Upcoming Pixar-Related Events at the Walt Disney Family Museum

If you happen to live near San Francisco, there are a few upcoming animation events at the Walt Disney Family Museum that will be hosted by current or former Pixarians.

© Alex Mandel

The first event is a workshop titled Music and Animation with Alex Mandel. This workshop will explore the role that music has played in Walt Disney feature films and shorts, and will highlight some of the people involved in creating this wonderful music. The workshop will be led by Mandel, a Pixar manager who is also a very talented musician and composer. Alex wrote 2 songs for Pixar's 13th feature film Brave, Into the Open Air and Touch the Sky (which he co-wrote with director Mark Andrews). Mandel also composed the score for the short film Your Friend the Rat, which won the Annie Award in 2007 for Best Animated Short Film. The workshop will take place on Saturday, Feburary 8, 2014 from 10am - noon. It is limited to only 25 students, so I would recommend getting tickets soon!


The second event is a talk titled Disney Animation Directors, being hosted by Disney historian Don Peri and my favorite Pixar director Pete Docter, who directed Monsters, Inc., Up and Pixar's next film Inside Out.  The talk will center around how to direct an animated film, and will discuss and highlight some of the key Disney directors. The talk will take place at 3pm on Saturday, March 1.




Finally, there will be a panel discussion entitled Women in Animation, taking place from 11am - 12:30pm on Saturday March 15, 2014. The panel is being moderated by Jenny Lerew, previously a storyboard artist at Pixar (and author of The Art of Brave) and now story artist working on Dreamworks' next film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Also on the panel will be Brenda Chapman, creator and co-director of Brave, plus Disney visual development artists Lorelay Bove and Claire Keane. This panel sounds awesome and I'm sure will be inspirational as they discuss their struggles and successes in the male-dominated film-making industry.

© Walt Disney Family Museum

There are a number of reasons I would love to live in the Bay area, and one big reason is to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum.  Besides all the in-depth and rare exhibits covering the life of Walt Disney, there are a number of film screenings and animation-related workshops and classes. There are screenings and events occurring almost every day. Check out the museum's calendar for the full list.

If anyone attends one of the above events I'd love to hear what you thought of it!