From a press release we received this morning:
ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the selection of its new President, Frank Gladstone, at its February board meeting. Gladstone replaces Antran Manoogian who held the position for over 20 years.
Longtime ASIFA Hollywood vp [and TAG President Emeritus] Tom Sito chose not to run for re-election; taking his place is Jerry Beck.
Also joining Gladstone as a new board officer is Jeff Wike as treasurer; Bill Turner returns as secretary.
“First and foremost, we owe Antran Manoogian an enormous amount of respect and admiration for his many years of selfless devotion to ASIFA-Hollywood,” says Gladstone. “Antran has seen the organization through a period of unparalleled growth and success, going from a small club to an organization of over 4000 members. During his stewardship, Antran established, among many achievements, a digital archive, and built the Annie Award into the most important honor in animation.”
Gladstone continued, “Though I’ve been part of ASIFA and the animation community for a long time, I am looking forward to being the ‘new face’ of the organization and to making some significant changes to the status quo. For starters, this includes updating our membership qualifications, establishing a representative voice for every animation studio and creative technique, building an advisory board of animation luminaries and revising the voting structure of the annual Annie Awards.”
In the next few weeks ASIFA-Hollywood will be holding meetings with executives from all the major studios to get their input on how we can improve our infrastructure. ASIFA-Hollywood will take this time to ask its members, both individual and corporate, to come together and advise them on how best to chart the course for decades to come. In addition they will invite many of its members to join the executive board.
Frank Gladstone has been a professional animator, producer, director, writer and teacher, first managing his own studio, and then working in management positions for Disney, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks, among others. He is currently the CEO of the animation consulting firm, Gladstone Film, teaches worldwide and is the ‘artist-in-residence’ for the ACME Network.
Jerry Beck, former Nickelodeon and Disney studio exec, cartoon producer and animation historian is taking his place. Beck has written 15 books on animation, and has programmed many major retrospectives. He currently co-writes the industry blog, “Cartoon Brew” and teaches animation history at Woodbury University in Burbank.
Bill Turner is a Production Supervisor at Disney Television Animation. He has been active in ASIFA-Hollywood since 1978 and has served as the organization’s secretary since the 1990s. In 2009 he was presented with the June Foray Award for his decades of service.
Today, ASIFA-Hollywood, founded by renowned voice actress June Foray and animators Bill Littlejohn, Carl Bell and Ward Kimball, among others, is the largest of an international network of chapters and supports a range of animation initiatives through its membership. In addition to the annual Annie Awards honoring the best in animation, current projects include an animation archive, library and museum, classes and screenings, and animated film preservation.
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16 comments:
Congratulations, Frank!
A paragraph that was left off of this morning's release:
Jeff Wike is currently the Director of Research and Development for DreamWorks Animation in charge of technology. Jeff joined DreamWorks in 1996 and has 16 animated features to his credit. He has been an active member of ASIFA-Hollywood for four years.
Glad they are revising the Annie structure.
Too bad it's too late for Tangled.
If "updating our membership qualifications" means keeping in mind that there are far more animators working in games, web animation, and other applications than there are in TV and film, then I'm all for it. If ASIFA continues down the "if you ain't at a studio, you ain't worth talking to" path they're currently on, then my lapsed membership will stay that way.
Congrats Jerry!
But putting the likes of frank gladstone in that position is an embarrassing step BACKWARDS for ASIFA. A giant one. I'm sure if it had been put to a vote by the members, he'd not have been chosen. Don't expect any changes of any kind soon.
The worst choice possible.
Why?
frank is a wanker with little respect in or for the industry. He doesn't know much about film or animation, and is far more interested in promoting himself than in promoting asifa. Just because he's got loads of free time on his hands doesn't make him qualified to run asifa.
This should have been put to a membership vote. But then that goes to the heart of the problem with asifa: transparency. gladstone and his lack of leadership experience will only compound this problem. The artists in the industry roll their eyes when his name is mentioned. So much for asifa.
"ASIFA-Hollywood, founded by renowned voice actress June Foray and animators Bill Littlejohn, Carl Bell and Ward Kimball, among others"
I was glad to see that during the Academy Awards "In Memoriam" sequence they paid respect to Bill Littlejohn among the various other industry folk who have left us over the past year .
I don't know Frank Gladstone, but yesterday I received 6 emails describing what a great guy he was and what great news this was. These were from industry friends I respect. Good news.
Frank is a good, decent guy and does have quite a long history in animation and the knowledge and enthusiasm that goes with it.
I'm sure he will be a great asset to ASIFA.
I'm glad that Frank Gladstone (who I have never met) has an enemy who feels compelled to badmouth him. I've acquired some of those throughout my career as well. This is an industry thats a talent pool, but its also an industry of voices. If you haven't acquired some enemies, that means you've never stood up for anything.
Sounds to me like Frank is a qualified individual
:)
I've known Frank for almost 20 years. He has been in animation for a long time but doesn't seem to be able to actually "do" anything except promote himself as an "expert" - which he isn't. As one of the above posters noted, when Frank's name is mentioned peoples' eyes start to roll. This is an enormous step backwards for Asifa and does little to enhance their credibility.
ASIFA is supposed to be a society of supporters of the art of animation, i.e. fans, not necessarily industry professionals and certainly not those with their petty studio rivalries. I think Frank will be the perfect cheerleader in chief. And thanks to Antran for the heroes job he has done.
gladstone is a buffoon who's only qualification is that he's got so much time on his hands . Truly a sad state of affairs for asifa.
Hmmm, this is odd. I've been a member of ASIFA for many years. Why didn't we get to vote on this?
And, having known Frank for 15 years, he's a sweetheart of a guy, but if you want to make sure something won't get finished, put him in charge. I share the worried feeling of many of the other posters here.
I've heard both sides over the years regarding Mr Gladstone..While I do agree that perhaps this should have been put to a membership vote,now that he's in, we might as well give him the opportunity to prove his detractors wrong. If he's not meeting expectations,it will be apparent soon enough.
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