LA ACM SIGGRAPH 2002-2003 Executive Council

Chair: Alan Botvinick
Associate Chair: Claudia Sumner
Vice Chair: Erin Dalli
Associate Vice Chair: Tim Everingham
Secretary: Fran Zandonella
Treasurer: Jeff Chan
Chair Emeritus: Joan Collins Carey
Executive Advisor/Past Chair: Diane Piepol
Past Chair: Genny Yee
Past Chair: Aliza Chameides
Membership Chair: Cathy Blanco
Membership Secretary: Andrew Milne
Webmaster: Janet Gervers
Publicity Chair: Diana Lee
SIGGRAPH Tech Chair: Howard Neely
SIGGRAPH Art Chair: Sheri Burnham

Committee Members:
Diane Solomon, Zachary Taylor, James Guilford

Bold indicates elected officers.
Executive Council meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month. If you would like to attend call the SIGphone at 310.288.1148.

Art Direction: Janet Gervers
Writers: Suzanne Lezotte,
Janet Gervers

Newsletter Archives:

http://la.siggraph.org/Newsletters.html

March 11 Chapter Meeting

FRANK GLADSTONE, Head of Artistic Development, DreamWorks SKG Animation
Frank Gladstone has been working as a professional animator, producer, director, writer and teacher for more than twenty-five years. From 1973 to 1989, he managed his own Emmy award-winning studio, Persistence of Vision, Inc., producing commercials and educational films, and has since worked for the feature animation divisions at Disney, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks. Besides his studio credentials, Frank has spoken on animation at schools and institutions around the country, in the Caribbean, Europe and Asia and has taught various animation and cinematography courses and workshops for the University of Miami, VIFX, Cinesite, UNICEF, Gnomon Digital, Vancouver Film School, Nickelodeon, UCLA, San Jose State, Stanford and USC. Frank has designed courses and helped train literally hundreds of people who work in the animation industry. Currently, Frank is the Head of Artistic Development at DreamWorks SKG Animation.
     Additionally, Frank serves on several school advisory boards, philanthropic and educational organizations, produces public service television commercials, is working on the Glendale Animation Initiative to bring a world-class animation center to Southern California, and is a member of the City of Glendale Arts and Culture Commission.

ANGIE JONES, Character Animator, Cinesite
Angie Jones is a character animator with over 10 years working in video games, commercials, television and film.  She moved to California in1995 to start a career in video games after freelancing several broadcast gigs over the course of two years in Atlanta, GA.  From1995-1998 she helped produce over 25 educational video games for the PSX at The Lightspan artnership.  Searching for more creative ventures she left for Oddworld Inhabitants where she worked on the award winning video games ODDWORLD: Abe's Exoddus and Munch's Oddysee.  In June of2000, she left Oddworld to become the Lead Artist on one of the six games in production at Angel Studios. There she led a team of seven artists through two 8-month prototypes and represented Angel Studios in Osaka, Japan with the Japanese publisher.  After Angel, she moved to Sony Pictures Imageworks to work as a character animator on the Stuart Little 2 production.  Since leaving SPI, Angie has been freelancing on various commercials in Los Angeles including Kid's Cuisine, Smart and Final and the Fido Dido 7-up International pitch.  In addition, she was Lead Artist for 8 minutes of game cinematics for the Power Puff Girls PS2 video game. She is now working as character animator on XMEN2 and Freddie vs. Jason at Cinesite in Hollywood. She taught a seminar on creating character animation on a computer at DHIMA, was a speaker at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose in 2000 and has co-authored two books on animation. Angie is currently working as a freelance contractor under the Spicy Cricket Animation Identity - http://www.spicycricket.com.

ARTHUR LEE, Training Specialist, Walt Disney Feature Animation
Arthur Lee started his career as an Applications Engineer for Alias Research and has over 10 years experience working with computer graphics. As a digital content creator he has worked with 3D in the areas of Computer Aided Industrial Design, VRML development, print, and games. He has lectured and taught character modeling, animation, and materials and lighting courses at Columbia College, Harper College, The Illinois Institute of Art, and The Illinois Institute of Technology, College of Architecture. He has also done work with McDonald's Corp., Raven Software, Midway Games, and High Voltage Software. Arthur is currently a Training Specialist at Walt Disney Feature Animation.

