From Pitch to Panda
with Pixar director & screenwriter
Domee Shi

Oscar-winning, animator, director, writer, Pixar-VP of Creative
and the 2023 Brettell Award in the Arts recipient.

Friday, October 27
3:30 – 5 p.m.
ATC Lecture Hall
Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building

Meet the Artists

Domee Shi  - "To all the nerdy girls out there who hide behind their sketchbooks, don't be afraid to tell your stories to the world.” Encouragement to rising artists spoken by Domee Shi when accepting the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for “Bao.”

Domee Shi started, like many students do, with an internship. Shi started her journey at Pixar in 2011, interning as a storyboard artist, moving up the ranks from entry-level to vice president of creative. Along the way, she was a story artist on feature films, “The Good Dinosaur,” “Toy Story 4,” and “Incredibles 2.” She scored the 2019 Oscar for “Bao” and this year’s Academy Award nomination for Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red,” which she co-wrote and directed.

Shi is a trailblazer, opening doors for animators following in her footsteps. She is the first woman to direct an animated short for Pixar. She is the first woman of color to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. She is the first woman to direct a Pixar feature film. In April 2023, Shi earned the title of vice president of creative, joining Pixar’s BrainTrust, an elite circle of artists known for their feature films.


Nelson Lim - Professor Nelson Lim is a creative technologist with over a decade of experience in CG that includes feature film FX Technical Direction, software development, and CG supervision. Lim was formerly at Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, and Brazen Animation. Past clients, brands and projects span film, games, commercials, visualization and interactive XR experiences. These include Fortnite, League of Legends, Warcraft Pacific Rim, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Marvel’s Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean: On
Stranger Tides, and others. He is husband and father to 2 boys, founder of Tech Arts Meetups, and member of the Honorary Visual Effects Society and ACM SIGGRAPH.

Monika Salter - Professor Monika Salter is a character FX, surfacing, and look development artist specializing in shade development and stylized texture creation. Her expertise lies in tailoring complex clothing designs, hair creation/simulation, grooming/texturing fur, hair, and feathers, and procedural environment elements, i.e., grass, trees, and moss. Salter's portfolio of work includes Rumble, Scoob, The Book of Life, Free Birds, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Rio, and Horton Hears a Who! Salter teaches animation courses at the Bass School and studies molecular biology at UT Dallas as well.

Parking

When parking on campus before 5 p.m. on a Friday, you must obtain a visitor permit to park in the Green spaces. You may obtain a free permit from the Visitor Center or the Parking Office, with a valid photo ID presented. Metered parking is also available for more convenient parking. Metered parking is located on the first floor of every parking structure, as well as in Parking Lot G, M-West, and F. Parking meters accept credit/debit cards only. You may park in green parking spaces after 5 p.m. on Fridays. All other parking is enforced, even after business hours and on weekends.

Directions

Driving directions to Parking Structure 1 (PS1) (Google Maps)

Parking Structure 1 (PS1) to the Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building (ATC) Lecture Hall (walking directions from PS1)

Lot D to the Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building (ATC) Lecture Hall (walking directions from Lot D)

Parking Structure 3 (PS3) to the Edith O'Donnell Arts & Technology Building (ATC) Lecture Hall (walking directions from PS3)

View a map of all parking locations, Bass School venues, and walking pathways (image)

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