Co-Directing (Learning How to Cooperate and Play Nice)
Sun, Nov 3rd
1:00PM - 2:00PM
The Spin Master Atrium Stage
Learn from one half of two of the most esteemed teams in co-directing. John Musker shares his secrets from his collaborations at Disney with Ron Clements, and Mark Thornton of Neptoon Studios shares his tricks from partner Todd Kauffman. These dynamic duos have co-directed such films and television series as Moana, Grojband, The Little Mermaid, Corner Gas Animated, The Princess and the Frog, Looped, Aladdin, Total Drama Island, Hercules, and Treasure Planet.
Learn some tips, hear some stories, and share some laughs.
Barnabas Wornoff, Co-Founder, TAAFI
Barnabas Wornoff is a senior animator, animation professor and one of the co-founders TAAFI where he helps with speaker programming and other fun shtuffs.
Wornoff is a full-time professor at Seneca College, where he coordinates the 3rd year 2D stream and mentors his students while they make incredible cartoons.
Wornoff also animates for top tier animation studios in Toronto, and has worked on Corner Gas Animated, Nature Cat, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Total Drama Island, Jimmy Two Shoes, Peg and Corn, and did storyboard cleanup on Danny Phantom. Currently he's a freelance animator for Nelvana on Sesame Street's second season of Esme and Roy.
Barnabas has his Masters in Creative Media and Education from Bournemouth University in England.
John Musker, Director - Moana, Little Mermaid, Disney
John Musker is a 40 year veteran of the Walt Disney Animation Studio where he was an animator, storyboard artist, writer, director, and producer.
John grew up in Chicago, Illinois as part of a large Irish Catholic family. He followed up his English Literature studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with two years at CalArts as part of the new Character Animation Program in the mid-Seventies, where he learned not only from Disney and Chouinard veterans like Elmer Plummer, Bill Moore, and Ken O’Connor, but also his fellow classmates there, many who have gone on to direct distinguished films: folks like Brad Bird, Henry Selick, John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Chris Buck. At Disney he was mentored by Eric Larson, the veteran animator and one of Disney’s fabled “Nine Old Men,” who brought Figaro the cat to life in Pinocchio, among many other characters in his distinguished career.
John became an animator on The Fox and the Hound (1981), and later joined Ron Clements to direct The Great Mouse Detective (1986) alongside Disney veterans Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener. Ron and John paired up to write and direct The Little Mermaid (1989) which John co- produced with Howard Ashman. Ron and John also wrote and directed a number of subsequent animated features including Aladdin (1992) Hercules (1997) Treasure Planet ( 2002) and The Princess and the Frog ( 2009.) John’s most recent project was Moana (2016) which he once again directed with Ron Clements, along with co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams.
John retired from Disney Feature Animation in the spring of 2018, and is currently animating by hand his own short film, as well as chasing around his two and a half year old granddaughter Lucy and her baby sis, Gwen.
John resides in La Cañada, California, with his wife Gale, a former researcher at Disney, not far from his three grown children Patrick, Jackson, and Julia.
Mark Thornton, Co-founder, Neptoon
2019 marks Mark’s 25th year in the animation industry. After graduating from Sheridan College in ‘94 Mark began working as an inbetweener and key-cleanup artist at a number of Toronto boutique studios producing commercials and big studio features. Feature credits include SPACE JAM, ANASTASIA, TITAN AE, QUEST FOR CAMELOT, and OSMOSIS JONES.
When feature gigs were unavailable Mark worked as a designer at Nelvana, where he started working daily with his soon to be partner-in-crime, Todd Kauffman. The two of them recognized a similar sense of humour and passion for story in each other, and began collaborating on “just for fun” projects like writing and illustrating dark cautionary tales. The ultimate goal was to create and produce their own IP.
In 2005 they finally got that chance. They created and direct a series of 5 animated shorts for Nelvana’s Funpack program: The 9th LIFE OF SHERMAN PHELPS. With the taste of directing still fresh in their mouths, and their old design jobs being their only option back at Nelvana, the duo decided to strike out on their own. They officially partnered up as NEPTOON STUDIOS to create and develop their own IP and went looking for directing gigs to pay the bills.
They started off by directing the first 2 seasons of Fresh Tv’s TOTAL DRAMA ISLAND and TOTAL DRAMA ACTION. From there they went to create and direct their own series GROJBAND, followed by another original, LOOPED. While continuing to pitch and develop their own properties, co-directing is what they became known for and were soon tapped to helm the first season of CORNER GAS ANIMATED. From there they landed at GURU where they co-directed the 4th season of TRUE AND THE RAINBOW KINGDOM, and most recently PIKWIK PACK.