GEORGE MAESTRI, President Rubberbug, Inc.
George Maestri has worked as a writer, director, and producer in both traditional and computer animation for a number of major studios. His characters "Karen & Kirby" have been seen both on the Kid's WB and in the Siggraph 2000 film festival. George was the original animation producer on the Comedy Central series "South Park" and was nominated for a Cable Ace award for writing on the Nickelodeon series "Rocko's Modern Life." He has written and edited several books and dozens of articles on computer animation. He is currently President and CEO of Rubberbug, Inc, a studio specializing in character animation.

KAREY MALTZAHN, Executive Producer, 2D, Rhythm and Hues
In her role overseeing R&H's 2D division, Karey Maltzahn supervises the artists and editors who work with the studio's state of the art Inferno, Flame and Avid facilities as well as managing the compositing and rotoscoping staff. Since joining R&H in 1996 as a Commercial Producer, Karey has supervised the exponential growth of her department and facilitated the expansion of the studio's production pipeline capacity, resulting in cutting edge effects for such movies as "The Sum of All Fears," "Scooby Doo" and "Harry Potter."
     Before joining R&H, Karey served as a Visual Effects Editor at Composite Image Systems on "Batman Forever," "Star Trek: Generations" and "Little Rascals." She then moved on to Visual Effects Line Producer on a number of projects including "Waterworld," "Nick of Time" and several commercials. Karey began her career in film as a freelance Assistant Editor, on such films as "Natural Born Killers," "The River Wild", "Heaven & Earth" and "Killing Zoe.
     Karey is a member of Editors Guild IATSE Local 700. She earned a BS from University of Oregon majoring in Telecommunications and Film with a minor in Visual Design.

RICHARD SIGLER, entertainment attorney
Richard Sigler is an entertainment attorney practicing for over 30 years in Los Angeles. Two of his specialties are animation and licensing, which have been specialties for over 20 years. He has written a column for Animation Magazine called Legal Briefs on the legal and business affairs of the animation industry. In addition, he speaks before various trade groups and teaches the subject.
    Production companies and/or distributors he has worked for or has represented include N.B.C., Warner Bros., Twentieth Century-Fox, Hanna-Barbera, Marvel Productions, New World Animation, Scholastic, Ruby-Spears Productions, Carsey-Werner Animation, Mattel, Fisher-Price, MTM, HBO Animation, PorchLight Entertainment, Mike Young Productions, 3DO Interactive, Zoki-Afanti (People's Republic of China), Ultracom (Japan), Matinee Productions (Malaysia), Dave Edwards Productions (Wales), and Petersen Publishing Company (later EMAP USA and now Primedia).
    Individual talent represented by Mr. Sigler now or in the past include director Robert Altman, Bill Hanna, Paul Demeyer (the director of the Rugrats sequel feature), John Eng (the director of an upcoming Klasky-Csupo feature), Jim Beihold (the director of the Clifford, the Big Red Dog feature for Scholastic) Dick Sebast (the director of an MGM direct to video feature), Albert Ash (the creator of the Paramount live action feature film Fairy Tale: a True Story), and several animation writers, designers, production executives, and corporate executives. Properties represented by him include the Marvel Comics characters (Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, etc.), Hanna-Barbera characters (Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, Flintstones, Smurfs, etc.), Veggie Tales, Kewpie, the rock group KISS, and Biker Mice From Mars.
     Mr. Sigler has been involved in all the types of transactions one would expect of a full service entertainment transactional law and business affairs practice, including rights acquisitions and sales, distribution agreements, financing agreements, foreign and domestic co-production agreements, talent contracts, overseas subcontracting, computer animation, exhibition licenses, network and syndication licenses, etc. He has represented properties in licensing almost every area, including videogames, internet sites, stage plays and operas, publications, music, sound recordings, race cars, clothing, food, restaurants, motion pictures and television, master toy licenses, and concerts.
     Mr. Sigler graduated from the University of Southern California Law Center where he was an editor of the Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. He has taught there and lectured to professional organizations.

