Alyssa Zárate is an Art Director based in Vancouver, BC. She is also a co-founder at The VFX Mentor. Up until recently, she served as Environment and Matte Painting Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks. For over a decade, she has worked on films such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs The Machines, Game of Thrones, The Wolverine, Jurassic World, Prometheus, The Chronicles of Narnia to name a few; and various shows produced by HBO, Starz, National Geographic, Amazon Prime, Disney, and Netflix.

She started working in the Art Department as an on-set production illustrator and designer for film and television productions around New Zealand and Australia. She is passionate about leadership, mentoring, and inspiring current and future generations of artists in Visual Effects and Animation, especially those from underrepresented communities.

Amilcar is an FX artist who honed his skill for creating photo-realistic and stylized effects after completing his Communication Sciences degree in 2015. Since then, Amilcar has contributed to both animated and live-action productions. He worked as FX Artist on the feature film Belzebuth, which went on to win an Ariel Award for Best Visual Effects in 2020.

He is currently working at Animal Logic’s Vancouver Studio and worked on the recently completed DC League of Super-Pets as FX Artist.

Angela joined Animal Logic in 2015 as a Senior Modeller, working on The LEGO Ninjago Movie and is now a Modelling Supervisor for Toto. She most recently worked as the Lead Modeller on DC League of Super-Pets and was a Senior Modelling Artist for The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part and The LEGO Batman Movie.

Before joining Animal Logic, Angela worked at PDI/DreamWorks as a modeller for nine years, contributing to many of their successful films such as Shrek 3 and 4, the Madagascar films, Monster vs Aliens, Megamind, and Home.

Brandon Oldenburg is an Academy Award-winning film director (The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore), designer and immersive storyteller. Beside the Oscar, Brandon has received 4 Emmys, multiple Gold Lions at Cannes, including the Grand Prix, and a host of other industry accolades. Speaking of hosts, Brandon once co-hosted a show, Movie Camp for Turner Classic Movies.

Today as founder and head of creatives for the Department of Wonder, Brandon leads a team of artists and actors who produce mixed-reality stories where the veil between physical and digital evaporates. Prior to the Department of Wonder, Brandon co-founded Reel FX, Moonbot Studios and Flight School Studio, all leaders in animation and emerging technology.

Most recently Brandon has served as an executive producer of the critically acclaimed series, Lost Ollie, a show Brandon developed, pitched and sold to Netflix.

From Denmark, Brian has been animating for over twenty years now. He originally trained as a chef and worked at restaurants in Denmark and France. One day, Brian took a chance and applied to The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark, home to many talented animators, both teachers and students, and so began his second career.

Since then, Brian has worked on TV shows, ads and feature films. Among them: Missing Link, ParaNorman, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Boxtrolls, Frankenweenie, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Max & Co, and most recently as the Animation Supervisor on GdT’s Pinocchio.

Brian comments that “My real enjoyment comes from the process of animating, of taking a still object and giving it life. I enjoy the process of performance, being the offscreen actor, bringing the words and action from the script to life. I have been lucky enough to work on some amazing films that have been loved and appreciated by many around the world.”

Chris Williams is an Academy Award®-winning director and writer of animated films. Chris has been drawing since he could hold a pencil, and growing up, he was obsessed with visual storytelling. He wrote comic strips, made stop-motion films, and loved all things movies. He is a graduate of the University of Waterloo‘s Fine Arts program and Sheridan College‘s animation program. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and began his career in animation, which spans across iconic films such as the Academy Award®-nominated Bolt, Academy Award®-nominated Moana, and Big Hero 6 which won the Academy Award® in 2015, along with many others. The Sea Beast, William‘s debut at Netflix, released globally on July 8th.

Clara Chan is a visual effects supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks with over two decades of industry experience. In 2001, Chan joined Imageworks as a technical director in the lighting department. Her credits include the animated feature Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the Academy Award®-nominated Over the Moon, first three Hotel Transylvania films, Storks, The Emoji Movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Amazing Spider-Man, Cats & Dogs 2, G-Force, Beowulf, the Academy Award-nominated Monster House, The Polar Express, and Stuart Little 2.

Earlier in her career, Clara worked as a software engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. Clara earned a B.S. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree in visualization sciences from Texas A&M University.

