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2011 AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL TO HONOR JOHN LASSETER WITH EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTION TO FILMMAKING AWARD

Posted Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 - Comments Off on 2011 AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL TO HONOR JOHN LASSETER WITH EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTION TO FILMMAKING AWARD
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CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER OF WALT DISNEY AND PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS JOINS DISTINGUISHED SCREENWRITER AWARDEE CAROLINE THOMPSON AND “BONES” CREATOR HART HANSON, OUTSTANDING TELEVISION WRITER AWARDEE

AUSTIN, TX (June 14, 2011) – The Austin Film Festival (AFF) is proud to announce that this year’s recipient of the 2011 Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award will be John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. He will accept the Award, along with the other awardees, at AFF’s annual Award Luncheon held on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at the Austin Club. The Awards Luncheon is presented by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation. Lasseter will also speak on panels during the Conference, including “A Conversation with John Lasseter” and “The Art of Storytelling with Caroline Thompson, Hart Hanson and John Lasseter.”

Lasseter is a two-time Academy Award®-winning director and creatively oversees all films and associated projects from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. His executive-producing credits include “Monsters, Inc.,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “WALL•E,” “Bolt” and last year’s critically acclaimed “Up,” the first animated film ever to open the Cannes Film Festival and therecipient of two Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. Lasseter also served as executive producer for Disney’s Oscar®-nominated films “The Princess and the Frog” and “Tangled” as well as Pixar’s most recent Academy Award® winner for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, “Toy Story 3.” Under Lasseter’s supervision, Pixar’s animated features and short films have earned a multitude of critical accolades and film industry honors.

Lasseter joins Caroline Thompson who will receive the 2011 Distinguished Screenwriter Award and Outstanding Television Writer Awardee Hart Hanson. Thompson’s writing credits include “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Corpse Bride,” “The Addams Family,” “The Secret Garden” and more. Hanson is most well known in his role as creator, writer and executive producer of the popular television series “BONES,” which just got picked up for a 7th season on Fox.

The Austin Film Festival annually recognizes outstanding filmmakers for going above and beyond with their consistently exceptional body of work with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award. Previous recipients of the award include Robert Rodriguez (’10), Ron Howard (’09), Danny Boyle (’08), Oliver Stone (’07), and the late Sydney Pollack (’06.)

The inclusion of Lasseter in the 2011 Conference will round out an impressive list of animation writers, filmmakers, and executives attending and speaking at the Festival, helping make this an outstanding year for animation at AFF. Below are a few of the confirmed names in film and television and their animation credits taking part in AFF 2011.

• Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger, writers “Kung Fu Panda,” “Kung Fu Panda 2,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” “King of the Hill”

• Rita Hsiao, writer “Toy Story 2,” “Mulan”

• Jason Eaton, writer “Ice Age 3”

• Lisa Fragner, 20th Century Fox Animation/Blue Sky Studios, Inc.

• Tim McCanlies, writer “The Iron Giant”

• Mike Mitchell, director “Alvin and The Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked,” “Shrek Forever After”

• Nancy Pimental, writer “South Park”

• Rhett Reese, writer “Dinosaur”

• Tim Talbott, writer “South Park”

AFF will take place October 20-27, 2011 in Austin, Texas and will host more than 170 exciting film screenings and events. AFF will also include a conferencelineup with over 100 panelists participating in 90 plus panels and roundtable discussions. The complete list is available at www.austinfilmfestival.com, or upon request. Film screenings, additional panelists and special events will be announced in the coming months. Attendance of Conference speakers is schedule permitting and subject to change without notice.

Awards Luncheon tickets are $50 each and are available for purchase by Conference and Producers Badge holders only. For additional information on the 18th AnnualAustin Film Festival, panels and film screenings, and how to purchase everything from a Producers Badge to a Film Pass, visit the official website at www.austinfilmfestival.com or call 1-800-310-FEST (3378).

About Austin Film Festival

The Austin Film Festival (AFF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the art and craft of filmmaking by inspiring and championing the work of screenwriters, filmmakers, and all artists who use the language of film to tell a story.

The Austin Film Festival is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Special support is provided to the Austin Film Festival by Continental and United Airlines, KVUE, KUT 90.5, and Dos Equis.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon