Animation screening

I wanted to detail an event that came together seamlessly and on very short notice the other evening due to some great collaboration between our staff.  Bardel Entertainment, which hires a great deal of our animation grads (current number is around 15) was stuck for a venue last Tuesday to hold a private screening of a ‘soon to be released’ animated feature film they had worked on.  Anne Denman, the studio manager, called me and asked if we could facilitate this event which was happening in 2 days.  This required the quick action of Meredith Schuurman to communicate with her instructor Tony Lewis And ask if his lecture theatre class could be re-located as it conflicted with the time and place needed for the screening.  Thanks to Meredith and Tony’s quick dialogue, I was able to confirm with Bardel that we could indeed hold this event, which required seating for close to 40 people, including several local economic luminaries, Bardel artists and CATO alumni who had worked on the film.  The event was to be catered and alcohol provided.  The event was invite only and due to the private nature of the film being screened, it needed to be viewed in our lecture theatre with all windows blacked out and any recording devices confiscated.  The party and screening came off without a hitch and there was much applause and congratulatory dialogue during the credits.  Anne gave a big shout out to CATO for hosting this event in such short time and providing such nice facilities.

In addition to Meredith and Tony, I want to give my own big shout out to Randal Typusiak who’s own event in the lecture theatre (planned much more in advance) preceded mine by about 15 minutes and who showed such unselfish professional concern that my event not be negatively affected.  To Ryan Campbell and Scott Rees for their dialogue and coordination to ensure that things got set up according to Bardel’s specifications and that it provided as little distraction to the ongoing scheduled classes as possible.  To Anne Pawlowski and Suzanne Kruse in scheduling, Carrera Teal and Amy Nutt in marketing, Trista Godfrey in the equipment cage, all of whom played a role in making this happen.  All in all it just reconfirms what an awesome team we have and I was moved how everyone jumped in on short notice to help me coordinate this event and make it the success it was.  Thank you all!

On a personal note, I was quite emotional due to the inspiring nature and quality of the animated film, but also this was a watershed moment for the animation program in how hard it has worked to foster local industry relations and for the celebration of our alumni whom all talked glowingly of their jobs and how it felt to be back at CATO in this capacity.  It was also very cool to learn that this film had only been screened at TIFF, Cannes and now CATO!