Gary Goldman

Is an American animator, producer and director, born in Oakland, California, and raised in Watsonville. He earned his Fine Arts degree in Life Drawing with a minor in Art History from the University of Hawaii in December1971. His first job interview was at Walt Disney Productions. He was hired into their animation-training program three days later. His film career began in February 1972, on the motion picture Robin Hood. His first assignment was as a ruff inbetweener to the legendary animator Frank Thomas, one of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men”. He had the honor of working alongside many of Disney’s master animators and storymen, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Ken Anderson and Mel Shaw. Goldman’s animation film credits include Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) and The Rescuers (1977), both directed by John Lounsbery. He was promoted to Directing Animator for Pete’s Dragon (1977) and The Small One (1978).

He shared public recognition with his artistic partners when he resigned his position from Walt Disney Productions and in 1979 co-founded Don Bluth Productions with Don Bluth and John Pomeroy. He has since animated, produced, co-directed and supervised post-production on 12 feature films and four video games, including, The Secret of NIMH (1982); An American Tail (1986); The Land Before Time (1988); All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989); and Thumbelina (1994), plus the hit video games Dragon’s Lair (1983); Space Ace (1983) and Dragon’s Lair II: A Time Warp (1988). Early in the production of The Land Before Time, during the winter of 1986, Goldman, Bluth and Pomeroy moved their entire studio, including 87 animation artists and technicians to Dublin, Ireland, where their studio grew to 400 trained staff within two years. While there, they completed six of their twelve animated features. In 1989 they helped start an animation program at Ballyfermot Senior College in partnership with Sheridan College of Oakville, Toronto, Canada. The program has just celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Early in 1994, Mr. Goldman was recruited by 20th Century Fox’ then chairman, Bill Mechanic and News Corps Vice Chairman Peter Chernin to assist with the creation and start-up of Fox Animation Studios, Inc. Goldman, along with artistic partner Don Bluth, was the co-creative leader of this new company. A year and a half later, Anastasia went into production. During the company’s six-year existence in Phoenix, Arizona, Fox Animation Studio employed 316 artists, technicians and administration staff, producing three feature-length films: Anastasia (1997), Bartok the Magnificent (1999) and Titan A.E. (2000).

Co-founding Don Bluth Films in 2000, Mr. Goldman continues to develop intellectual properties for animated feature films. He has consulted on animated feature films and video game productions. He and Don Bluth have given seminars on animation principles and production to animation professionals and students from around the world at venues in New York, Chicago, Savannah, Salt Lake City, Los Angels, Mexico City, Mexico, Florence, Italy and Oulu, Finland.

Gary taught as “Visiting Artist in Residence” for the Winter Quarter (2008) at the Savannah College of Art & Design. He has been a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Shorts and Feature Animation Branch since 1976. He resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife Cathy. They have five grown children and seven grandchildren.

Harvey Deneroff

Harvey Deneroff, Ph.D., Is an animation industry brat, whose father worked at Fleischer and Famous Studios. He is currently a Professor of Animation and Cinema Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta (he previously taught at its Savannah campus). Earlier, he served as a writer, consultant, and animation festival and conference organizer.

He is the founder and past president of the Society for Animation Studies and edited its newsletter. He is also a former editor of such magazines as Graffiti, Animation Magazine, The Screen Cartoonist Annual and Animation World Magazine (awn.com). On his own, Prof. Deneroff edited and published The Animation Report, an industry newsletter. In addition to being coordinator of the 1995 Ojai Animation Conference, he helped organize several international conferences for the Society for Animation Studies.

For its first two years, he served as Festival Director of The Week With the Masters Animation Celebration, an animation festival held in Trivandrum, India. He is the author of The Art of Anastasia (HarperCollins, 1997) and with Fred Ladd co-authored Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas: An Insider's View of the Birth of a Pop Culture Phenomenon (McFarland, 2009), which has also been published in Japan by NTT. He has also contributed to such anthologies as Storytelling in Animation (American Film Institute, 1988), A Reader in Animation Studies (John Libbey, 1999) and Animation in Asia and the Pacific (John Libbey, 2001). He was also a regular contributor to Animation Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter and Animatoon. He has also written for a variety of other publications, including Sight and Sound, Film History and The Los Angeles Times.

