Animator Travis Knight has been promoted to VP of animation at LAIKA Inc., the Portland-based animation studio owned by his father, Nike co-founder Phil Knight. In addition, former Lucasfilm and Hanna-Barbera exec Alan Keith has joined the studio as VP of business operations and chief financial officer. The announcement was made today by LAIKA president and CEO Dale Wahl.
Travis Knight, who is currently working as a lead animator on LAIKA’s stop-motion feature film based on the Neil Gaiman novel Coraline, had been an animator at Vinton Studios for a number of years before his father bought the struggling company and renamed it LAIKA. As VP of animation, he will continue with many of the responsibilities he handled as head of animation for the past two years. He is a key member of the team responsible for property acquisitions, development and green-lighting, and provides creative direction regarding the look and feel of LAIKA’s portfolio of releases. With this promotion, his involvement in the business operations of the company will also deepen.
Knight joined Vinton Studios in 1998 and started animating full time on Emmy-winning primetime stop-motion animated series The PJs, which Vinton produced with Imagine Ent. and Eddie Murphy Prods. He also worked on the Vinton-produced animated series Gary & Mike for UPN, and served as supervising animator on director Henry Selick’s 2004 award-winning CG short, Moongirl. Knight took a seat on LAIKA’s board of directors In 2002.
Keith has more than 20 years of finance experience in both corporate and entertainment settings. He will be responsible for leading the expansion of LAIKA’s business operations as the studio continues to expand its slate of animated feature films, television commercials, music videos, broadcast graphics and short films. Keith previously served as corporate VP of administration and secretary for Lucasfilm, where he oversaw finance and business operations for Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound, and handled administration for Lucasfilm Animation. He joined Lucasfilm after spending four years as VP of business operations and controller at Hanna-Barbera Inc. Before that, he was chief accounting officer and controller at Hanna-Barbera Entertainment Company Inc., where he oversaw the financial activities between joint venture partners Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. and the Apollo Investment Group. The alliance funded the buyout of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon library from Great American Entertainment Company.
Coraline, LAIKA’s first animated feature film, is being directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach). Featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher, the fantasy pic is being shot in stereoscopic 3D and will be released by Focus Features in 2008. Also on the company’s feature film development slate are Jack & Ben, an original story of brotherly love set in the animal kingdom, and Here Be Monsters, based on the bestselling children’s novel by writer/illustrator Alan Snow.
