los Angeles. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, Spin, and Guitar Player Magazine.

Raised in Santa Monica, CA, Becky earned a BA from the University of California, San Diego. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Bonne Radford (Producer) began her career at Amblin Entertainment, working on such iconic films as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and The Color Purple. As Vice-President of Amblin Animation, she was part of the team that created, amongst others, Feivel Goes West and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. When Amblin folded into DreamWorks Animation, Bonne was appointed Head of Animation. After five years at DreamWorks she was sought out by Universal Studios to Executive Produce a movie about a Curious little monkey named George. From there she hopped over the rainbow to produce Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, an independent feature. Bonne’s effect on the world of animation has been profound, her ability to assemble creative teams has contributed to the success of both animation studio rosters and individual independent productions. She was brought on to produce Warner Brothers’ Smallfoot at the start of 2014.

Céline is a French artist. She worked for four years in London after graduating from Supinfocom in 2008. She directed the award-winning short movie Countdown in 2011, and made her debut as a production designer on The Little Prince. She worked with Chromosphere and Google Spotlight Stories as production designer on Age of Sail. She’s the production designer of the upcoming, Over the Moon, directed by Glen Keane.

Colin Giles is the Head of the VFS School of Animation & VFX, bringing over 22 years of professional experience as a Director, Animator, and Creative Designer. Colin's work in animation and storytelling has allowed him the chance to work with some of the biggest names in the industry, including: Disney Interactive, Cartoon Network, Ford Motor Co., The NBA and Starbucks, to name a few. When he's not busy inspiring new artists in the classroom, he's active on many popular industry projects like Dan Vs, Robotboy, and the 2D Sequences in Seth Rogen's animated hit Sausage Party. In 2017, Colin was an official speaker at TEDx Vancouver and has delivered workshops and keynotes in Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Los Angeles and across Canada.

Zen plays a vital role at Tonko House as an anchor between his partners Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo in pursuit of sustainable content business through Tonko House’s signature storytelling. Originally from Japan, Zen graduated from UC Berkeley as a comparative literature major, and has a diverse business background spanning marketing, video production, and restaurant management in bilingual and bicultural environments. Additionally, as a trained carpenter and an ordained monk, Zen brings a unique flavor to the culture of Tonko House.

Born in Bydgoszcz in 1983. Graduated from the National Film School in Łódź with a degree in animation and special effects. Joined Platige Image in 2006.

Nenow directed three animated shorts, and each one was a very important step for the artist. The Aim (2005), created while Nenow was still in film school, was the first of his movies to receive an award. The Great Escape (2006) was screened at major international film festivals. Paths of Hate (2010) was short-listed for an Academy Award nomination, received a Special Distinction at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, was honoured at Comic-Con, the world’s largest comic and video game festival and received the Best of Show award at SIGGRAPH 2011. Damian directs advertisements and is often involved in various special projects. He directed City of Ruins, a stereoscopic digital reconstruction of Warsaw destroyed in the course of World War II, which received the prestigious Muse Award in 2011.

In 2018, Damian Nenow release his first feature-length movie, Another Day of Life based on the eponymous book written by Ryszard Kapuściński. The film is an innovative mixture of documentary and animation.

Dave has almost three decades of experience in the animation industry, working on some of the most iconic 2D and CGI animated films of our time. Dave is the Animation Supervisor at Animal Logic’s Vancouver studio, where he was the Animation Director on DC League of Super-Pets and the Animation Supervisor on The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.

In 1991, Dave started at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he was an animator and supervising animator on many of their most successful 2D films, including Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Tarzan.

In 2001, he switched his pencil for a computer and started at PDI/DreamWorks, working as an animator, supervising animator and head of character animation. His credits during this time include Shrek 2, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Megamind and Trolls.

Dave graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver with Honours in Animation.

David Fine is an Oscar-winning filmmaker who works in Vancouver with his partner, Alison Snowden. Together they have written, directed and created award-winning animated TV shows and short films, including the Oscar-winning short film, Bob’s Birthday and the acclaimed TV series, Bob & Margaret, the highest rated Canadian made animation series ever!

David was born and raised in Toronto and is still a Leaf fan. He studied film in the UK at The National Film & Television School where he met his wife and creative partner, Alison. They have been collaborating ever since.

Their films have won numerous international awards and nominations including awards at Annecy, Ottawa, Chicago, Zagreb, Canadian Genies, BAFTA nominations and two more Oscar nominations. They also created 52 episodes of the kids series, Ricky Sprocket Showbiz Boy for Nickelodeon and Teletoon.

David and Alison have also directed numerous animated TV commercials as well as developed and written for other productions, including the award-winning UK series Peppa Pig. They co-developed the series Shaun the Sheep for Aardman Animations. David and Alison have also written and directed live-action short films and documentaries.

Their latest short animated film is Animal Behaviour, produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Animal Behaviour is a 2d drawn animation film, produced using 2d animation software. The film is about a group therapy session, with animals and has been in official selection at numerous international film festivals and also won the grand prix at Brazil’s Anima Mundi Animation Festival.

Visual images have always captivated me. It led to a desire to pursue a fulfilling career in drawing and representation. So I studied “The Conception and Realisation of Animated Films” at the Gobelins, l’Ecole de l’Image school in Paris, from which I graduated in 2009.