Clara is also directing and producing an animated short film in her spare time, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Clementine has worked as a 3D Artist and FX Technical Director since starting her career in 2008, after completing her Master of Advanced Studies in Computer Graphics in 2007. She is currently the FX Supervisor at Animal Logic Vancouver on an unannounced Netflix feature animation. She recently worked as a FX lead on DC League of Super-Pets and was the Senior FX Artist for The LEGO Ninjago Movie and The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.

Previous iconic titles Clementine has contributed to while working at Imagine Engine Design, include Spider-Man: Far From Home, Lost in Space Season 2, The Mandalorian, Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

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 Eisenmann is a feature film producer, computer graphics supervisor, and creative leader. Prior to his time at Skydance, David worked at Pixar Animation Studios since 1997, where he co-founded and supervised the Set’s division responsible for creating Pixar’s elaborate worlds for almost 18 years. David has worked as Computer Graphics Supervisor, Technical Supervisor, and Sets Supervisor on such films as A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, Monster’s University and the short film Piper.

David Eisenmann is the former Technical Project Lead and Sr Producer of Google Spotlight Stories (an immersive media R&D group) and AI Technical Project Lead at Google’s Advanced Technology & Projects group.

David produced 9 Google Spotlight Stories short films including the Oscar Nominated and Emmy Award-winning Pearl with Patrick Osborne (Feast), the Emmy Nominated 360° short film Son of Jaguar with Jorge Gutierrez (Book of Life) and the Emmy Award-winning short film Age of Sail with John Kahrs (Paperman) and producer Gennie Rim (Over the Moon).

David received an Emmy for Innovation in Interactive Programming and a Peabody Futures of Media award from his work producing Pearl and an Emmy Nomination for his work producing Son of Jaguar. Pearl received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short, 3 Annie Awards, an American Music Producers Award, and a Motion Picture Sound Editing Award.

In addition to being a feature film Producer with Skydance Animation, David is currently Technical Officer at Eisenmann Architecture and resides in the Bay Area with his wife, two creative daughters, and a chocolate labrador.

Dick Zondag has over 30 years of experience in both traditional 2D and 3D digital animation as an animator, storyboard artist, character designer, director and writer.

He began his career animating and storyboarding on a variety of animated projects for television and feature films, including George Lucas’ hit television series Ewoks and Droids, Nelvana’s feature film The Care Bear Movie, and Steven Spielberg’s Oscar Award-winning feature film An American Tail. Then as a directing animator and story artist on Steven Spielberg’s Land Before Time, Don Bluth’s All Dogs Go to Heaven, Rock a Doodle and Troll in Central Park. Dick went on to co-directing alongside his brother, Ralph, on Steven Spielberg’s feature film We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story. Later, Dick continued on as Supervising Animator for Steven Spielberg’s Balto, while directing the very first digitally animated television series, ReBoot, for Mainframe Entertainment.

At Walt Disney Studios, Dick continued as a supervising animator and story artist on the feature films Dinosaur, Wild Life, 102 Dalmatians, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt and King of the Elves. After leaving Walt Disney Studios, Dick was a character animator on Maleficent for Digital Domain Vancouver, a character animator and previs shot creator for The Third Floor, a character animator for Blur Studio, an animation director on a WDI projection mapping project for Mousetrappe Studios, a director on QQ Speed for Original Force, a story artist for Blue Sky Studios and Prana Studios, and a storyboard artist and senior animator on Sherlock Gnomes for Rocketpictures and Paramount Studios. Dick wrote, directed and produced with his brother, Ralph, First Superhero for ECPG.

Edgar is the Character Modelling Lead at Animal Logic and has been working in the animation industry for over 14 years as a 3D artist. After completing studies for Mechanical Engineering and graduating with honours from Digital Animation at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, he went on to work on a range of animation productions at Nerd Corps Entertainment.

He started at Animal Logic’s Vancouver studio in 2016 as Senior Character Modeller to work on The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part and DC League of Super-Pets, and is currently Lead Character Modeller, working on an unannounced animated feature.

Esdras Varagnolo currently serves as SVP, Creative Production at Skydance Animation overseeing overall visual effects supervision at the studio. Most recently, he worked on the first animated feature from Apple Original Films and Skydance Animation, Luck. As well as their inaugural animated short film, Blush.

