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Women In Animation Aims for 50/50 by 2025

WIA presentations at upcoming industry events around the world to highlight this call to action.

LOS ANGELES -- Women in Animation (WIA) is making its voice heard at several upcoming animation industry events this month, including the VIEW Conference in Italy, SPARK Animation Festival and Conference in Vancouver, and the World Animation Celebration (WAC) in Los Angeles.

The VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy will be the venue for a presentation calling the industry to achieve “50-50 by 2025,” which means that WIA hopes to see 50% of the workforce made up of women by the year 2025. Although over 60% of animation school program attendees are female artists, women on average are only 20% of the creative workforce in the industry.

“What is the disconnect between graduation and employment? How can we stem the attrition of women? We will take a hard look at the real numbers needed to reach this goal,” explains producer and WIA Chairperson Jinko Gotoh, who will be moderating the panel.

Participants in the panel will include Mark Osborne, Mikki Rose, Deborah Fowler, Kim White and Eleanor Coleman. More information regarding the View panel is available here.

On October 23, SPARK will host a business symposium for women in animation, at which the “50-50 by 2025” discussion will continue, moderated by Rose-Ann Tisserand with panelists to include WIA co-president Marge Dean, Alex Raffé, Brenda Gilbert, Delna Bhesania, J.J. Johnson, and Kirsten Newlands. Studio leaders will discuss their successes and challenges in empowering women to be in creative roles, offering concrete next steps for changing the face of the creative workforce in Vancouver, Canada and the animation industry at large.

“We want to make a difference by educating and inspiring women in the business of animation. We've had phenomenal interest and support, which indicates how relevant and timely this symposium is,” says Tisserand, who is co-chairing the event along with Jinko Gotoh.

Also at SPARK, WIA will present a panel about monetizing shorts, moderated by Gotoh and featuring participants Marge Dean, Anne Marie Fleming, Brandon Oldenburg, Brendan Burch, Daisuke "Zen" Miyake, James A. Roberts, Jenna Boyd and Ryan Nadel. These experienced professionals will share their knowledge to inspire women to create their own short films, touching on IP creation, financing, marketing and distribution, the use of social media and crowd source funding. Other panels in the symposium will cover pitching and financing advice for attendees.

More information regarding the Sparks panel in available here.

Source: Women in Animation

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.