Karen Aqua (February 2, 1954-May 30, 2011) was an American filmmaker and animator.
Aqua was born in 1954 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and grew up in the nearby town of Forty Fort. She graduated in 1972 from Wyoming Valley West Senior High School in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. She graduated from RISD in 1976 with a bachelor of fine arts degree. [1]
Over the course of her career, Aqua completed 12 animated films and one collaborative animation/live action video. Her films explore "the themes of ritual, journeys, transformation, and the human spirit. Much of her work reflects an interest in symbols, mythology, and prehistoric and tribal cultures, and include elements of rhythm, dance, and music." [2]
She wrote the lyrics and melody for the majority of her animations. She frequently collaborated with her husband, Ken Field, on the melody for some pieces, as well as chords and arrangements for the majority of them. [3] [4]
In 1990, she began producing animated shorts for Sesame Street . In total, she produced, directed, and animated 22 segments for the show.[ citation needed ]
Aqua taught workshops at Emerson College and Boston College. She received grants and commissions from such organizations as the American Film Institute, The MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), New England Film/Video Fellowship Program, Berkshire Taconic Trust, LEF Foundation, Puffin Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has served as a juror for film festivals in Japan, Canada, and the US, and has presented numerous one-person screenings of her work. [5]
Aqua died in May 2011 of ovarian cancer, after battling the illness for a decade. [6] Upon her death, over 300 of her film and video works were donated to the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She married her husband Ken Field in 1984.
Source: [10]
The term independent animation refers to animated shorts, web series, and feature films produced outside a major national animation industry.
Caroline Leaf is a Canadian-American filmmaker, animator, director, tutor and artist. She has produced numerous short animated films and her work has been recognized worldwide. She is best known as one of the pioneering filmmakers at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). She worked at the NFB from 1972 to 1991. During that time, she created the sand animation and paint-on-glass animation techniques. She also tried new hands-on techniques with 70mm IMAX film. Her work is often representational of Canadian culture and is narrative-based. Leaf now lives in London, England, and is a tutor at The National Film and Television School. She maintains a studio in London working in oils and on paper and does landscape drawing with an iPad.
Ken Brown is an American filmmaker, photographer, cartoonist, and designer. He grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and currently lives in New York City. He has directed dozens of animations, experimental films, and video documentaries since the late 1960s.
Faith Hubley was an American animator, known for her experimental work both in collaboration with her husband John Hubley, and on her own following her husband's death.
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Joanna Priestley is an American contemporary film director, producer, animator and teacher. Her films are in the collections of the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Priestley has had retrospectives at the British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art and Hiroshima International Animation Festival in Japan. Bill Plympton calls her the "Queen of independent animation". Priestley lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
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Ayoka "Ayo" Chenzira is an independent African-American producer, film director, television director, animator, writer, experimental filmmaker, and transmedia storyteller. She is the first African American woman animator and one of a handful of Black experimental filmmakers working since the late 1970s. She has earned international acclaim for her experimental, documentary, animation, and cross-genre filmmaking productions. Her work, as well as her efforts as one of the first African American woman film educators, have led some in the press to describe her as a media activist for social justice and challenging stereotype representations of African Americans in the mainstream media.
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