Prior to his time at Skydance, Esdras worked at Pixar Animation Studios on a number of feature films including Incredibles 2, The Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory, serving in a variety of roles from technical lead to lighting and compositing supervision. He also worked on a number of the studio’s shorts including Lou, Piper and Toy Story That Time Forgot.

HaZ started his career in video games cinematics before moving into visual effects, where he was nominated for several VES awards for his VFX supervision work on CG-heavy docu-series for BBC, Discovery and History Channel. His short films (Project Kronos and SYNC) gained traction in Hollywood leading him to transitioning over to directing and producing with his breakout feature film, The Beyond. This indie sci-fi was released in 2018 and was number 2 in the iTunes Charts before being licensed on Netflix and turning into a profitable movie. His second feature film, 2036 Origin Unknown, starring Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, The Mandalorian) earned a limited theatrical release before landing on Netflix. He was then hired by Disney to helm the pilot for action comedy series Fast Layne, where he also served as EP / Creative Consultant on the entire series. HaZ is the co-founder of production company HaZimation, producing animated feature films, series and video games based on their propriety pipeline utilising Unreal Engine.

HaZ is represented in Hollywood by The Vendetta Group.

Henry Selick is the director, writer, production designer and producer whose films have defined a generation of animated storytelling. Coraline, based on the beloved novella by Neil Gaiman, was adapted for the screen and directed by Mr. Selick, who also was a producer and the production designer on the LAIKA film. He directed the iconic Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. He is a member of a handful of animated film creators whose work inspires a devout worldwide fandom. Alongside Jordan Peele, Mr. Selick is co-writing and directing Wendell & Wild for Netflix, scheduled for release in 2022.

Hikari Toriumi is a Japanese filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally from Tokyo, she came to the U.S. to attend the California Institute of the Arts, where she created three animated short films, Koishi, The Walldwellers, and Polaris.

After her sophomore year, she started her career at Pixar Animation Studios where she interned as a 3D animator and contributed to the Academy award-winning film COCO.

Upon graduating college, she pursued storyboarding and worked on the Academy Award-nominated film Over the Moon directed by Glen Keane. Hikari also worked on the Emmy-nominated Netflix Original Series, Trash Truck.

She is an episodic director of the Tonko House + Netflix Animated film, ONI: Thunder God’s Tale, and is currently a storyboard supervisor at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

After completing her studies in 2018 in Character Animation at Animation Mentor, Jenny was accepted in the Sony iCAD internship program. While finishing her Masters in Mechanical Engineering, she worked on The Mitchells vs. The Machines and Vivo for Sony Pictures Animation. Jenny joined Animal Logic's Vancouver studio in 2020 as an Animator to work on DC League of Super-Pets and has just wrapped on Leo, which is set for release in November this year.

Jihyun Park is a highly sought after story artist. Working at such studios as Disney, Paramount, Sony, and Netflix, Park has boarded, The Sea Beast, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, Frozen, Hotel Transylvania, and many other projects. Park loves telling engaging stories in original ways and enjoys watching movies and TV shows. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her family.

Joan Gratz is an Academy Award-winning director of animated short films and commercials. Her films range in content through painterly expressions of poetry, improvised abstraction, and animated social documentary. The technique she pioneered is "claypainting." Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase, an animated history of art, won the Oscar in 1992. Gratz is a producer of multi-director films, currently in production, The One-Minute Mistake.

Joey Clift is a comedian, TV writer, and enrolled Cowlitz Indian Tribal Member currently working as a writer and consulting producer on Spirit Rangers on Netflix. Other writing credits include Cocomelon Lane on Netflix, New Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network and Molly of Denali on PBS. He was named one of Uproxx’ “26 Native American Comedians to Follow in 2020” and his award-winning short films have screened everywhere from Comedy Central and Just for Laughs to The Smithsonian Museum. Most importantly, he created the LA Underground Cat Network, which is a 15,000-member strong Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. He’s kind of a cat guy.

Kaitlin Sutherland is an industry director living and creating in Vancouver, British Columbia. A graduate of Sheridan College, Kaitlin is currently working on a personal short film after having risen through the ranks from layout/posing artist to Assistant Director at WildBrain Studios. At WildBrain Kaitlin has overseen productions including LEGO Monkie Kid, The Snoopy Show, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and most recently, Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie.

Kaitlin is inspired by the storytelling and art styles of French and Eastern animation. She wants to continue working with a motivated team on fun, creatively fulfilling projects while telling impactful stories.