Because of his expertise, Harvey Deneroff has been interviewed by a number of news organizations and publications, including USA Today, Fortune, The Miami Herald, Business Week Online, msnbc.com, CNBC, Le Nouvel Economiste, The Toronto Globe & Mail, Investors' Business Daily, Forbes, the Associated Press, Dow Jones News Service, The Portland Oregonian, CBC Radio, The Toledo Blade and The Montreal Gazette. He has also appeared on camera in three documentaries Warner Home Video produced for their Popeye the Sailor DVD box sets (I Am What I Yam: The Story of Popeye the Sailor, Forging the Frame: The Roots of Animation 1900-1920 and Forging the Frame: The Roots of Animation 1921-1930), the Pen and Ink Movies episode of the Discovery Channel series, Hollywood Chronicles, and on CNBC.

He currently lives in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife, Victoria (an artist and Professor of Education at Georgia College & State University), with whom he has collaborated on an article for Animation Practice, Production & Process, which applies social practice theory to animation and live-action production.

David Hale Hand

David is President of David Hand Productions and holds a degree in Theatre and Communications from the University of California at Santa Barbara; worked on the New York scene in theatre, film and television for five years; taught technical theatre at Colorado College; was President and CEO of Stage Engineering International, Ltd. (26 yrs.), providing services Domestically and Internationally; President and Principal Consultant for Theatre Development Associates, and was Principal Designer and a Department Supervisor for Walt Disney Imagineering; providing services to Disney's Parks in California, Florida and Paris. Active in development of several major International Destination Resort projects with his company Gateway Central. Mr. Hand is past International President of the US Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) and is a Fellow of that Institute. He has been totally involved in the entertainment business all of his life, and has extensive knowledge in administrative and project management skills in designing, developing and operating film, entertainment and Theme Park industries.

Jack Mamais

Jack Mamais began his career in the gaming industry as Associate Producer and served as Senior Lead Tester on the PC title Mechwarrior 2 for Activision Studios. He then was promoted to Producer and was responsible for developing the hit sequels to Mech 2 entitled Ghost Bear's Legacy and Mercenaries. After FASA retrieved the Battletech license from Activision, Jack was promoted to Director and supervised the development of Heavy Gear 2, a giant robot simulator based upon the Dream Pod Nine Franchise. As Activision transitioned to a publisher only model, Jack, along with other team members, joined the small company Check Six Studios where he served as Creative Director on the titles Aliens: Colonial Marines for 20th Century Fox and Spyro:Enter The Dragonfly for Universal Interactive. Following this, Jack accepted a position at Crytek in Germany and served as Lead Designer on the hit titles Far Cry and Crysis. Afterwards, Jack joined Midway games as a Creative Director and worked with a new internal team to develop a new I.P. entitled Hero that was canceled when Midway declared bankruptcy.

Jack is currently CEO of the game company Ascent Games in Savannah, Georgia and is also a Professor of Game Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He is currently working on the Free to Play Game entitled Heavy Gear Assault.

Robert Musburger

Dr. Robert Musburger is the former Director of the School of Communication at the University of Houston where he taught courses in Media History, Animation, and Media Production. He spent twenty years working in commercial radio and television primarily as a producer-director of news and documentary programs. He also directed programs for public television and hosted a radio program on jazz for a public radio station. For the 19 years he hosted a weekly radio interview program, Images on commercial radio in Houston, Texas and on the web. At one point in his life he owned and operated a graphics studio, a stained glass studio, and managed a country rock band. He has written for scholarly journals, reviewed books in his field, published chapters in three books and has published three single-authored books and one co-authored book translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.

Now retired from teaching he serves as a media consultant to corporations and educational institutions. He is also active in the affairs of the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), the Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the Society for Animation Studies (SAS). He also serves as a media consultant for airlines, churches, universities, broadcast stations, legal firms, and oil companies.