During this period, full of tremendous learning experiences, I co-directed The Ribbon, a short film about a love story that takes place in China in the 1960s.

I acquired a taste for making up and telling stories. Stories that move me, and stay with me. And through cinema, I express myself, I share and, sometimes, I meditate.

I was born in France. And so I had to learn how to think, to get to grips with and adapt to my Asian roots. It’s a varied inheritance that the West has trouble getting to know and understand. For a long time, I only searched through and felt affected by my Chinese background. I’ve only recently stopped denying the substantial part of me bequeathed from my Cambodian roots. It’s a part of me, of my origins, that I am still discovering today. By means of a story, a journey, a life.

That of my mother’s.

Denise Koyama is currently a story artist at Sony Pictures Animation. Her most notable credits include work on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Hotel Transylvania trilogy, The Smurfs, Surf’s Up, Shark Tale, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and The Tigger Movie. She has worked for 27 years as a story artist for Television, Direct to Video and Features, earning three Annie Award nominations and one Daytime Emmy nomination.

Denise graduated from both the University of California at Irvine and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, earning a Bachelor of Sciences Degree in Biological Sciences with Honors in Biomedical Research and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Illustration with Honors, respectively.

Denise is also a glass lampwork artist and her work and tutorials have been included in several publications including The Japan Lampwork Society’s Lanmaga Magazine, The Flow and Glassline magazines. She was an official glass tester for Momka’s Borosilicate Glass and was featured in several advertising campaigns. She holds a kaidan advanced degree in Ikenobo Ikebana Japanese Flower Arrangement and has exhibited her work at the University of California at Irvine.

Currently, Denise is working to convert an abandoned orchard into an avocado farm and printmaking studio with her family. She is a proud stepmom of three daughters and proud auntie to two nephews.

Originally from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Denver Jackson is a self-taught animator and visual effects artist who got his start making films in high school before emigrating to Canada with his parents. As a filmmaker, he leans heavily on the fantastical while still being grounded by real-world characters and situations. He works in both live-action and animated films, blending the conventions of both mediums to create his own unique style, and is known to write, direct, film, edit and animate almost entirely on his own.

Denver’s film, The Wishing Jar (2016) has screened around the world, including at three Academy Award-qualifying festivals and won Best Animated Film at both San Diego Comic-Con International Film Festival and Heartland Film Festival. As well, Denver wrote, directed and animated three feature-length projects from a web series, Esluna: The First Monolith, to two feature films Esluna: The Crown of Babylon and Esluna: The Worlds Divide.

The world premiere of Denver’s latest film, Esluna: The Worlds Divide, will be screened at SPARK ANIMATION 2023 on Saturday, 11 November.

Domee Shi began as a story intern at Pixar Animation Studios in June 2011, and was soon hired as a story artist on the Academy Award®-winning feature film Inside Out. Since then she has worked on the feature films The Good Dinosaur and the upcoming Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4. In 2015 she began pitching some ideas for short films, and soon was green lit to write and direct Bao. A whimsical story loosely based on her own experiences growing up as an only child, and set in the Chinese community in Toronto, Canada, Bao screened in front of Incredibles 2 this past summer.

Domee graduated from the animation program at Sheridan College, where her love of storytelling and animation really blossomed. Her biggest creative influences are the works of Studio Ghibli, 90s anime, Disney, Pixar, as well as the works of Yasujiro Ozu, Ang Lee, and Bong Joon Ho.

Domee was born in Chongqing, China and resided in Toronto, Canada most of her life. She currently lives in Oakland, California and notes that her love of animation is only rivaled by her love of cats.

Douglas Goldstein is the executive producer and co-head writer of Robot Chicken, the highest-rated original show on Cartoon Network’s late-night Adult Swim programming block. He helped create the show and has won three Emmys and three Annie awards writing it during its nine seasons to date.

Goldstein has written the half-hour animated pilot The Neighborhood for Fox Studios and developed the game show Head Games with Wildbrain Entertainment. He has developed animated television shows and features for Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, Paramount and Disney, and worked with Sony in writing the 2016 Ghostbusters/NBA Finals commercials.

Before starting Robot Chicken, Douglas Goldstein was a founding member of Wizard Entertainment Group, the collectibles and entertainment magazine publisher with over 3 million monthly readers worldwide. During his 13 years at Wizard Entertainment, Goldstein rose from Editor to VP of Special Projects. He conceptualized, launched and oversaw projects involving every aspect of youth entertainment, including the publications Anime Insider, Toy Wishes, ToyFare, Toons, Sci-Fi Invasion, and numerous custom publishing works on Hollywood films and entertainment properties.

Eric Darnell is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of the Emmy-award winning and leading VR animation studio Baobab Studios, whose mission is to inspire you to dream by bringing out your sense of wonder. Eric’s career spans 25 years as a computer animation director, screenwriter, story artist, film director, and executive producer. He was the director and screenwriter on all four films in the Madagascar franchise, which together have grossed more than $2.5 billion at the box-office. He was also executive producer on The Penguins of Madagascar. Previously, Eric directed DreamWorks Animation’s very first animated feature film, Antz, which features the voices of Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, and Sharon Stone. Eric earned a degree in journalism from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in experimental animation from The California Institute of the Arts.

