The entertainment industry is constantly evolving. While audiences and distributors are ravenous for content, it’s a difficult terrain for creators to navigate.
This panel, co-hosted by non-profits FIAF and French in Motion, will discuss the current landscape of the animation industry, the genres, formats and pitches distributors are currently looking for, and the strategies for getting your idea in front of the right people.
Moderator Ellen Su brings together formidable executives and creators from the American and French industries to demystify the process of getting your project made.
Panelists:
Ellen Su (moderator) is Head of Artistic Recruiting at Titmouse where she champions diverse talent into leadership positions and oversees the internship program. She has directed 2D and 3D animated projects for Nickelodeon, NBA, and TED-Ed, and taught at the School of Visual Arts. She volunteers for Women in Animation and now sits on the board of the Titmouse Foundation which provides scholarships and educational resources to underrepresented artists.
Aymeric Castaing is attending the festival with his project Dordogne. He is the founder/CEO of UMANIMATION Group, which develops narrative and immersive content designed for new media (TV, video games, VR, AR, MR, Immersive Music Shows). He is a founding member of the French national transmedia association PXN, Co-founder and President of transmedia cluster CoBo, and he brought the Cartoon Movie event to Bordeaux.
Emerald Wright Collie is the Director of Development for Sony Pictures Television Kids. Emerald’s curiosity for animation sparked at a young age and continues to grow every day! She started her career at the New York International Children’s Film Festival where she developed an eye for quality international programming. From there, she began her career at Sony, where she helps to oversee the Development Slate and produces the Netflix Series, HILDA.
Ron Dyens is the founder of Sacrebleu Productions and recipient of many prestigious awards for short films (Palme d’Or, 2 Césars, Lion d’Or, Ours d’Argent, 2 Cristals at Annecy, Procirep Award for Best Producer, and an Oscar nomination). He produced several feature films including Tout en Haut de Monde by Rémi Chayé, L’Extraordinaire Voyage de Marona by Anca Damian, and My Sunny Maad by Michaela Pavlatova. Ron is an academy member of the Oscar Awards and the César Awards, as well as the European Film Awards.
Ellen Martin is Creator and Executive Producer of Blaze & The Monster Machines, an interactive STEM-based animated series for preschoolers in its eighth season of production at Nickelodeon. Ellen joined Nickelodeon in 2003 and won two Emmy Awards for her work as supervising producer of The Backyardigans and Bubble Guppies. She began her animation career in 1997 at Sunbow Entertainment and worked at Scholastic Entertainment before moving to Nickelodeon.