Karissa is a California Native... literally! She grew up between sunny San Diego and the Santa Ynez Chumash Reservation. Karissa studied English and Communication at the University of San Diego and then pursued a graduate degree in Television and Film at Syracuse University. Karissa is passionate about animation and has written for preschool favourites such as Disney Junior’s Vampirina, Doc McStuffins, T.O.T.S. and The Chicken Squad. She is currently the Showrunner and Executive Producer of the Netflix preschool series, Spirit Rangers, which follows the fantastical adventures of a modern day Native American family.

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.

Prior to serving as the writer on Luck, Kiel Murray wrote Pixar’s Cars 3 as well as the Academy Award-nominated original film, Cars. While at Pixar, she helped develop many other hits including Finding Nemo, Inside Out, Ratatouille, Brave, and Up. She also wrote for Walt Disney Animation on Raya and the Last Dragon and penned the live-action Saint Seiya film, Knights of the Zodiac, releasing sometime next year.

When she is not writing movies, Kiel can be found at home with her husband Phil, kids Eden, Bosco and Beach, and their awesome dog Mocha in Piedmont, California.

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.

An animator and educator who works with various media, Larry started his career in stop motion and Claymation with Crocus Productions in Chicago and then the Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon. At the Vinton studio for nearly a decade, Larry worked on stop-motion projects such as the California Raisins and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. During a seven-year stint as Commercial Animation Director at PDI/DreamWorks, Larry directed commercials for many top clients including Coca-Cola, Sega, Intel, Kraft, Target, Circle K, and Saturn. As an active member of the SIGGRAPH Conference Committee, Larry has chaired the 2018 Computer Animation Festival, the 2019 Creative Development Team, and the 2021 VR Theater. He has also chaired several SPARK ANIMATION conferences and has participated in SPARK FX.

From 2002 through 2008, Larry was Department Head of Animation and Visual Effects at the Vancouver Film School. Larry has also served as VP of Faculty and Development at VanArts as well as the Director of the Master of Digital Media Program at The Centre for Digital Media, Vancouver BC.

Marilyn Zornado is a director, animator, motion graphics artist, and calligrapher. She was Senior Producer at Will Vinton Studios, for about twenty years producing award-winning national commercials and short films, and was the Vinton producer for clay painter, Joan C. Gratz.

She now works as an artist and educator, combining her love of animation, quirky lettering, and book arts, both on her own projects and on commissions. She is currently teaching in the Animated Arts Department at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR.

Marina has been writing and discussing film for over 15 years, first on a personal blog, followed by a decade-long tenure on the now retired Row Three. In 2008, she joined the writing staff at Quiet Earth, becoming Editor-In-Chief in 2014, a role she still holds. Over the years, she has also produced and hosted a number of podcasts including Before the Dawn, a long-running podcast on the Twilight franchise, Girls on Pop, a podcast on film and popular entertainment from women’s perspective and After the Credits, bi-monthly film podcast with nearly 300 episodes.

Marina is a member of ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH, the Online Film Critics Society, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and the Visual Effects Society. She is the President of Spark CG Society and the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH chapter. She has also served on juries for several film festivals including DOXA, St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Whistler Film Festival. She joined the Spark CG Society in 2014.

Mark Gustafson got his start in Animation at the legendary Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon. There he honed his skills as an animator and went on to create the award-winning short film Mr Resistor.

Mark worked as a Director on over two hundred television commercials including the iconic California Raisins and a Nisan spot that Time magazine named “Best Commercial of the Year.”

He has received numerous awards, including two Emmys, two Annies, a Clio and the Tri Cities Intramural bowling prize for ”High Average.“

Mark also served as Supervising Director on Eddie Murphy‘s The PJ‘s and as Animation Director on Wes Anderson‘s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Nathan Fariss has spent the last 19 years in the feature film industry, the past 14 of which were at Pixar. He was the Sets Supervisor on Lightyear and Incredibles 2, and the Set Dressing Lead on Finding Dory and Monsters University. His other credits include Soul, Coco, Inside Out, Toy Story 3, The Host (Korean), Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sin City, and The Day After Tomorrow. His non-film clients include Disney, Saab, Wrigley, Motorola, Popular Mechanics, Fortune Magazine, and many others.

