It will be a rare and exciting opportunity to learn directly from the best talents of American animation.
SPECIAL GUEST INSTRUCTOR (ROME event exclusive!)
Ricky Nierva is a Production Designer at the critically acclaimed Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. The youngest of five, Ricky grew up in San Diego, California and attended the California Institute of the Arts. He credits his visual style to close mentor and famed Warner Brothers and Disney designer, the late Maurice Noble. Ricky has worked with talented artists at Turner Feature Animation, Warner Brothers, Baer Animation, and Hanna Barbera.
A veteran Pixar artist since 1997, Ricky has worked on Toy Story 2 and was the lead character designer on the beloved film Monsters Inc. He was awarded an Annie Award for his character work on Finding Nemo, and was the Production Designer for Pixar’s 2009 Academy Award winning film Up. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys playing the ukulele, eating ice cream, and participating in triathlons — not particularly in that order. He is currently the Production Designer on Pixar’s upcoming 2013 release Monsters University. Ricky is an incredibly busy person, so his appearance in New York is much appreciated, and presents a rare opportunity that’s not to be missed!
Andrew Gordon has been animating characters at Pixar Animation Studios for 16 years. He joined Pixar in 1997 where he has been an Animator on A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Toy Story 3. The characters he has worked on include Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., Gill, from Finding Nemo and Edna Mode, the costume designer in The Incredibles, and Linguini from Ratatouille. He supervised animation on Pixar’s Academy Award nominated short film Presto, and is currently a directing animator on Monsters University, due out in 2013. Andrew studied animation in Vancouver, New York and New Jersey, and prior to his work at Pixar, he worked in the Looney Tunes division of Warner Brothers. He was awarded “Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Motion Picture” by the Visual Effects Society for his work in Finding Nemo.
Passionate about teaching animation for over 13 years, Andrew began teaching at the Academy of Art, where he taught all levels of the animation program there. He has taught animation intensives throughout the world. Andrew has been also actively involved in The Pixar Animation Internship, helping lead it for for 2007, 2009 and 2010. Andrew is a contributing lecturer at Animation Mentor. He is a frequent guest artist at CSU Summer Arts Program. He is one of the founders of Spline Doctors, a blog/podcast dedicated to animation education. He helped develop and teach at the California College of Art’s new animation program. Andrew has recently co-founded a workshop called the Animation Collaborative, which brings some of the best teachers in the world together to teach animation, story and character design.