Gennie Rim has worked in the animation field for nearly 20 years at studios such as Pixar and Disney. In 2013, Gennie shifted to independent producing to create innovative animation in new and exciting ways. She has produced projects such as Google Spotlight Story’s Duet with Disney legend Glen Keane, Lyft’s June with Academy Award-winning director John Kahrs, and most recently Kobe Bryant’s Academy Award-winning Dear Basketball with Glen Keane and composer John Williams.

Jacky has worked in animation for 20 years, starting her career at Aardman Animations in the UK where she worked on various films and productions such as Chicken Run, Angry Kid (TV Series), Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists and Shaun the Sheep. Jacky and her family then moved to Finland where she worked for Rovio, working on the Angry Birds brand for 2 years before moving to Vancouver where she now works for Sony Pictures Imageworks. She is a Digital Producer for Imageworks. Her first production for Imageworks was Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017 and she has recently completed the full CG feature, Smallfoot.

As a director, animator and editor, Jenn has been making arts-focused films for 20 years. Known for her creative, multimedia approach to storytelling, she recently animated a motion comic for the multi-platform Ten One Films project Amplify Her (2018). Her shorts about BC artists air regularly on Knowledge Network and her hand-painted short film, Assembly (2012), produced by the NFB, screened internationally and was given the KODAK Images Award for Artistic Achievement by Women in Film Vancouver.

As an editor, Jenn works primarily in documentary, and she was awarded the 2018 Leo Award for Feature Documentary Editor for her work on Marie Clements’ musical documentary The Road Forward. Other credits include Journeys to Adäka, for Sagafish Media, Debris by John Bolton and Rock the Box by Katherine Monk.

Feminism has been a feature of Jenn’s creative voice since her first film and she doesn’t see that changing any time soon.

Jessica Fernandes began her career as a Flash animator, after completing a double-major in Computer Science and Fine Arts. Her intimate grasp of the creative process, thriving partnerships with talented innovators, and ability to bring order to chaos, soon led her to management.

For over 10 years, she has worked at the highest levels of VFX, animation and video game production. She has held a variety of roles including: Global Art Producer at MPC London, Head of Production at ILM Singapore, Producer at Ubisoft Montreal, Digital Models Department Manager at Weta Digital, and COO at NBRIA (mobile games). She currently resides in Vancouver, where she is Artist Management Supervisor for Animal Logic.

When she’s not working or dancing, she enjoys lending her pen and her time to fostering the rich and diverse CG community — via Spark CG Society and the annual SIGGRAPH conference.

Jessica has been collaborating with teams in the tech industry for over a decade, contributing to workflow, process and diverse projects in leading tech companies such as Rogers Communications, Digital Domain, MPC and the American Marketing Association. Throughout her career, she has always strived to reconcile technology and humanity and make tech more accessible and intuitive for its users.

She strives to make others around her develop their full potential and has been a pillar in the Tech community for many years. As Co-Founder of YVRFF (Vancouver Virtual Reality Film Festival), and Founder of CRAFTGRAPH (a networking series bringing together professionals from the computing, recording and art & film technologies fields) she has been a champion of change, creative collaboration and innovation.

Jessica is currently the Production Technology Department Manager at DNEG in Vancouver. As ProdTech Department Manager, she provides dedicated and consistent line management, ensuring appropriate crewing and career development for the R&D and Pipeline teams.

As a writer-producer, Jill Golick has worked extensively in children’s television (Androids), prime (Blue Murder), soap (metropia) and digital (Weirdwood Manor). As a multiplatform creator, Jill created, wrote and produced four original, cutting-edge series, including the internationally-acclaimed digital detective series Ruby Skye P.I. Her creative work has been rewarded with two Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards, a Canadian Screen Award, a Youth Media Award of Excellence, a Banff Rockie, and the grand prize from the LA-Marseilles WebFest among others. She served as president of the Writers Guild of Canada from 2010-2018. Today, she acts as Executive Director of Women in View, fighting for equity in Canada’s film and television industry. She teaches about TV series creation in the era of Netflix and mentors screenwriters at every career stage. In her spare time, she is developing characters for conversational user interfaces, writing a musical and creating new TV series for both adult and children’s audiences.

Jinko Gotoh is a producer and consultant for the animation industry. She has 25+ years experience spanning a wide range of media, with particular emphasis on the evolution of animation and CGI. She is currently producing The LEGO Movie Sequel for Warner Animation Group.

Her screen credits include The Little Prince, directed by Mark Osborne; the Academy Award nominated The Illusionist, helmed by Sylvain Chomet; 9, directed by Shane Acker; the Academy Award winning Finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton.

Since leaving Pixar in 2003, Jinko’s assignments have taken her across the globe. Prior to that, Jinko worked at Disney Feature Animation as director of digital production, overseeing the move into CGI animation and its extensive application on such features including Dinosaur and Fantasia 2000.

Born in Japan, Jinko’s passion for animation started at a very early age after two life-altering experiences: seeing Lady & the Tramp, and meeting Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astroboy. She was raised in California and attended Columbia University, where she earned a BS in Applied Math, then an MFA in Film. In her spare time, she is a published poet.

John Kahrs, born September 18th, 1967 is an Academy Award®-winning animator and film director. Originally from upstate New York, John began his professional career in animation as one of the first employees of Blue Sky Studios. In 1997, he joined Pixar as an animator on A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, among others. In 2007, John joined Disney Feature Animation, supervising the animation on Tangled. John went on to direct acclaimed short film Paperman, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. John now develops and directs animated projects through his company, Broad Reach Pictures.

