“First and foremost, we owe Antran Manoogian an enormous amount of respect and admiration for his many years of selfless devotion to ASIFA-Hollywood,” said Gladstone. “Antran has seen the organization through a period of unparalleled growth and success, going from a small club to an organization of over 4,000 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 the major studios to get input on how the organization can improve its infrastructure.
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.
Tom Sito, long time vice president of ASIFA-Hollywood has also stepped down and 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.
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.
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.