Nora Twomey is an Academy Award®, BAFTA and Golden Globe-nominated Director. She is also Partner and Creative Director at Cartoon Saloon, Ireland. In a career spanning over two decades, Nora has worked in a number of capacities on Cartoon Saloon‘s creative output. She was co-director to Tomm Moore’s Academy Award®-nominated The Secret of Kells, while also guiding the development processes on a number of series, including Emmy-nominated Puffin Rock and Dorg Van Dango. She was Head of Story on Academy Award®-nominated Song of the Sea and Producer on Wolfwalkers. She directed The Breadwinner, which was also nominated for an Academy Award® and Golden Globe, and won several international awards including multiple Annies and the Audience and Jury Awards at Annecy. My Father‘s Dragon is Nora‘s third feature and second solo-directed film. She lives in Kilkenny with her husband, children, two cats and one fish.

Paula has worked in the film industry for almost 30 years, debuting as award-winning documentary director in 1994 with Northern Vision in Belfast. Her career has spanned a variety of roles for multi award-winning companies such as Killer Films in NYC, Elle Driver and Wild Bunch in Paris, where she managed the Ghibli Studios slate. Paula spent several years as Head of Production at Finite Films and TV developing and producing live-action and animation, earning a BIFA nomination as breakthrough producer along the way. She has also worked across multiple genres as a post-production supervisor on over 45 feature drama and documentaries. Paula is co founder of HaZimation, an animation and gaming company, formed with director HaZ Dulull.

Emmy Award-winner Peggy Holmes currently serves as director of “Luck,” the first animated feature from Apple Original Films and Skydance Animation. Holmes is an animation veteran with more than 30 years of industry experience as a director, writer and choreographer. She previously served as Supervising Director of Television at Skydance Animation, where she helped oversee the creative development and production of the upcoming slate of TV series for the company’s expanding animation division. Prior to joining the Skydance team, Holmes served as director on Walt Disney Studio’s The Pirate Fairy and Secret of the Wings—two of the most successful ‘Tinker Bell’ films in the Fairies Franchise for the studio. Her first full-length directorial debut was the film The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning.

Before her work as a director, Holmes served as a choreographer on various films including The Country Bears, A Very Brady Sequel, Hocus Pocus, Newsies, Wayne’s World, Mulan 2, Jungle Book 2 and The Fabulous Baker Boys. She has worked extensively in television winning an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Choreography” for her work on Fame L.A. Other television choreography projects include the first two seasons of American Idol and Gypsy starring Bette Midler. With her background as a choreographer and dancer, Holmes relishes bringing that emotion life through animated characters that make us laugh, cry and dance.

Holmes’ choreography work also includes commercials for companies such as Coca-Cola and Mercedes; tours for Barbra Streisand and Michael Jackson; and The Academy Awards.

Stirling Duguid is a visual effects supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks. He most recently supervised The Sea Beast, an animated feature for Netflix.

Duguid most recently served as visual effects supervisor on the animated adventure The Angry Birds Movie 2 and previously served as CG supervisor on numerous features including: Sony Pictures Animation’s Smurfs: The Lost Village, Columbia Pictures/Rovio Animation’s The Angry Birds Movie, Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful, Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Arthur Christmas, the Academy Award®-nominated Surf’s Up, and Disney’s Academy Award®-nominated The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Having spent more than a decade at Imageworks, Duguid also served as a lighting and compositing lead and an FX technical director on features including: The Polar Express and The Matrix Reloaded for Warner Bros., Stuart Little 2 and America’s Sweethearts for Columbia Pictures, Disney’s The Haunted Mansion and Cast Away for 20th Century Fox.

With over 20 years of experience in live-action and CG feature film production, Duguid has extensive experience in supervising FX animation, modeling and look development, cloth and hair simulation, lighting and compositing and stereoscopic production departments.

Duguid began his career at VisionArt Design and Animation working as an FX technical director. He is a graduate of the University of the Nations in Kailua-Kona, HI.

Has over 25 years of experience in traditional 2D and 3D digital animation as an animator, storyboard artist, character designer, director, writer and producer. He began his industry career animating and storyboarding on a variety of animated projects for television including George Lucas’ Ewoks and Droids series and made his feature debut as an animator on the Oscar Award-winning and box-office hit, An American Tail.