Julia Kwan is a Vancouver-based filmmaker whose cinematic works often delve into the Chinese-Canadian cultural experience. Kwan made her feature film directorial debut with Eve & the Fire Horse, which won multiple awards including the Special Jury Prize for World Cinema at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, Kwan made her feature documentary debut with the NFB’s Everything Will Be, which debuted at Toronto’s Hot Docs and received a Best Cinematography award at the Canadian Screen Award. In addition to live action drama and docs, Kwan recently made a foray into the animation world with the NFB short, The Zoo, which will have its premiere at Spark Animation Festival. Additionally, her short doc, Facing Sunrise, produced by MEC, is a finalist at the upcoming Banff Mountain Film Festival.

Karey is a writer, director and composer with 30 years of professional experience. An alum of the USC School of Cinematic Arts where he was the recipient of the Robert Riskin Screenwriting Award and the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award, his career began as a staff writer for Walt Disney Feature Animation where he penned his first feature length screenplay, The Rescuers Down Under. His relationship with Disney continued, writing screenplays for Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and James & the Giant Peach. From there, he began a 20 year relationship with Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation, writing the screenplay for Aardman Animation’s Chicken Run (Golden Globe nominee for Best Comedy) and working as a consultant and contributing writer on films such as Spirit, The Road to El Dorado and Madagascar and co-writing and co-directing Over the Hedge for which he won the 2007 Annie Award for Best Direction. He did the English language adaptations for Studio Ghibli’s Secret World Of Arrietty and From Up On Poppy Hill. He also served as creative consultant on Nick Park’s latest feature, Early Man.

Other screenplay credits include Charlotte’s Web, Hitchhiker&Rsquo;S Guide to the Galaxy, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Smurfs 2. He directed the Paramount Pictures film Imagine That starring Eddie Murphy and recently completed the screenplay for Chicken Run 2, which is currently in production and scheduled for release in 2020.

Along with his brother, Wayne, and book writer John O’Farrell, Karey co-wrote book, music and lyrics for the Broadway musical Something Rotten! which ran on Broadway at the St. James Theater for 742 performances and was nominated for 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book of a Musical. Something Rotten! recently completed its first national tour for 75 weeks across 50 U.S cities. The team is currently working on their next musical, Mrs Doubtfire, for 20th Century Fox Theatricals and producer Kevin McCollum.

Karey has also written, directed, and co-composed the songs for Warner Animation Group’s animated feature film Smallfoot.

Vancouver-born and raised, Keith Blackmore is a passionate supporter for all things animated in the Vancouver area. A producer for the SPARK ANIMATION Festival, Keith has presented, interviewed and moderated at many festivals and studios. Most recently, he was on the Film Jury for the 2022 Taiwan International Student Design Competition, the largest student design competition around the world. Keith is also the host of the monthly Vancouver Civic Theatres’ film series, Silent Movie Mondays, at the opulent and historic Orpheum Theatre.

Besides his work with the Spark CG Society, Keith continues to educate and inspire students at the Vancouver Film School, in his weekly History of Animation classes.

Kevin Webb is an Animation Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Webb oversees the animation department collaborating with filmmakers to execute their vision. His credits include: Smallfoot, Hotel Transylvania, Oz the Great & Powerful, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and The Angry Birds Movie. Earlier, Webb was at Nerd Corps for three years as an animator for television. Webb earned a Certificate in Animation, Art and Design from The Art Institute of Vancouver.

Kim Dent Wilder, SVP, Production and Operations of Rainmaker and Mainframe Studios, a division of Wow! Unlimited Media, Inc., nurtures the creative artistry of the studio’s productions while overseeing and managing its growing film and television operations. She is also involved in identifying and developing new business opportunities, including the creation of new intellectual properties and partnering with rights holders of established branded properties, as well as ensuring efficiencies across all creative and technological production processes. Instrumental in bringing the company’s first feature films, Escape from Planet Earth, in 2013, and Ratchet & Clank, in 2016, Kim has recently been involved in the production of the reboot of the ReBoot TV Series, Spy Kids TV Series, Barbie Dolphin Magic, The Barbie Dreamhouse TV Series, Octonauts and numerous other productions in pre-production and development. Kim has also served as a CMPA, BC Branch board member since December 2017.

Kristen has over 15 years experience in Film and TV. She has worked as a set designer and art director for live-action TV and film, and, more recently, as a digital set designer and art director on animated features.

Kristen first joined Animal Logic’s Sydney Studio in 2012 as a concept artist and designer on The LEGO Movie. She was Set Designer for The LEGO Batman Movie and Digital Set Designer for The LEGO Ninjago Movie. In 2016, Kristen moved to Vancouver to take on the role of Art Director on The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, where she worked closely with the Director and Production Designer to develop and execute the look of the film. She then worked on DC League of Super-Pets as the Art Director. She has just wrapped on Animal Logic’s latest film, Leo.

Kristen’s additional credits include Top of the Lake, Gods of Egypt, Narnia, Wolverine, Terra Nova, Australia, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Matrix 2 & 3, and Superman Returns.

