Mike Belzer

Mike Belzer has been animating since he was 12 years old. He stumbled into an animation program in the Los Angles area taught by Dave Master. This program not only taught him the fundamentals of animation, but it was through connections in the class that helped him get his first animation job on the "New Gumby Adventures" series in '87. He spent several years after Gumby animating after school specials, TV pilots, and numerous commercials including such icons as Hershey Kisses, Listerine bottles, and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Mike then began to animate on feature films. These films included "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "James and the Giant Peach" ,"Walt Disney's Dinosaur" & "Kangaroo Jack" He's currently the animation supervisor on the upcoming release of Walt Disney's "Meet the Robinsons".

Along the way, Mike has given many lectures and workshops in both Stop Motion and Computer animation. He has given these not only to numerous local schools, but also to studios and festivals as far away as London, Canada,Santo Domingo, Denmark, Germany, and Rio de Janeiro. He has been a spokesman for past Disney films in print and television as well as conventions.

Mike not only enjoys what he does for a living but also finds great pleasure in helping others to learn more about animation. He hopes to continue to grow in the field of animation while helping others along the way.

Ellen Besen

A former faculty member of Sheridan College's School of Animation (1987-2002), Ellen Besen has over thirty years of experience working in this field. Highlights of her career include directing award-winning films for the NFB, broadcast work on animation for CBC Radio and film curating for such organizations as the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her films have been shown in multiple international festivals and at such institutions as MOMA, and her film analysis workshops are featured regularly at KAFI and the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She writes on animation storytelling for Animation World Network and on all things animated for POV Magazine. She is director and head mentor of The Zachary Schwartz Institute for Animation Filmmaking (Zed-Ed), an online school specializing in storytelling and writing for animation. Recent work by her students includes the award winning "Slide" by Sharon Katz. She is currently working on her first book, an overview of animation storytelling techniques.

David Chai

David Chai is an instructor of animation at San Jose State University and an animation director for Thunderbean Animation. He has worked on a variety of projects ranging from educational software, animation for television and video, commercial advertising, to independent films. His studio, Thunderbean Animation, received the Gold Award for best animated television commercials at the Kalamazoo Animation Festival International 2005. To date, his independent films have screened in over seventy-five film festivals internationally, including Sundance, Cinequest, Ann Arbor, and Annecy, as well as on MTV-2, G4TV, and ZeD in Canada. His filmography includes 25 Ways to Die (2003), Flames of Passion (2004), Neighborhood Roots (2005), Stoopid Movie (2005), and Fumi and the Bad Luck Foot (2005).Awards include: Winner, Slamdance Anarchy Online Competition August (2003); Best Animated Short, Michigan Independent (2003), Best Comedic Short, Ohio Independent (2003); Best Animated TV Commercial, KAFI (2005), Audience Choice Award: Best Short Film, Cinequest (2006), Prix DeVarti Funniest Film Award, Ann Arbor (2006), Best Short Film – Animated, Silver Lake (2006), Special Recognition Award, Arizona International (2006).

Bill Dennis

William (Bill) Dennis has been a force in the entertainment industry for over thirty years. As CEO/President and Founder, he was responsible for the birth and development of India’s Toonz Animation, rated one of the top 10 animation studios in the world. While there, he produced award-winning series such as Adventures of Tenali Raman, Children’s Animation Workshop, among others. He is regarded as one of the most influential people in Asian animation today. Prior to that, Mr. Dennis was affiliated with Turner Broadcasting’s Hanna Barbera Studios. As President of their overseas studio, he produced numerous award winning cartoons starring the classic Hanna Barbera characters. For twenty years, Bill worked with the Walt Disney Studios, most recently as Vice president of Feature Animation. While at Disney, he orchestrated the talent and resources required for feature film productions including Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, The little Mermaid and Aladdin.

Bill is President of ASIFA India and special representative of ASIFA International to animators in developing countries. He is also a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Currently he is a principal and executive producer with a startup San Francisco based entertainment company with production studios in India and Japan. At the same time, he continues to consult with various Asian animation studios.

