Carnegie Mellon University
April 01, 2012

Animation Symposium

Animation Symposium

The Center for The Arts in Society, The School of Art and Pittsburgh Filmmakers present an Animation Symposium on April 1 and 2. The symposium will look at the role of the individual in animation. It will feature animation screenings, presentations and a round table discussion with animators to be held at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and on the CMU campus.

Sunday April 1 at Melwood Screening Room

Room 477 Melwood Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15213. (412) 681-5449

4:00 - Tom Sito Presentation on the development of labor unions in the animation industry
5:20 - Erin Cosgrove's "What Manner of Person Art Thou?"
6:30 - Reception
7:30 - Special Preview Screening of Chris Sullivan's animated feature "Consuming Spirits"

Monday April 2 in the Giant Eagle Auditorium

Baker Hall A51 on Carneige Mellon's campus

5:00 - Round table with the animators

Information on the Participants

Erin Cosgrove has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe including one-person shows at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Carl Berg Gallery, Los Angeles; Printed Matter, New York; and Espace Croise Centre d'art Contemporain, Roubaix, France. Her art novel, The Baader-Meinhof Affair, was published by Printed Matter, NY, in 2003 and was translated for a German edition by blumenbar Verlag, Munich, in 2005. She has received grants and fellowships from The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and The Creative Capital Foundation.

Visit Erin Cosgrove's Web Site

Tom Sito is the author of DRAWING THE LINE: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. He began as a professional animator in 1975 and his screen credits include the Disney classics THE LITTLE MERMAID 1989, BEAUTY & THE BEAST 1991, ALADDIN 1992, THE LION KING 1994, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBITT 1988, POCAHONTAS 1995, DINOSAURS 2000 and FANTASIA 2000. Animation World Network called Tom "one of the key players in the Disney Animation Revival" ( January 2001 ) In 1995 he left a Disney directorship post to help set up the Dreamworks Animation unit. He worked on THE PRINCE OF EGYPT 2001, ANTZ 1999, PAULIE 1998, SPIRIT, STALLION OF THE CIMMARON 2002, storyboard supervisor on SHREK 2001. Sito served three terms as President of the Hollywood Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE, the largest professional tradeunion for animation cartoonists in the world. In 2010 he was awarded the June Foray Award from the Hollywood Chapter of the International Animators Society for a lifetime of service to the animation community. In 1998 he was named in Animation Magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People in Animation.

Read Tom Sito's Bio Here

Chris Sullivan has spent 14 years producing his independent feature Consuming Spirits which is being previewd at this symposium. A feature-length animated film about three people in a small industrial city who uncover their unlikely roles in each others lives, constructed by dysfunctional family practices and social service intervention. Sullivan, who attended Carnegie Mellon between 1978-1980, has said that impressions of Pittsburgh helped shape this animation. Chris Sullivan has shown his work in festivals, theatres and museums all over the Country and in Europe. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship. He lives in Chicago, and is a professor of Animation and Film at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Read an Article on Chris Sullivan's "Consuming Spirits"

Co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University School of Art & Pittsburgh Filmmakers