Kunal Sen is an Animation Director and Motion Designer based between Canada and India. Over the past 10 years, he has worked in a variety of mediums: animation for film, TV, advertising, music videos, projections for theatre as well as UIs for video games and apps. Kunal has also taught Motion Graphics at Emily Carr University as a sessional faculty. His wife Tisha and he are co-founders of Good Bad Habits, a design driven animation studio based in Vancouver.

Larry Cutler is Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of the Emmy award-winning and leading VR animation studio Baobab Studios, whose mission is to inspire you to dream and bring out your sense of wonder. Larry brings deep technical leadership over the past 20 years in the area of animation creation and development. Larry currently serves on the Digital Imaging Technology Subcommittee for the Oscar Technical Achievement Awards. He was most recently the Vice President of Solutions at Metanautix. Prior to that, Larry spent 10 years at DreamWorks Animation where he served as Global Head of Character Tech and held several leadership positions in the areas of character development, animation workflow, rigging, and character simulation. Larry began his career at Pixar Animation Studios as a Technical Director on the films Monster’s Inc., Toy Story 2, and A Bug’s Life.

Lindsay is a comic artist and game developer working out of Vancouver, BC. She creates two weekly webcomics: How Baby, an autobio comic about motherhood and identity, and Motherlover, a romance comic featuring two moms. She also works as a production artist at Anemone Hug Interactive. She is self-taught and has been working as an artist full-time since 2015.

Lizzy Karp is a part of the STORYHIVE team at TELUS. She supports a team with a focus on equity, outreach and training. Her passion is creating strong relationships, seeing traditionally underrepresented folks in media, and creative distribution of projects. When not working with STORYHIVE you can find her walking her pup Farley through Vancouver.

Lou studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and joined the ranks of Pixar in 2007. Since then he’s worked on numerous productions including Wall-E, Toy Story 3, Brave, The Good Dinosaur, and Incredibles 2. His credits run the gamut from art to story, animation to technical. In 2017, he was nominated for an Academy Award® with his long-time friend Andrew Coats, for their directorial debut Borrowed Time, which they produced entirely on nights and weekends. He continues to pursue his love of all things animated, and lives with his wife and two cats in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mark Theriault is the FX Supervisor at Animal Logic • Vancouver.

Graduating from Columbia College Chicago with a BFA in Film, Mark started his career working for advertising agencies in Chicago. After his move to Visual FX, he has accumulated a broad spectrum of industry experience, such as on-set work, feature animation, video game cinematics, TV, and feature films.?

Prior to becoming the FX Supervisor at Animal Logic on The LEGO Movie Sequel, Mark worked with ILM, Image Engine, DreamWorks Animation, Prime Focus, and Blur Studios. Some of Mark's credits include: Star Wars – Force Awakens, Warcraft, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Chappie, TRON Legacy, Peabody & Sherman, Halo, and Bioshock.

Michael Fukushima is an award-winning filmmaker and producer at the National Film Board of Canada’s world-renowned Animation Studio. He has been making films since 1984, which is a lot of water under the bridge. Fukushima joined the NFB Animation Studio in 1990 where he’s been a filmmaker, producer, and now studio head. These days, he mostly produces the producers and offers up sagacity and wise-cracking bon mots.

Nathan Jurevicius is an illustrator, director, toy designer, author, and concept artist. His work has appeared in numerous publications, advertising campaigns, and galleries.

He specializes in creating immersive worlds inhabited by unique characters. His most acclaimed concept is Scarygirl, an ever-evolving plethora of characters manifested through limited edition figures, video games, and a recent feature film.

Nathan’s also known for the Australian Academy Award-winning Peleda universe, part of his ongoing owl-centric Lithuanian mythology series that includes collaborations with Kidrobot and IKEA.

Nick Park is the four-time Academy Award-winning English filmmaker, best known as the creator of Wallace & Gromit and Creature Comforts.

Born in Lancashire, England, Nick went to the National Film & Television School, where he started making the first Wallace & Gromit film, A Grand Day Out.

In 1985, he joined Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products. Along with all this, he completed A Grand Day Out, which was released in 1989 along with Creature Comforts. These two films would have the rare distinction of being nominated for the Academy Award® in the same category, in the same year. With Creature Comfort, Nick would win the first of his gilded statuettes.

Two more Wallace & Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, garnered international acclaim and awards, while culminating in two more Academy Awards® for Nick’s trophy case.

Having built up a huge fan following and winning critical acclaim for his short films, it was a natural step for Nick to make his first foray into feature films, with the release of Chicken Run in 2000. Co-directed with Aardman co-founder Peter Lord, it was released to great praise and box office success.

His second feature film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released on October 5, 2005, to great applause and approval. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was number one at the box office worldwide for three weeks in a row and earned Nick another Oscar®... a fourth statuette for his trophy cabinet!

Nominated for the 2010 Oscar®, the fun and funny Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf & Death proved again; you couldn’t go wrong with the lovable comedy duo.

This year, Nick Park returned with a passion project, Early Man. The hybrid stop-motion-CG film features the signature Aardman style that’s recognized against all the other styles.

Nick Park’s work has helped spark the blossoming of stop motion animation. His films are full of brilliant ideas, impeccable techniques and a masterful sense of film drama. The adoring love for his creations, the many awards and statuettes Nick has received, is a clear testament to Nick’s gifts, talents and artistry in creating some of this generation’s most endearing characters in animation.

Nicole combines her film expertise, technical web prowess and a decade marketing experience to produce and direct films, direct cross-platform projects, build immersive worlds and create outreach strategies that create paradigm shifting impact.

