Women in Animation 2014

Hi folks. First off, let me apologize for getting to a late start on this year's "Women in Animation" interviews. Between my day job and freelancing (which led me to spend the first week in March in Boston working for a client), I've been swamped. So, sorry to be a week late, but real life often has a tendency to get in the way of the things that are important to us.

This year, I'd like to kick off the Women in Animation interviews with two personal announcements:

The first is that last year, I launched a blog called "Animated Women". On it, you can find more of my interviews with women animators as well as links to other interviews, videos, news & magazine articles, event notices (like upcoming panel discussions and screenings), and the occasional promotion for crowd-sourcing of animated films by women directors/animators. If you haven't had a chance yet, check it out at www.animatedwomen.info.

It's also worth mentioning that while I'm doing some cross-posting of interviews from my Smudge Animation blog and my Animated Women blog, in many of the interviews that I've moved over to the Animated Women blog, I've taken the time to add more information and updates to the original interviews in order to keep the information current.

Secondly, at this year's Shuto Con anime convention here in Lansing, Michigan, I'll be dipping into my research material and presenting a lecture on the history of women working in animation followed by a screening of animated films produced by women animators.

Since the audience is in the teenage to early-twenties crowd, rather than use the traditional lecture format, I'll be presenting the information in an audience participation/game show format where I'll be giving clues to an animator's identity (or clues to notable achievements in an animator's life) and then letting the audience figure out who the animator is. People who answer questions correctly get a prize, those who give wrong answers... well, they also get a prize, just not as "cool".

Some of the films that I'll be screening afterwards are:

Interstellar Who's Who: the Praepredatorprae, by Carol Beecher and Kevin D.A. Kurytnik

A Tangled Tale, by Corrie Francis Parks

Excerpts from Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley

Great Canadian Inventions, by Janice Schullman

and many more...

My lecture will be at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 5th in Panel Room 2 (LC 102) of the Lansing Center
The screening will be at 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 5th, in Panel Room 2 (LC 102) of the Lansing Center
(immediately following my lecture).

If you'd like to attend, passes for the the con are available on their website: www.shutocon.com and I'm told that day passes will be available at the convention -- but you'll have to go to Con registration on the second floor of the Radisson Hotel attached to the Lansing Convention Center.

Hope to see some of you there!