Ratatouille, the 2007 box office hit, has been Oscar nominated for Best Animated Feature. The joint talk was delivered to a packed audience by Mark Walsh, Supervising Animator for Ratatouille, and Stuart Sumida, Professor of Biology at California State University. Professor Sumida has provided advice on the movement and physiology of animals in numerous big-screen successes including Beauty and The Beast, The Lion King, Scooby-Doo and Ratatouille. The talk described their collaboration on Ratatouille.
Mark Walsh is from Pixar Animation Studios in California. He was also Directing Animator on Finding Nemo and part of the animation team behind The Incredibles. He said: ‘I get really excited when I come to Animex. It’s really invigorating to talk to the students and see their passion for what they’re doing. I get a real energy charge here which I take back to my work.
‘If Ratatouille wins the Oscar that would be great - who doesn’t want to win an award? But my work is all about creating an experience for people in a movie theatre, both adults and children.’
Mark is currently working on a Pixar film about robots entitled Wally. He will follow this with a film about an old man and a boy, and then move onto the production of Toy Story 3.
Professor Sumida added: ‘Coming to Animex, you get to meet world class personalities from famous studios like Disney and Pixar. When you speak to people in the States about entertainment in the UK, they think London. But there is talent in unexpected places, like here on Teesside, and I love seeing that. Animex is a genuinely friendly, terrific environment.’
Animex will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2009.