Nicole is the transmedia director for Amplify Her: a feature documentary film, graphic novel and 7-chapter motion comic series involving over 20 creative women. She is also co-creator of the augmented location-based music discovery game Hipster Bait launching spring 2019.

Nicole has a background in video journalism and has filmed in conflict zones around the world. She has spoken at events such as TEDx, UX Week and Comicon on topics around female creation and human experience design. Nicole also co-owns One Net Inc. an award-winning creative and marketing agency based in Victoria, BC working with the world’s largest tech and entertainment brands where she is the Creative Director.

Paul Harrod has worked three decades as a designer, art director and director of both animated and live-action projects, with a special emphasis on stop-motion animation. In his capacity as a designer, model maker and sculptor, he lent his skills to such diverse projects as sculpting aliens for Star Trek V and designing and building miniature sets for the opening titles of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Specializing in designing environments for visual effects and stop-motion projects, he set the tone for a variety of commercial campaigns, including the first several Chevron Talking Cars spots at Aardman Animation in 1994, a campaign which continues to this day.

In the early 90’s, Harrod joined Will Vinton Studios as Senior Art Director, overseeing the design demands of all studio output. He served as production designer and director of five episodes over the three season run of the Fox TV series, The PJs for which he was nominated for an Annie award in 2000. Joining the directing team at Bent Image Lab in 2003, his commercial for Tractor Supply Company, Koi Pond, was voted one of the 50 best spots of 2006 by Adweek. He has directed numerous commercials for clients including Kellogg’s Twistables, Quaker, Chips Ahoy!, Hallmark, Ensure, Cartoon Network, Lowes and Aflac.

In 2015, he joined with Adam Stockhausen as co-production designer on Wes Anderson’s stop-motion feature, Isle of Dogs which saw it’s release in March 2018. The film has received widespread critical acclaim for both its narrative and its highly detailed visual language. His visual style has always been guided by a love for cinema history, and he has curated monthly film screenings at Mother’s Bistro in Portland, where he lives with his wife, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Joanna Priestley.

Paul Watling most recently served as head of story on Sony Pictures Animation’s computer animated Spider-Man™: Into the Spider-Verse, which is slated for theatrical release in December 2018.

Previously, he served as a storyboard artist on several other Sony Pictures Animation films, including Smurfs: The Lost Village, and Hotel Transylvania 2.

Prior to joining Sony Pictures Animation, Paul worked as a storyboard artist and character designer on a variety of TV shows, such as Grojband, Sidekick, Total Drama, Yin Yang Yo, Atomic Betty, and Ed, Edd n Eddy.

He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife.

Phil has 20 years of professional experience in animation, character modelling, rigging and surfacing. Phil currently supervises the amazing modelling team at Animal Logic Vancouver for The LEGO Movie 2. As Asset and CG Supervisor Phil helped deliver projects for Marvel, Blue Sky, Disney, Universal, Microsoft and more.

Studied graphic design at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In 2010, he directed the widely praised Animated Guide to Polish Success that promoted Poland at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. In 2011, his movie Tourism was included in the MOVE YOUR IMAGINATION campaign created by Platige. The campaign was supposed to promote Poland at the ITB tourism trade fair in Berlin. That same year, Rafał co-directed the animated opening sequence of that Qatari series Dream 2030.

Wojtunik creates characters and set designs for animated shorts, ads, musicals and title sequences for TV series. He has collaborated with multiple directors, including Tomek Bagiński, Agnieszka Holland and Kasia Adamik. Wojtunik created the concept art for Fallen Art, a movie by Tomek Bagiński that received a BAFTA Award in 2006. In 2007, he was the art director for the digital set designs that Platige created for the Mr Kleks’ Academy musical. In 2018, he was the art director in the feature film Another Day of Life directed by Damian Nenow.

After working for several years in a Vancouver chartered accounting firm, Robert first joined Creative BC when it was BC Film + Media. At that time, he became part of the organization's newly forming tax credit team.

Now Creative BC's Vice President, Robert markets British Columbia internationally as a destination of choice for projects and companies seeking a world class creative industries centre in which to do business. In his role, he leads the administration of Creative BC's tax credit and granting programs, balancing attraction of international business with support for BC's domestic content creators.

During his tenure with the organization, Robert has become the expert on motion picture tax credits, originally helping to launch the BC film and television tax credit program in 1998. He went on to play an integral role in the evolution of British Columbia’s motion picture industry tax policy.

Rodrigo Blaas is an Emmy award-winning director with more than 20 years of experience in the animation industry. A self-taught animator, he developed his passion for animation in Granada, Spain. He then decided to settle in Madrid where he worked for VFX studios like Miopia, Molinare and Stromboli, a company he co-founded in 1997. He was able to work on many award-winning commercials, including supervising animation for RENFE ALARIS commercial, winner of the prestigious PRIX PIXEL INA - Imagina 2000 and for IBERIA, winner of the Sol de Oro award in 2001.

He continued to pursue his passion for character animation and joined Blue Sky Studios as an animator in 2000 where he worked on its first feature film, Ice Age (2002), animating on characters like Scrat or Sid. After 2 years in New York, Rodrigo was fortunate enough to move to San Francisco to work for Pixar Animation Studios. He worked on projects such as Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007) and Wall-E (2008) among many others. One of his most gratifying experiences at Pixar was working as a supervising animator on the academy award-nominated short film La Luna (2011).