John Fountain

John Fountain began his road to cartoondom in Kalamazoo Michigan where he grew up spending the majority of his time either watching or drawing cartoons. Although he displayed a vehement desire to draw cartoons almost from birth, a fear of leaving his hometown kept his rump firmly planted in Kalamazoo for the first 25 years of his life where he drew comics for his college newspaper, produced several 'alternative' comic books and did some animation for a local commercial studio.

Through various uninteresting events, he fell into the glamorous world of CD-rom animation which eventually took him to Detroit where he worked for a year... then the bottom fell out of CD-roms and Fountain found himself in desperate need of a job.

With little more than his portfolio and computer (as well as enough debts to choke a horse), he moved away his home state for the first time and journeyed to the sunny West Coast.

After a few short months of floundering, he landed a job doing storyboards (something he had never done before) on Klasky Csupo's "The Wild Thornberrys". Soon thereafter, he began pitching shows of his own creation to the various animation studios in L.A. One of his pitches landed him a job at Nickelodeon Animation Studio where he not only created and sold his first pilot ("The Tantrum"), he has since worked on "Chalk Zone", "Invader Zim", "Oh Yeah! Cartoons", "Dora the Explorer" and "The Fairly Oddparents" where he was an animation director and storyboard supervisor for two years. On FOP he spent his days (and many of his nights and weekends) overseeing several storyboard artists and maintaining the harmonious integrity between story and art.

Fountain has also directed a pilot for Walt Disney Television Animation and worked in their series development department as a producer, screenwriter and designer.

Currently, Fountain is a storyboard artist and director for the Nickelodeon series "My Life as a Teenage Robot" and is simultaneously in development with Warner Brothers Television Animation on a top-secret project of his own creation.

In his spare time, Fountain obsesses about "Star Wars" and occasionally lectures at the California Institute of the Arts, Laguna College of Art and Design, San Jose State University, and WIA's Storyboard Pitch Nights.

The fact that Fountain has been allowed to rise to such prestigious titles remains a testament that the universe is entirely without justice.

Fountain works ceaselessly to ensure that no one finds out that he doesn't really know what he's doing and by all rights should be shucking corn out in some field in Kalamazoo.

Jim Middleton

Jim Middleton is a Battle Creek pharmacist and self taught animator who made his first film at 13 and won't stop despite of the better efforts of Windows 95, 98, or XP. When not illustrating, he lectures on film, pharmacology, and Dr. Kellogg (yes, that Dr. Kellogg). Most recengtly he has developed an associate-level degree in animation for Kellogg Community College. His production company of one, The Animating Apothecary, serves as his home base in Michigan. Works in progress include, "Je Ne Dis Pas Non," "Sfumato #2," and "Political Asylum." Initial films were in 8mm and 16mm; he now animates using Animator Studio, Flash, and Photoshop, then kicks everything out in digital format. He is a member of ASIFA International and has served as ASIFA Central president since 2000.

Deanna Morse

An artist specializing in animation and personal short films and videos, Deanna Morse is also an educator and a leader in international organizations supporting independent film and video artists.

Deanna has produced over thirty films and videos since the early 1970s. Her work has been selected for international festivals from Canada and the U.S. to Japan, Italy, France, England, and others. She has produced several films for Sesame Street, and her work also has been broadcast on Romper Room, on PBS and cable networks. She has been cited in several articles and books on contemporary animators, and her films are represented in permanent collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Deanna often collaborates with other artists, technicians, musicians, students, and former students in her work. A Professor in the School of Communications at Grand Valley State University, Deanna was named a Distinguished Professor by the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of State Universities in 1993. She is a graduate of Iowa State University, and received an MA from Goddard College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dan Sarto

Dan Sarto is co-founder and publisher of Animation World Network, the largest, most comprehensive and respected source for animation news and information resources on the Internet. Key publications include Animation World Magazine, the Animation Pitch Guide, the Animation School Directory, the Animation Industry Database, the Animation Flash and VFXNewswire newsletters and the leading visual effects portal VFXWorld. Each month, AWN’s portals are visited by over 200,000 unique readers from more than 100 countries.

