<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>March 24-26, 2022</p>

Toronto Animation Film Festival

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>March 24-27, 2021</p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Hot Docs Cinema | Toronto, Canada | 506 Bloor Street West</p><h3>When</h3><p>Monday April 25th</p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>November 11-13, 2021</p>

Toronto Animation Industry Conference

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>November 18-22, 2020<span class="ql-cursor">﻿</span></p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Corus Quay, Toronto, Canada, 25 Dockside Dr.</p><h3>When</h3><p>Saturday to Sunday, November 2-3, 2019</p>

Toronto Animation / VFX Job Fair

TAAFI News

<p>John Musker is a 40 year veteran of the Walt Disney Animation Studio where he was an animator, storyboard artist, writer, director, and producer.&nbsp;</p><p>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 <em>Pinocchio</em>, among many other characters in his distinguished career.&nbsp;</p><p>John became an animator on <em>The Fox and the Hound </em>(1981), and later joined Ron Clements to direct <em>The Great Mouse Detective </em>(1986) alongside Disney veterans Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener. Ron and John paired up to write and direct <em>The Little Mermaid </em>(1989) which John co- produced with Howard Ashman. Ron and John also wrote and directed a number of subsequent animated features including <em>Aladdin </em>(1992) <em>Hercules </em>(1997) <em>Treasure Planet </em>( 2002) and <em>The Princess and the Frog </em>( 2009.) John’s most recent project was <em>Moana </em>(2016) which he once again directed with Ron Clements, along with co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams.&nbsp;</p><p>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.&nbsp;</p><p>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.&nbsp;</p>

<p>John Musker is a 40 year veteran of the Walt Disney Animation Studio where co-directed all your favorite films. Including <em>The Little Mermaid </em>(1989), <em>Aladdin </em>(1992), <em>Hercules </em>(1997), <em>Treasure Planet </em>( 2002), <em>The Princess and the Frog </em>( 2009) and most recently <em>Moana </em>(2016.)</p>

John Musker

<p><span style="color: rgb(38, 50, 56);">GRITTY, FRESH, and FUN. Joel's work has been screened at some of the top festivals in the world and that has opened the door to take his ideas further with clients. Currently he is developing shows with Corus/Teletoon, Sonar/Wildseed, and Boat Rocker media. He also has a short with Nickelodeon, and a bunch of other ideas he is trying to get off the ground. He hopes to own a dog someday and eventually play every video game in the world.</span></p>

Joel MacKenzie

<p><span style="background-color: transparent;">As 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Stonewall riots in New York City, LGBTQ+ are becoming more visible in popular culture than ever before, and now it’s time for their representation in kids animation!&nbsp;Shabnam </span>Rezaei<span style="background-color: transparent;"> (Bravest Knight) and Cort Lane (Marvel Rising) talk about LGBTQ+ representation in their series, and how they are going the extra mile to include LGBTQ+ both in front of and behind the scenes.</span></p>

LGBTQ+ & Their Stories

<p>Cort Lane has taken on a newly-created position at Marvel as senior vice president, Animation &amp; Family Entertainment. Most recently he has developed and co-exec produced ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL'S AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, HULK AND THE AGENTS OF S.M.A.S.H. and the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY animated series and shorts.</p>

Cort Lane

John Rooney

Shabnam Rezaei

<p><span style="background-color: transparent;">Pitching! We all do it, even when we are not doing it. Our esteemed panel has both pitched and receive pitches and are well-versed in how a great pitch looks, sounds and feels. If you want to hear some good pitching stories as well as tips and tricks you can use, this is the panel for you.</span></p>

Pitching Success Stories

Mike Geiger

Marie McCann

Closing Remarks

Barnabas Wornoff

Ben McEvoy

<p>John Rooney has a vast history within kids television in Canada starting in the late 90’s working with YTV. Rising through the ranks, John became director of programming and was instrumental in shaping the Corus Kids &amp; Family brands. He successfully created strategies for such brands as Bionix, Nickelodeon Canada and ABC Spark Canada.</p><p>John successfully transitioned over to TELETOON and became Director of Programming responsible for content strategy for TELETOON, TELETOON Retro and launching Cartoon Network and Adult Swim in Canada.</p><p>John has recently joined TAAFI (Toronto Animation Arts Festival International) as Program Director and is involved in the planning of TAAFI’s annual Industry Conference and programming TAAFI’s annual Animation Festival. </p><p>Currently, John is working as a consultant advising various clients on content strategy, programming, development, curation, research and trending. His clients include Epic Story Media; DHX Television; Zodiak Media; Shaftesbury; Apartment 11 and marblemedia.</p>