In his search for exploring different ways to tell stories through animation, he took some time from his work at Pixar to debut as a director with his first independent short film, Alma. The short film premiered at the LA Short Film Fest, where it won Best in Show and also at SIGGRAPH 2009, where it won a Jury Honourable Mention and was part of the Electronic Theatre screening. It also won over more than 15 international awards. The short was produced by Cecile Hokes with a team based in Spain and California. Working with artists from around the world, Alma went on to gain international recognition and then getting noticed by the visionary filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro.

After spending 9 wonderful years at Pixar, Rodrigo moved his family to Los Angeles and partnered with Guillermo del Toro to develop Trollhunters based on the book by the same name written by Del Toro and Daniel Kraus.

Rodrigo is currently working for DreamWorks TV Animation where he is the Showrunner and Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-winning hit Netflix TV series, Trollhunters (2016). The show won 6 Emmy awards in its first season with 9 Emmy Nominations in total and 3 Annie Awards, including an Emmy for best directing for Rodrigo Blaas in conjunction with Guillermo del Toro. He is also Showrunner of 3Below & Wizards, the next two series of the Trollhunters saga called The Tales of Arcadia.

Rose-Ann Tisserand is the Founder and Executive Producer of Women in Animation Vancouver’s National Animation Career EXCELerator Program (ACE). ACE’s mission is to advance mid-career women into 8 key creative roles while making a short film and telling their authentic stories. The ACE program has been a passion project for Rose-Ann for over 6 years, successfully completing 3 award-winning short films and advancing 19 women from across Canada in the roles of Writer, Producer, Director, Art Director, Animation Director, Story Supervisor, Editor and Composer.

Rose-Ann is also Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Flying Kraken Creative Studios, a boutique studio that creates original animation content and specializes in award-winning animation design services.

Rose-Ann has worked as a production executive for 23 years in film and television production. She was a supervising producer at Bardel Entertainment and a consulting creative producer with the National Film Board of Canada on Zeb’s Spider. She is currently Executive Producer/Co-Creator of a series in development with Sony Entertainment.

Rose-Ann has been active in the animation industry and women-led initiatives for over 10 years, including sitting on the Spark Animation Leadership Board, Chair of Drawn Together Vancouver, and Executive Advisor and Co-Chair on the WIA Vancouver Board.

Shirley Vercruysse is the Executive Producer of the National Film Board of Canada’s BC & Yukon Studio, based in Vancouver, BC, where she leads the team producing documentary and animation projects. The studio’s latest projects include the feature-length musical documentary The Road Forward (Marie Clements); the animated feature film Window Horses (Ann Marie Fleming), co-produced with Stickgirl Productions, and the animated shorts I AM HERE (Eoin Duffy) The Mountain of Sgaana (Christopher Auchter) Shop Class (Hart Snider) and the mid-length documentary Beauty (Christina Willings).

Projects currently in production include the online documentary series, True North (Ryan Sidhoo); short animation The Zoo (Julia Kwan); feature documentaries The Whale and the Raven (coproduction with Whale and Raven Productions) and Sovereign Soil (Yukon based co-production) and mid length documentary featuring the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (John Bolton).

As an award-winning Writer, Director and Producer, Smita brings over a decade of film and television experience to her role at STORYHIVE. Her work has been selected as a New York Times Critics Pick, broadcast worldwide and screened in numerous festivals including TIFF; VIFF; WOW Film Festival (Australia); Female Shorts Showcase Jury award winner (Torpedo Factory Art Center, Virginia) and the Los Angeles Comedy Festival. Prior to her work at TELUS, Smita production managed the Gemini-nominated documentary series Fish Out of Water (APTN) in addition to working with the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (Out on Screen). She is a Women In the Director’s Chair alumna as well as the former President of WIFT-Alberta.

Grammy-winning Music Supervisor Steven Gizicki is best known for his work on Damien Chazelle’s musical La La Land, which won the Academy Award and Golden Globes for Best Original Song and Original Score. Steven was also awarded two prizes from the Guild of Music Supervisors and a Grammy for his work on the film. His latest projects include the animated musical Smallfoot starring Channing Tatum, Zendaya and Common, buzzy festival films Teen Spirit and Arctic, and on-set supervision of music sequences for this summer’s cultural phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians. Next on-deck: an FX limited series based on the life of Bob Fosse with the creative team behind Hamilton and Grease: Live, starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams.

Steven was also the sole music executive at Lucasfilm for five years and served as an in-house Music Supervisor at Disney Animation. He spent several years in the record label business as a Soundtrack Executive at PolyGram Records and as Marketing Executive at Virgin Records, where he worked closely with music icons like David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, and Sex Pistols. He is based in Los Angeles.

Coming soon.

He was born in Tokyo in 1967, and currently belongs to MADHOUSE as an animator. Since the animated movie Hong Gil Dong in 1995, he has continued the relationship with Korea.

He is widely known for the character design and animation direction of Top Blade (Korea-Japan co-produced) in 2001, Thuhai Densetsu Akagi in 2005, and Claymore in 2007.

He has started his first career as the director of The Moon Hiding in the Woods working with DR MOIVE which have been a long-term partner of MADHOUSE where he has been belonged to for a long period of time.

