I also went to CTN in November, so here are a bunch of pictures of that.
I got to go to a pre-screening of Rise of the Guardians at Dreamworks Animation Studios! It was on Thursday Nov 15th and it was incredibly cool to actually see the studio. I only got to see part of the outside and the lobby/screening room but it was still awesome.
Po and I brushed up on our Kung Fu.
I got to see/meet a bunch of people that I incredibly admire including the super talented Andreas Deja (with the voice of Anita from 101 Dalmations, Lisa Davis).
The lovely Brittany Lee! She did a demo on her paper cut technique which I was super excited about.
And Ruben Aquino! I was extremely excited to meet him and to watch him sketch some of the characters that he animated. He was the lead on Ursula from the Little Mermaid, who is one of my favorite animated characters of all time.
The fabulous Ursula!
Shang from Mulan.
Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch.
Simba!!!
Cheif Powhatan from Pocahontas.
I also got to go to an amazingly inspiring panel with Glen Keane. He talked about his career and showed us his pencil test of Part of Your World, which is probably my favorite animated scene ever. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend and a hugely exciting moment for me. I didn't get to actually meet Glen unfortunately, but I definitely hope to someday!
Another highlight of the weekend was going to a 'creator conversation' with Tom and Tony Bancroft. They are twin brothers who both worked at Disney during the second golden age of animation. Tom was the supervising animator on Mushu in Mulan and worked on Young Simba, Iago and Pocahontas among other other characters. Tony co-directed Mulan and was the supervising animator on Pumbaa and Kronk, as well as working on other characters. It was really cool to hear their stories about Disney and how they got to where they are today. I also bought a copy of Tom's book and a sketch from both of them.
There was a ton of cool stuff to see at CTN, I got to go to panels about Hotel Transelvania, meet a ton of great artists and some fellow AM students, get my reel critiques by Jason Ryan and a Disney animator, and spent a lot of money on art prints.
They had the actual Fix it Felix games from Wreck it Ralph there. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
The Pizza Planet Truck also showed up!
And what better way to wrap up an amazing weekend, than breakfast off of the Hobbit menu. :)
