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Ottawa Animation Fest Keynotes Announced

The Television Animation Conference kicks off its fifth year with the announcement of top level keynote speakers Brown Johnson, the President of Animation for Nickelodeon, MTVN Kids and Family Group; Seth Green and Matt Senreich co-executive producers, writers, and directors of ROBOT CHICKEN. The festival is September 17-18, 2008 in Ottawa, Ontario.

The Television Animation Conference (TAC) is Canada's only animation specific industry forum and is a compliment to the well-loved and well-attended Ottawa International Animation Festival. Targeting professionals in animation creation, production, distribution and marketing, the TAC event brings together internationally leading production and distribution representatives for panels and networking.

Opening the conference is Johnson, who spearheads development and production for all animated programming across Nickelodeon, the largest provider of television animation in the U.S., while continuing to oversee development and production for all preschool programming.

Johnson is responsible for supervising the creative direction of contemporary classics such as SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, and THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS, as well as BACK AT THE BARNYARD, THE MIGHTY B! and THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR in partnership with DreamWorks SKG. She supervises creative executive teams on both the East and West Coasts, managing the creative direction and coordination efforts between series production, on-air promotions, marketing and consumer products. During her 20-year tenure at Nickelodeon, Johnson has overseen and nurtured numerous groundbreaking properties, including the preschool hits BLUE'S CLUES, DORA THE EXPLORER, THE BACKYARDIGANS, GO, DIEGO, GO! , YO GABBA GABBA! and NI HAO, KAI-LAN.

The second day of the event starts off with Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Green is known primarily for his role in all three AUSTIN POWERS films and as the voice of Chris on FAMILY GUY. He has also appeared in the movies WITHOUT A PADDLE, PARTY MONSTER, CAN'T HARDLY WAIT, THE ITALIAN JOB, and on TV's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

Senreich comes from a comics industry background, having made stops at Marvel Comics, WIZARD and TOYFARE magazines and most recently as the Editorial Director of Wizard Ent. Together they are co-executive producers, writers, and directors of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Emmy award winning series, ROBOT CHICKEN and are currently producing a stop-motion animated holiday family feature NAUGHTY OR NICE.

The keynote speakers are just the beginning of this year's expanded event, which features more panels, workshops, seminars and opportunities than ever before

For more information about TAC, please visit www.animationfestival.ca.