Ed Hooks
On June 29, 2002, A Bunch of Short Guys presented its first special event, Ed Hooks’ Acting For Animators Workshop at the Spring Creek Campus of Collin College, Plano, Texas. The event was facilitated by the Applied Graphic Design Technology department at Collin College and the Dallas Alias|Wavefront Global Users Association.
Ed Hooks has taught “Acting For Animators” at PDI-Dreamworks (Shrek, ANTZ), Wild Brain, OddWorld Inhabitants, Will Vinton Studios, Stardust Entertainment (Berlin), Mondo Media, Filmakademie Baden-Worttemberg (Stuttgart Germany), as well as for Women in Animation (San Francisco) and DeAnza College in Santa Clara, California. He was a featured speaker at FMX ’99 in Stuttgart.
Ed Hooks is a member of Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA and Actors Equity Association. He has been a professional actor for thirty years, appearing in over one hundred television shows, including Murder, She Wrote, Days of our Lives, Quantum Leap, Home Improvement, Full House, Golden Girls and Hart to Hart. Films include Striking Distance, Raising Cain and Heart and Souls. His book, “Acting For Animators” was published in fall 2000.
His countless television commercials include major campaigns for AT&T, Holiday Inns, Pampers, Bounce Fabric Softener, McDonald’s and Motorola. You have heard his voice on radio and TV spots for Turkey Selects, Ultra Brite Toothpaste and El Torito Restaurants, among many others. On stage, he has worked extensively in New York, Los Angeles, in regional theater and summer stock, as an actor and director.
Ray Harryhausen
On March 30, 2006, A Bunch of Short Guys, in close collaboration with principle sponsor, Janimation, Inc.brought Industry Insights: Ray Harryhausen to the Angelika Film Center in Dallas, Texas.
Legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen has wowed film audiences for generations, bringing chess-playing apes, fighting skeletons and legions of fantastic creatures to life using his self-styled “kinetic sculpture.” Inspired by the movie King Kong, Harryhausen began working with models when he was just thirteen years old. A dozen years later, he collaborated with King Kong creator Willis O’Brien on the film Mighty Joe Young(1946), about an enormous chess-playing ape, which won an Oscar. Harryhausen’s innovative techniques contributed to the science fiction film genre of the 1940’s in a trio of films including Earth Versus the Flying Saucers and Twenty Million Miles to Earth. He went on to contribute to several film classics, including The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981). Harryhausen’s contributions to the visual effects industry were acknowledged with a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1992.
Andrew Gordon
On May 27, 2005, A Bunch of Short Guys and event sponsor, DNA Productions, brought Pixar Animation Studios’ Andrew Gordon to Collin College. This first Industry Insights event was attended by local studio professionals, students and educators.
Andrew Gordon’s animation career at Pixar began in 1997 when he came to the studio to work as an animator on Toy Story 2. Since that time, Andrew has had the privilege of working on several of Pixar’s blockbuster hits including Monsters, Inc., where Andrew was the lead animator on the character Mike Wazowski. His superior work on the “Speaking Whale” scene in Finding Nemo lead to an award for “Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Motion Picture” from the Visual Effect Society. On the Academy Award®-winning film, The Incredibles, Andrew spent the majority of his time animating the character of Edna Mode (E), the beloved super hero costume designer.
Mr. Gordon studied animation in Vancouver, and prior to his work at Pixar, he worked in the Looney Tunes division of Warner Bros. He is currently working on a future Pixar film.