In 1987, he moved to Dublin, Ireland for 4 years to animate on several feature and commercial projects for Sullivan Bluth Studios that included box office hits Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven. After Ireland, Ralph lived in London, England for 2 years to co-direct with his brother, Dick Zondag, on the animated feature, We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story for Executive Producer Steven Spielberg. He then joined Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1993 as one of the principal storyboard artists on the Oscar Award-winning Pocahontas. He was then brought on to direct and write Walt Disney’s Dinosaur which went on to earn over $350,000,000 worldwide. Ralph has since written, directed and produced The First Superhero: Monkey King

Reena Bali (she/her) is the Director of Talent Acquisition & Community at Kickstart Entertainment who has a background and education in Human Resources. She has been in the HR industry for the last 10 years. Reena, being a South-Asian woman, has spent her career dedicated to creating strong practices within organizations that truly emphasizes a company’s ability to be diverse, equitable and inclusive. During the last 2 years she has expanded into talent acquisition within the animation industry. Reena is a growing leader in DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging) initiatives and practices not only at Kickstart but within the general animation community. Reena was born on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish people and she is grateful to live, work and play on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), QayQayt First Nation, Kwantlen, q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen First Nations, kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), and Stó:lō Nations. She is actively taking steps towards reconciliation by opening herself up to becoming a better ally.

Born and raised in Kerala, India, Robin has worked as a designer and development artist in animation since 2005. He directed and produced the animated short Fox and the Whale which earned a nomination at the 2018 Canadian Screen Awards and was Shortlisted for the 90th Academy Awards. Robin recently served as the Co-Production Designer on the new Henry Selick film Wendell & Wild, and currently lives and works as an independent filmmaker and designer from British Columbia, Canada.

Sara K. Sampson is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. Born and raised in Kentucky, she moved to California in 2012 to launch her career at Pixar Animation Studios. While there, Sara contributed to several features such as the Academy award-winning films Coco and Inside Out.

After five years at Pixar, Sara left to oversee production on three films, which include the first narrative Unity real-time rendered short, Sonder, the Emmy award-winning Love, Death + Robots episode, The Witness, and Emmy award-winning Google Spotlight Stories film + VR experience, Age of Sail.

Sara recently produced the Emmy-nominated Glen Keane Productions + Netflix Original Series, Trash Truck, as well as the Academy Award-nominated short, Opera. She is the producer and co-executive producer of the Tonko House + Netflix Animated film, ONI: Thunder God’s Tale, and continues to write and direct independent films.

Shiyoon Kim is a Korean-American character designer and concept artist previously at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Sony Pictures Animation, where he designed the characters for Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He is most prominently known for his work on the major motion features: Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia and most recently, The Sea Beast. Kim credits his high-school teacher for opening him up to the power of storytelling through drawing. A graduate from CalArts’ Character Animation Program, Kim currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.

Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based Signe Baumane is one of the most instantly recognizable voices in independent animation filmmaking today. Her provocative films on various narrative themes, including sex, the body, pregnancy, love, marriage and depression. Baumane’s films are unapologetically personal and told from a strong female point of view. For Baumane, animation is the perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories to incorporate different art forms. Her latest project — the feature film My Love Affair With Marriage — fuses animation with music, theatre, science, photography, lighting, papier-mâché stop-motion sets and traditional hand-drawn animation (inspired by Bill Plympton).

Sue Rowe is a visual effects supervisor with over 25 years of experience in the film industry. As a child, Sue loved drawing, so it was no surprise that she went on to study for a BA in Animation at university. Following this, Sue went on to study for her MA in Computer Animation back in the day when it was all programming! This is where she experienced the creative buzz of Visual Effects, with her first job in the industry on Space Jam with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny! Sue’s latest project was as Scanline’s co-VFX Supervisor for Meg 2: The Trench, where she brought three huge Megalodons and a T-Rex to life!

Director, Tim Miller is a founder of Blur Studio in Los Angeles, California.

Tim made his feature directorial debut with the Fox/Marvel blockbuster hit Deadpool. In 2019, he directed the James Cameron produced Terminator: Dark Fate, the same year Netflix launched Love, Death + Robots, which Tim created with director David Fincher.

Tim began his career as a VFX artist and animator, starting Blur in 1995, which quickly became one of the top CG animation companies creating short stories and cinematic content for the game industry. Blur is an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated company that produces Love, Death + Robots, and develops future projects in TV, film, and games.