San Fernando Valley : ‘Fantasia’ Animator Jules Engel to Be Feted

Jules Engel, the dapper founding director of the experimental animation program at CalArts in Valencia, will be honored tonight for contributions to animation that began 55 years ago with “Fantasia.”

The occasion will be the 23rd annual Annie Awards--the animation world’s highest honor--at the Television Academy Theatre in North Hollywood. The 77-year-old artist and educator will be one of three recipients of the Winsor McCay Award, the highest honor awarded by the International Animated Film Society’s Hollywood branch. The prize is named for the legendary creator of “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914), America’s first great animated film.

Disney veteran Vance Gerry and Dan McLaughlin, of the UCLA animation department, will be honored for lifetime contributions in the field.

CalArts has two animation tracks: one in character animation--which prepares students for careers at mainstream studios--and Engel’s program in experimental animation.

“The people I get are the artists who have a strong personal vision,” Engel said recently in the Valencia studio he shares with several dozen students.

In Engel, the students have a mentor who is an artist in his own right and a man who participated in several of the major milestones in animation history.

Premier Disney animator Glen Keane was one of his students, as was Henry Selick, the director of “Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993). Other Engel proteges include MTV animator Peter Chung and Mark Kirkland, director of “The Simpsons.”

Vanessa Schwartz, a master’s degree candidate at CalArts, was studying costume design when she met Engel. “I didn’t know anything about animation,” she said. Engel asked to see some of her drawings and advised her to study animation.

Schwartz’s animated short, “The Janitor,” was nominated for an Academy Award in 1994. As to wandering into Engel’s domain, she said, “I think I got really lucky.”