Fans flocking to San Francisco for this weekend’s WonderCon will likely notice two things ‘ one, it’s nowhere near as jam-packed as its sister show Comic-Con International: San Diego, and two, it has some terrific animation programming.
The convention, which runs Friday through Sunday at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, will feature plenty of how-to sessions for aspiring animators, as well as plenty of sneak peeks at upcoming cartoons for the big-screen and small.
Highlights of the animation panels include:
‘ The perennial topic of ‘How to Successfully Pitch an Animated Cartoon’ with Mike Gray (Nicktoons’ Thom Cat)
‘ A spotlight on the art of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, featuring directors Ron Clements and John Musker, art director Ian Gooding, supervising animator Eric Goldberg and head of effects Marlon West.
‘ A Nickelodeon Animation Studio Panel, featuring tons of showrunnres, all talking about the challenges in creating feature-quality CG animation for TV.
‘ A demonstration of hand-drawn animation from Eric Goldberg, who animated Louis the alligator from The Princess and the Frog.
‘ A discussion of what it takes to be a storyboard artist with Spyros Tsiounis (Coraline, Madagascar, Shrek Forever After, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Sergio Paez (Clone Wars, Darkwatch, Three Wise Men).
‘ Panels previewing Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3, with director Lee Unkrich; and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with supervising director Dave Filoni.
A list of all the animation-related programming, including dates, times and locations, can be found online at http://comic-con.org/wc/wc_search_results.php?strShow=26&chkCat[]=208.
Details on buying memberships either in advance or on site can be found online at http://comic-con.org/wc/wc_reg.shtml.
