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Ian Mackinnon (He/Him)

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Ian Mackinnon is the joint founder, Executive Producer and Creative Director of Mackinnon & Saunders, a world-renowned studio specialising in character development and high-quality stop-motion and 2D digital animation. For more than three decades, the studio has brought to life some of cinema and television’s most distinctive and iconic animated characters. Ian has worked closely with director Tim Burton on the design and interpretation of stop-motion puppets for Mars Attacks!, Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Wednesday Season 2. In 2006, Mackinnon & Saunders received the prestigious Ub Iwerks Award at the Annie Awards for their pioneering contribution to Corpse Bride, recognising the studio’s innovation and technical achievement in stop-motion animation. More recently, the studio created stop-motion sequences for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Wednesday Season 2, continuing its long-standing creative relationship with Burton. Beyond this collaboration, Mackinnon & Saunders has crafted puppets for Guillermo del Toro’s Academy Award-winning Pinocchio, Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Mackenzie Crook’s / Apple TV’s Small Prophets.

PARTICIPANT SCHEDULE

The Human Hand: Why Stop Motion Animation Endures

Room 207 | Ian Mackinnon | Bix Pix Entertainment-TUMBLE LEAF | Kirsten Lepore | David Braun | Ramin Zahed

Known for their work on Smiling Friends (David Braun), Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio and Corpse Bride (Ian Mackinnon), Tumble Leaf (Kelli Bixler) and Marcel the Shell with Shoes on (Kirsten Lepore), the panelists will have a candid discussion on all things stop motion animation, moderated by Ramin Zahed, author and editor-in-chief of Animation Magazine. For more than a century, stop motion has endured not because it resisted technology, but because it used technology in service of something timeless: the human hand. As AI and digital tools redefine animation, is there still a place for an art form created one frame at a time? Hear what our independent animators, who blend hand-crafted, stop-motion aesthetics with elevated storytelling, have to say and be part of the conversation.

Skill Level: General Audience
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