Animation Events worth waiting for!

This past week has been a blur of events! And each one I’ve walked away with more wisdom, knowledge and of course business cards than I’ve ever gotten. If you’re new like me and you haven’t gotten involved in a group

Full house for the WIA Short Film Panel!

like Women in Animation, Animation Army, or a gathering like the WIA Writer’s Round Table, I strongly suggest you do so, no matter where you are.

You can check out the WIA Blog for info about the Short Film panel here: http://wia.animationblogspot.com. As you can see from the photo, many people attended from all ages and ranks, from industry veterans to students and people everywhere in-between!

Animation Army (check out their website here) had their monthly meeting last Sunday at the Bigfoot Lodge in Glendale. Animation Army basically is a social networking group for animation artists of all kinds where we meet together to talk about opportunities, to find project help and to make some new friends. Our guest speaker was Rusty Mills of MyToons.com (a producer of Animaniacs and Pinky and The Brain to name just a few of his credits) and he spoke about pitching series ideas to studios. We also got to view his work and he even brought along some of his pitching material, giving advice on creative things to do - and equally what not to do.

And finally last night was the first new meeting of the recently reinstated Women in Animation Writer’s Round Table! Our speaker was animation writer Craig Miller who has been in the business for a long time (whose credits include a lot of the shows I grew up with in the 80s like The Real Ghostbusters and G.I. Joe) and had a lot of good advice on what makes a story great. (The answer by the way, is the characters!) Craig also answered questions about how to pitch yourself to a studio as a writer and how pitch a good series bible to a studio as well. Friendly and humorous, he was a great speaker and we all enjoyed talking with him. For me, it was a wonderful opportunity to finally come face-to-face with a real animation writer and to hear what it’s like.

If you want to attend the next Round Table and will be in the LA area sometime early December send an email to wiawritersrt@gmail.com. You don’t have to be a WIA member to come and we’d love to have you! Our next speaker will be one of my personal favorite animation writers, Jeffrey Scott, author of the book “How to Write for Animation.“

Drop me a line to if you want to know about any of these events at joaniegecko at gmail.com.