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REEL LIFE / FILM & VIDEO FILE : Animation Panel Will Include a Familiar Voice : June Foray, known for her vocals of Rocky the Squirrel and Natasha, will join the discussion at a screening fund-raiser Sunday in Ojai.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Maybe this is just a personal fascination, but there’s a big, big star coming to Ojai this weekend, a woman whose quirky voice is anonymously inscribed on baby boomers’ collective psyches.

She’s June Foray, the cartoon voice of Rocky the Squirrel and secret agent of “Rocky and His Friends.” Foray will be a panelist at “Adventures in Animation,” a special fund-raiser scheduled Sunday by the Ojai Film Society.

Foray was also the voice of the hapless Nell, would-be paramour of Dudley Do-Right, and Ursula in “George of the Jungle.” The Hollywood Reporter dubbed her the first lady of off-camera voice actors.

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Foray will be among five panelists who will answer questions after a screening of “Best of the International Tournee of Animation.” Please note: While Foray’s most recognized work has been in cartoons, most of the 17 animated shorts have little in common with Saturday morning fare.

Five of the shorts are Academy Award winners. They are: “The Fly” (1980), “Charade” (1984), “Tin Toy” (1989), “Balance” (1990) and “Creature Comforts” (1991). “Ode to GI Joe” won a Student Academy Award in 1991.

The show starts at 4:40 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $15, and that includes the panel discussion and a reception immediately following the program. The screening will be at Thacher School, 5025 Thacher Road in Ojai.

Also joining Foray on the panel are Bill Littlejohn, co-founder of the International Tournee of Animation, Tom Sito of Disney Studios and Jeff Burks of Dream Quest Images. Antran Manoogian, president of the International Animated Film Society, will moderate.

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Speaking of Dream Quest, you can see a sample of its work in the just-released thriller “Crimson Tide,” last weekend’s top box office draw. The Simi Valley studio that won a special effects Oscar for “The Abyss” applied some of the same techniques to the new movie, an underwater drama about a nuclear missile submarine.

Dream Quest’s visual effects supervisor, Hoyt Yeatman, filmed submarine models underwater and on a huge smoke-filled stage designed to look like the ocean deep. Computers control a gantry-mounted camera to make it move in conjunction with the model. Dream Quest also used computers to generate some images. All of the bubbles in the film are computer generated.

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Yeatman said the most challenging sequence was creating the underwater implosion of a submarine. To achieve the effect, Dream Quest constructed a model by wrapping thin lead sheeting over an aluminum frame. Then several sealed jars from which the air had been removed were placed inside the model. Explosives were ignited, shattering the jars and creating a vacuum that caused the thin lead body to crumple inward under the pressure of the water.

For the effect to work, 11 different events had to occur in specific sequence within one-quarter second. However, high-speed underwater cameras stretch the actual screen time of the event to six seconds.

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The long-promised abundance of movie screens in Camarillo will become a reality Friday when United Artists opens its 11-screen theater near the intersection of Adolfo Road and Camino Ruiz.

The opening brings to 23 the number of screens in Camarillo, which had only three screens as recently as November.

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