STAN SZYMANSKI, Vice President Digital Production, Sony Pictures Imageworks
Stan Szymanski supervises the overall direction and day-to-day operation of Sony Pictures Imageworks' Digital Production. His department, the facility's largest, includes computer graphics supervisors and digital artists of all types. Imageworks has grown significantly during Szymanski's tenure, creating the visual effects for "Contact," "Starship Troopers" (Academy Award nominee for visual effects in 1997), "Godzilla," "Stuart Little" (Academy Award nominee for visual effects in 1999), "Hollow Man" (Academy Award nominee for visual effects in 2000), "Cast Away," "What Lies Beneath," "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," "Spider-Man" (Academy Award nominee for visual effects in 2002), "Stuart Little 2" "Men in Black II" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."
     The CG supervisors and artists in Szymanski's department are currently in production on "The Matrix Reloaded," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," "The Polar Express," "Haunted Mansion," "Big Fish" and "The Amazing Spider-Man."
Szymanski's background includes a wide range of visual effects experience on the creative, managerial and administrative sides of the business, including stints as a department manager, visual effects producer, production manager, post-production supervisor and digital artist.
     Before joining Imageworks, Szymanski was Director of Operations for Pacific Ocean Post (now R!OT Film), where he supervised the digital film division and line produced the digital post production of over 200 visual effects shots on "Independence Day," winner of the Academy Award for visual effects in 1996.
Szymanski also served in a variety of roles for CG production companies, including MetroLight Studios and L2 Communication, where he worked with director Brett Leonard ("Lawnmower Man") as Digital Post Production Supervisor on "Virtuosity."
     Szymanski began his career in the Los Angeles visual effects industry as a Graphics and Effects Producer for Editel/LA. While there, he worked on a variety of award-winning broadcast commercial spots for numerous clients. One of these projects, Nike's "The Wall," is included in the collection of television commercials at the Museum of Modern Art.
     A lifelong enthusiast of film history, Szymanski has lectured extensively on the subject and established a film series at Imageworks that combines lectures on various periods of film history with esteemed guest speakers and screenings of classic films. Szymanski holds a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design from State University College at Buffalo.

PAMELA KLEIBRINK THOMPSON, Career Coach/Recruiter, Hiring Strategist, Ideas to Go
Meeting moderator/co-producer
Having held virtually every job in the entertainment industry, Pamela Kleibrink Thompson is uniquely qualified as an independent recruiter, career coach, and hiring strategist. Her clients include Disney, Fox, Framestore, Simex Digital Studios, Digital Domain, Macromedia, Click 3X, Big Idea Productions, Dream Quest Images and interactive companies such as Lucas Learning, Raven Software, Activision, Stan Lee Media, and Hollywood On Line. She was officially recognized as a top recruiter by Animation Magazine.
     In 1998, Thompson produced LA/SIGGRAPH'S Career Boot Camp, the world-famous seminar to prepare artists for careers in computer animation. With over 40 executive panelists from top studios and over 800 attendees, the program was a tremendous success. Thompson co-produced the event in 1999. Thompson speaks on animation and the visual effects industry at conferences, seminars and colleges across the country.
     Thompson's production credits include The Simpsons, Family Dog and Bebe's Kids. She produced video games while managing the art department at Virgin Interactive Entertainment. She has written and produced training films for AT&T and IBM, and her articles on management, animation and interactivity have appeared in over 40 publications. She teaches courses on animation, new media and the internet, and advises colleges and universities on animation curricula. She is a regular contributor to Animation Magazine. Her monthly column "The Career Coach" has a devoted international following on Animation World Network at www.awn.com. A member of Women in Animation, Thompson is also active in L.A. SIGGRAPH and ASIFA.

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