Dan and his business partner Ron Diamond founded AWN in 1995. They officially launched the online monthly Animation World Magazine and accompanying animation portal website on April 1, 1996 with a vision to bridge the physical boundaries that separated the world’s animation community with a wide-ranging array of interesting and entertaining animation related information. Now in their 11th year of publishing, Dan, Ron and AWN have stayed true to their goals, passion and deep commitment to provide the professional and enthusiast communities a cohesive assembly of the best animation, visual effects and related resources that exist today, in an interactive and enjoyable environment.

Dan frequently speaks about animation at industry events, having served on juries, delivered keynotes or moderated panels at events such as the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, 3D Festival, London Effects and Animation Festival, VES and eDIT VES Festivals as well as the Ottawa and Annecy International Animation Film Festivals.

Linda Simenski

Linda Simensky is Senior Director of Children's Programming for PBS. In her role, Ms. Simensky collaborates with producers, co-production partners and distributors throughout development, production, post-production and broadcast. She was instrumental in the development and launch of PBS KIDS GO!, an on-air and online destination for children ages 6 to 8 years old that debuted in October 2004. She is currently overseeing the development and launch of several new series, including It’s a Big, Big World, FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman and Curious George, for premiere on PBS in 2006.

Simensky began her career with a nine-year tenure at Nickelodeon, where she helped build their animation department and launch such popular series as "Rugrats," “Doug,” and "The Ren & Stimpy Show." Most recently, she was Senior Vice President of Original Animation for Cartoon Network, where she oversaw the development and series production of “The Powerpuff Girls,” "Dexter's Laboratory," "Samurai Jack" “Courage the Cowardly Dog,” and other major projects.

Simensky is a past-president of ASIFA-East, and the founder of New York chapter of Women in Animation. She has lectured at numerous colleges and animation festivals, and has taught courses in animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has written for numerous animation publications, and a recent essay of hers appears in the book, “Nickelodeon Nation.”

Ms. Simensky holds a BA in Communications & History from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Media Ecology from New York University.

Kate Swanborg

Kate Swanborg is a technology executive for DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA). In this role she develops long-term technology strategies and action plans to support production of CG animated feature films over multiple studio locations. Kate is responsible for the studio’s technology management organization, a direct link between production and technology; managing the integration of technology solutions for production.

Over the course of 6 years at DWA, Kate has played a key role in bringing state-of-the-art technology to DWA productions. Through collaboration with studio executives, engineers and artists, Kate has helped DWA embrace the Linux platform for both desktop and infrastructure computing; create next-generation video-teleconferencing systems; and build a second CG pipeline. These efforts led to DWA releasing two CG animated films in one year - an industry first. These films, Shrek 2 and SharkTale, were nominated for Best Animated Feature Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and generated more than a billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts.

Prior to her work in the technology field, Kate was a production manager and worked on films such as the original Shrek and Warner Brother’s Space Jam. Kate holds a Masters Degree from UCSD and a Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University.

Barry Young

Barry has his undergraduate BFA degree from Ohio University in Graphic Design, and an MFA degree from Northwestern University in Visual Design. He taught Graphic Design at Ohio University for four years, and has taught at Columbia College Chicago for over 20 years. He directs an animation program of over 300 students within the Film & Video Department, and teaches entry and advanced level courses. He was invited to lecture at the Beijing Film Academy in 1992, where he lived and continued to study Chinese for three months. His thesis MFA film, a live-action/animated documentary film on the 1906 Ringling Bros. Circus season, was screened on PBS and at the Smithsonian Institution, and several of his personal films have won festival awards. He has conducted numerous children's animation workshops in the Chicago area, including working through Facet's Multimedia with visiting Swedish animator Mr. Erling Ericsson in the completion of a 10-day workshop with inner-city children. He also co-directed an animation workshop at Children's Memorial Hospital in 2000 that produced a :30 second TV spot for the American Kidney Fund. This spot was aimed at increasing awareness in the African-American community on proper nutrition and the prevention of diabetes and kidney-related diseases. He worked with eight children in the renal care unit over a seven-day period.