Tammy has been working in animation for over 10 years. She moved to Vancouver after completing a degree in Visual Communication from the Alberta College of Art & Design. She attended Vancouver Film School where she earned a diploma in Classical Animation.

Working mostly in television for several studios including DHX Media, Bardel and Global Mechanic. Notable productions include Bob”s Burgers, The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show, and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Tammy is currently animating by day for Atomic Cartoons and working on projects like Amplify Her by night.

Ted Mathot started at Pixar Animation Studios in 1999 as a story artist on Monster’s Inc., and has since worked in a similar role on The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Presto and WALL•E. He was the recipient of an Annie Award in 2008 for his storyboard work on Ratatouille. He was most recently the story supervisor on Disney•Pixar’s Incredibles 2, and directed the mini-movie Auntie Edna, releasing with the In-home version of Incredibles 2.

Teri Snelgrove is the Associate Producer at the BC & Yukon Studio of The National Film Board of Canada where she has worked on a number of animated projects, including The Mountain of SGaana (Christopher Auchter), Shop Class (Hart Snider) and The Zoo (Julia Kwan). She has also worked on many documentaries including the acclaimed The Road Forward (Marie Clements), Debris (John Bolton), Bone Wind Fire (Jill Sharpe), Crazywater, (Denis Allen) Beauty (Christina Willings), and the interactive project, Bread (Mariette Sluyter). Teri is a Newfoundlander and a graduate of the film/video program at Emily Carr Institute (now University). She is currently working on her Master’s Degree through the GLS program at SFU.

Tisha Deb Pillai is an Indian filmmaker who currently resides in Vancouver BC, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Media Arts in Animation from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her graduation film If You Fall has screened at reputed festivals like Anima Mundi, Cinanima, Ottawa International Animation Festival, TIFF Canada’s Top Ten, NY International Children’s Film Festival, Spark Animation and Vancouver International Women in Film Festival. Her film was also added to the permanent collection at the Education Department Resources at the Museum of Modern Art, NY. As an animator living between Canada and India, her work has been inspired from two vastly distinct worlds of colours, cultures and ideas. She enjoys telling stories from personal experiences and memories, and weaving them into narratives with a universal theme.

Tom began his writing career on Steven Spielberg’s Pinky & the Brain, co-created and directed Cartoon Network’s High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, and is currently the director of Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken. Other writing and producing credits include SuperMansion, Star Wars: Detours, Back at the Barnyard, My Gym Partner’s a Monkey and Kung Fu Panda. Tom wrote New Line’s live-action New Adventures of Pinocchio starring Martin Landau, Scooby Doo: Song of the Vampire and he directed the indie comedy, Would I Lie to You? Upcoming projects include the screenplay for Ubisoft’s Rabbids movie, and a feature based on the cult YA novel, The Grounding of Group 6, which Tom is slated to direct. Tom has won 4 Emmy Awards, a WGA Award nomination, and is a graduate of The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Trisha Gum is a filmmaker and fine arts artist living in Los Angeles, C.A., she has been working professionally in animation for ten years. Trisha started her film career working as an Art Director and Production Designer on various TV shows, such as, Robot Chicken, WB’s MAD, and Adult Swim’s Frankenhole. Trisha transitioned into writing and directing in 2010 and in 2011 she was selected for AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women. In 2015, she won an Emmy for her work on Amazon’s Tumble Leaf and in 2018 was named one of Variety’s top 10 animators to watch. She recently wrapped as the Head of Story on Warner Bros LEGO Batman movie and is now co-directing LEGO 2, the sequel to the original LEGO movie.

Warren Leonhardt has drawn storyboards for North American and European commercials, series, and animated/hybrid films for twenty years. In 2011, he joined Blue Sky Studios and was eventually promoted to Head of Story on Ferdinand (2017), which earned an Academy® nomination for Best Animated Feature that year.

During his time as Head of Story, Warren also taught at the SVA MFA Computer Arts Department, named one of the “Top Ten Digital Art Schools in the World” by ImagineFX magazine, where he specialized in Narrative & Visual Storytelling and Digital Storyboarding.

Past clients include Lucasfilm, Marvel Animation, Sony Pictures Animation, Focus Features, Warner Bros., Touchstone Pictures, and Disney.

Zeb Wells leapt into animation after a successful career writing for Marvel Comics (The Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine). In 2007, he began a long stint as a writer for the Emmy award-winning stop-motion comedy series Robot Chicken, where he went on to direct multiple seasons, as well as two critically-acclaimed DC Comics specials. Zeb is also the Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Sony Crackle’s Emmy Award-nominated SuperMansion. SuperMansion, which stars Bryan Cranston and Keegan-Michael Key, premiered in October 2015. All episodes from the first two seasons are now available to stream on the Crackle website and apps, with episodes of Season 3 currently airing.

As Head of CG Canada, Zoe engages in shows from their very initial discussions until their final delivery, and beyond! Zoe is excited to adopt new technologies and resources, giving artists a new and exciting means to create VFX of the highest level.

Whilst being an active member of the VFX and Animation Community, Zoe is passionate about building and growing talented and diverse teams, whereby people can work at their very best in a thriving and enriching environment.

Zoe started her career in 2005 at Double Negative London, subsequently working in the Singapore and Vancouver studios. Her most recent roles were CG Supervisor, Head of Build and Head of CG.