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Guest Speakers

Mindy Johnson - Award winning author

Award-winning author and historian Mindy Johnson once again takes readers on an epic journey into the unexplored realms of our collective past. Her critically acclaimed debut title, Tinker Bell – An Evolution, which chronicled the development of everyone's favorite fairy, was honored with consecutive Family Choice Awards. Contributing writer for The Walt Disney Film Archives: The Animated Movies 1921-1968 (Taschen Publishing) and the celebrated book Marc Davis – Walt Disney’s Renaissance Man (Disney Editions), Mindy is a frequent speaker and writer on early cinema, animation, women's history, and creativity. In addition to being an award-winning playwright, songwriter, musician, and contributing artist on several internationally acclaimed recordings, Mindy continues to teach, write, and consult for various entertainment entities…between tea breaks.

Guest speakers from the 2015 World Animation Celebration. 

Eric Goldberg

Supervising animator and director at the Walt Disney Animation Studios, has brought to life Aladdin’s Genie, Hercules’s Phil, The Princess and the Frog’s Louis, and many more. Mr. Goldberg co-directed the Academy Award-winning Pocahontas and directed two segments, “Rhapsody in Blue” and “The Carnival of the Animals, Finale,” in Fantasia/2000. Most recently he led the hand-drawn animation team on the satirical short Get a Horse!, starring Mickey and friends, which debuted in theaters with Frozen. Before joining The Walt Disney Company in 1990, he founded and ran his own award-winning animation house, Pizazz Pictures, in London.

David Silverman

David is a 4-time Emmy-winning Director best known for directing numerous episodes of the animated TV series The Simpsons, as well as The Simpsons Movie. Silverman was involved with the series from the very beginning, where he animated on all of the original short Simpsons cartoons that aired on The Tracey Ullman Show and went on to serve as Supervising Animation Director for several years. He also directed the The Simpsons Movie, and co-directed Monsters, Inc. In 2012, Silverman directed the theatrical short The Longest Daycare starring Maggie Simpson. The short was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

Butch Hartman

Butch grew up in Michigan and attended Cal Arts to study animation. He has worked for Marvel Productions, Ruby Spears Productions, Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. He wrote and directed episodes of Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow & Chicken and Johnny Bravo before churning out three original shorts – Pfish & Chip, Hillbilly Blue and Gramps for Cartoon Network. Hartman began working with Nickelodeon on Oh Yeah, Cartoons! where he created The Fairly OddParents in 1998 as a short cartoon. It launched as an official series in 2001 and has been running consistently for 14 years with new episodes, being nominated for, and winning multiple Emmy awards along the way. In 2004, Hartman created his second Nicktoon, Danny Phantom, about a teenage boy with ghost-like superpowers.  Hartman then created the Nickelodeon animated comedy series T.U.F.F. Puppy in 2010, it follows a gung-ho, dim-witted dog named Dudley Puppy who is thrust into the role of “hero” when recruited by the super-secret crime fighting organization T.U.F.F. (Turbo Undercover Fighting Force).  In 2011, Nickelodeon commemorated the 10th anniversary of The Fairly Odd Parents with the live-action/CG animated TV movie A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!  The series came to life once again with the 2012 holiday-themed sequel, A Fairly Odd Christmas, and once more in 2014 with A Fairly Odd Summer. His shows are currently seen in dozens of countries around the world and have been translated into multiple languages. In July 2015, Butch made his first foray into the digital app space by launching THE NOOG NETWORK on the App Store for the iPhone. It features all original animated, and live-action content created by Butch and he’s thrilled to undertake this exciting new challenge. In 2005 Butch – along with his wife Julieann – founded Hartman House, a charitable, non-profit organization that benefits needy children and families around the world. Butch loves cartoons, comedy, and entertaining kids on every planet in the solar system!

Tony Bancroft

Upon graduating from high school, Tony was accepted into the exclusive, Disney sponsored art college, California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts) in 1987, where he thrived artistically and developed a lifelong passion for animation. As a result of his time at CalArts, he was “drafted” to the big leagues of Walt Disney Animation Studios. During his 12-year career with Disney Studios, Tony created and animated many of the studio’s most famous characters, and was rewarded for his excellence by becoming one of Disney’s youngest animated feature film directors. His contributions to the Disney character hall of fame include: Pumbaa, the lovable warthog in The Lion King; Kronk, the dim-witted sidekick in The Emperor’s New Groove; Cogsworth the clock from Beauty and the Beast; and Iago the pestering parrot in Aladdin. As part of his directorial duties for Disney, Tony functioned as voice director of the English-language version of Hayao Miyasaki’s classic anime feature, Porco Rosso, directing a world-famous cast that included Michael Keaton, Cary Elwes and David Ogden Stiers. Tony’s most notable accomplishments include being the co-director of Walt Disney’s feature film, Mulan, for which he received the Annie award for Director of the Year from ASIFA-International; and animation director of Sony’s Stuart Little 2, for which he received the Visual Effects Society’s top award for character animation. Currently, Tony is directing a CG animated feature called Animal Crackers with an international release of early 2017.  Also, he has taken his 27 years of animation experience and composited it into a book called “Directing for Animation” which released world-wide through Focal Press.  He and his twin brother, Tom, recently started a popular podcast about the animation industry called the Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast, which is on iTunes.

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