The Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts is bringing together an array of visual effects and stop-motion animation experts for a special lecture series as part of the festival’s featured exhibit: “Animation: Script to Screen.”

The festival’s focus on the breadth and depth of animation is a unique opportunity to see a wide range of animation examples, artifacts and artwork, and learn directly from creative professionals. 

The live lecture series starts at 11 a.m. on Friday, June 20 and continues through Saturday, June 21 in the Headlee Theater at the Lakewood Center for the Arts

The lecture series also features the “After Hours Film Fest,” a first for the festival, at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, June 20 in Headlee Theater. The Film Fest includes screenings of featured artist Bill Plympton’s groundbreaking animated movie “Slide” and six other animated shorts selected by the indie animation legend. 

Schedule: 

Friday, June 20 – 11 a.m. – Tippett Animator, Webster Colcord 

Friday, June 20 – 1 p.m. – Aardman Junior Animator – Hannah Brooks 

Friday, June 20 – 3:30 p.m. – Animation legend, Bill Plympton

Friday, June 20 – 6 p.m. – After Hours Film Fest featuring Plympton’s acclaimed feature film “Slide” and award-winning animated shorts  

Saturday, June 21 – 11 a.m. – LAIKA’s VFX Compositing Supervisor, Michael Córdova –

Saturday, June 21 – 1 p.m. – Lead Animator, Anthony Scott 

Saturday, June 21 – 2:30 p.m. – Animation Director, Brian Hansen from ShadowMachine

Saturday, June 21 – 4 p.m. – Producer, Melanie Coombs from ShadowMachine 

Learning about animation

“You really have to have a passion to want to be in this industry. That’s what’s driven me over the years. I knew what I wanted to be when I was a kid, I just didn’t know how to get into the business. Really, there’s no clear cut method,” said animator Anthony Scott.

Scott is just one of seven animators who will be giving a lecture or masterclass during the festival. His own animation work includes the 1980s “The Adventures of Gumby” television series, “James and the Giant Peach,” “Corpse Bride,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Coraline” with LAIKA in the Portland metro area.   

“(Gumby) was my first job as an animator,” said Scott. “Sometimes Gumby rolls in as a ball gets into the car and morphs into himself and then drives off. Doing things like that, you can’t do that on a feature film or anything like that, because everything’s so tightly directed, but Gumby gave us all this freedom.” 

The speaker series combines more than 40 years of experience in stop-motion and 2D animation from local powerhouses such as LAIKA and ShadowMachine, as well as artists from the creators of “Wallace and Gromit,” Aardman Animations.

Bill Plympton himself, whose work is featured in the Dee Denton Gallery at the Lakewood Center of the Arts currently, will give a 2D animation masterclass on the Lakewood theater stage. 

LAIKA’s Michael Córdova will give a presentation titled “LAIKA: Building Worlds with Puppets and Pixels” covering the development and evolution of the studio from their beloved movie “Coraline” to their current blockbuster project “Wildwood,” scheduled for release in 2026 and based on the 2011 children’s novel by The Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy.  

Tippet Studio animator Webster Colcord’s presentation, “Monsters, Mayhem and Mistakes: a Career in Hollywood Animation,” is one of the many chances for festivalgoers to see the complicated and creative behind-the-scenes world of stop motion storytelling. Colcord started his career locally at the legendary Will Vinton studios before heading to California to work with VFX pioneer Will Tippet at Tippet Studios.

“I’ve always had a habit of collecting an archive of what we called ‘wacky gags,’ which are all of the funny bits, outtakes of animation. Maybe at the end of a shot, you might do a little joke, you know, and sometimes it can be very elaborate,” said Colcord. “I would collect all those. The audience never gets to see those. Almost never, so what I wanted to do in this presentation was show some of those things and show some things behind the scenes — stuff that the audience rarely gets to see.”