MY CREATIVA FEST FAMILY

One of the things I love most about

 attending an animation festival is the

bonding that happens with the people you hang out with.

You become this sort of mini-family,

flitting from event to event,

eating and drinking and talking and drinking and eating

(and drinking)

and really getting to know people you might 

never have had the chance to meet before.

And I'm not sure which celestial bodies were in alignment over

Creativa Fest this year,

but somehow this was perhaps the most

sooper talented

sooper nice

sooper fun

group of people I've ever got to 

hang out at a festival with.

Conversely,

there was Maxwell Atoms,

who tried his best to ruin everything

but failed horribly and was forced to have fun.

On the first night in town I was

 introduced to a guy named Nik.

He told me how he used to work at 

Disney Feature animation for a long time

and was now working on a video game.

Being dim,

I didn't put two and two together until I 

saw him start drawing and then realized.

"Oh crap-- that's Nik Ranieri!"

Like legendary 

Disney animator

who animated

Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast

Kuzco in emperor's New Groove

Hades in Hercules

etc etc etc

Nik Ranieri!

We spent a lot of time drawing alongside 

each other for eager fans,

but when we got a break I

got him to draw me this:

On that first night I also got introduced to 

Alex Lee,

an animator at 

Industrial Light and Magic.

And Trevor Walker,

a recruiter from ILM.

They were a blast to hang out with

although I'm still really mad at Alex for not showing us 

ANYTHING

from 

Rogue One,

the latest project he's working on.

There were also some amazingly talented folks from

Disney Feature Animation

including

Zootopia,

Frozen

Big Hero 6

etc

animator

Andrew Chesworth:

He also got tricked into drawing in my sketchbook:

Keeping it in the Disney family was 

Pixar animator Carolina Lopez Dau

who packed a crowd to listen to her 

talk about her work on Cars 2, Inside Out, Brave,

and Monster University.

Personally, 

I thought her talk was

confusing and completely unintelligible.

Mainly because I don't speak Spanish.

But those who do

speak the language thought she was 

riveting.

She's also hilarious to hang out with

and incredibly helpful when you're

 trying to buy a coffee in Spanish.

Former Simpons and Rick and Morty director

and current Future Worm 

supervising director

Pete Michels 

was a joy to meet and full of laughs:

Karen Kirkland, executive director of the 

Nickelodeon writing program,

was there to talk shop with the students 

and to share an uber with:

Ben Levin,

writer on

Cartoon Network's

Stephen Universe

was an absolutely delightful guy to meet 

and talk shop with:

Efflam Mercier

is an impossibly young,

terrifyingly techno-savvy,

hyper-talented

and effusive

concept artist for

Riot Games

(League of Legends)

He is also never allowed to touch Mescal never ever again:

David Luong,

Senior Cinematic Artist at 

Blizzard

(World of Warcraft)

was a riot and someone 

who I didn't get to talk to enough:

And there were many more like  

Grazia Como and Jessie Carbonara from Dreamworks recruiting

who were awesome to share tacos and volcanos with.

What an amazing and inspiring group of people.

And while finding your festival family is always such a joy,

it's also heartbreaking when everyone packs up to 

go back to their regular lives.

But the industry isn't that big.

We'll see each other again.

But probably not as a handsome looking group like this:

Next up,

ima show you some of the awesome

stuff some of the awesome

KND sooper fans 

made for me.

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