Time for a throwback! This is a recording from 2021 of a panel Straight Ahead hosted during Geek Girl Conline. We hosted a round table discussion with Samia Khalaf, Steph Rizo, and Li Cree. We take this rare opportunity to share some of the many different paths one can take breaking into the animation industry. We talk about personal pitfalls in our early years, and how relatable those experiences can be. Samia tells us about her film she painted in VR, Kteer Tayyeb, and why she chose to tell...

Kelly Lynne D'Angelo (she/they) is a Native—Haudenosaunee Tuscarora and Muscowpetung Cree—writer for animation, live action, and musicals, who also plays D&D professionally. Kelly kicks-off by telling the most insane story about how she met the producers of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia... who then gave her an internship! We get to chat about the process of Starry, a musical about brothers Theo and Vincent Van Gogh, and what magic happens in the writer's room before a production even...

Nicolette Ray is Native American, Acoma Pueblo, a storyboard artist and currently a game dev artist. She tells us about her strong start in animation, working for Wild Canary on Puppy Dog Pals for 5 years! We talk about work culture at Wild Canary, and the difference between working under Disney vs. Lucasfilm. We chat about her personal Native American Renaissance, as she dove into the history of her own people, and how connecting to those roots helped feed into her experience on Spirit...

Entering the ring this week is Joey Clift, a Native American enrolled Cowlitz tribal member, currently working as a freelance writer. Not only has Joey worked as a Staff Writer and Consulting Producer for Netflix's Spirit Rangers, he has also wrote and directed his own animated digital series Gone Native for Comedy Central. Joey has a love for comedy and has a unique sense of humor that has helped him pitch and sell shows. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did! IG:...

Ashley Chung works as an Associate Animator in the video games industry! In her first job working at Steamroller Studio she was thrown into the deep end working on Mortal Kombat 1! Ashley also talks about taking additional animation classes post graduation really helped her improve as an animator. Tune in and find out more about the world of animating for video games! Portfolio: ashleychung.com IG: @ashthemush Twitter: @ashthemush If you enjoy our podcast, please share it and rate us...

Steve Sandoval talks about how he slipped into the cracks of animation. Out of high school Steve started working as a carpenter with his cousins, unfortunately was laid off in 2007 due to a recession. However, Steve took this as an opportunity to go to school to study animation! One of the things Steve loves to do is plein air paint and posting it to social media. Eventually Robh Ruppel came across his works and asked if he wanted to work on Entergalactic. Steve has had an amazing journey...

Sofia is a Mexican-Salvadoran American storyboard artist currently working for a studio based outside of the US. Find out how Sofia's journey in the entertainment industry shifted from live action to animation. Not every journey is a straight path, alot of times its a winding path that goes in several different directions. She worked several non-union jobs before landing her first industry job as an artist at Warner Bros. Animation. Despite the current state of the animation industry, Sofia...

Angela Sánchez is a Xicanx writer and magician with a shining personality. We have a blast talking about their work on Primos, how their work with Latinx in Animation led to the position, and about how cathartic it was to work on a Latine/Hispanic-American show. We dive back into her first gig, her time at school, and how she didn't even know writing for television was a career one could have! We also get to chat about Scruffy and The Egg, their children's book that draws from the times she...

Jose Hernandez is an El Salvadorean-American freelance artist for Visual Development. We chat about how he got his start doing an unpaid internship, how the industry has changed over time, and the reality of getting through the valleys of the industry as a freelancer. He takes us through his artistic journey not being able to go to university out of high school, joining mentorships, and learning on the job. We talk a lot about his time on The Casa Grandes, and sprout a conversation about...

Kayse Villalba shares her experience wearing hats in both 2D animation and storyboarding positions. We chat a lot about workflow and expectations when working in rigged animation, grabbing fun shots while working for Studio Yotta, and how animation can differ wildly per production. Kayse also shares insights into how her experiences have informed each other art job she's had, from awareness of animation while boarding scenes to just having a positive attitude when starting a new role. We chat...

Yanna Casey is a Black artist working as a production coordinator in Atlanta, Georgia! We talk about their position as a PC outside of Los Angeles, and the ID she did for Adult Swim before deciding she didn't want to pursue an art role professionally. We also learn about Yanna's background in music production, and how they incorporate that into their personal art. We also talk about getting in touch with your passions, like creating the art that you want, or collecting black funko...

Cynthia Furey is a hapa-vietnamese-italian-irish writer and currently a staff writer for Nickelodeon! Follow her journey of building connections through Sesame Workshop, Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, and the CBS writer's program. We chat about her experiences on The Ghost and Molly McGee, Hello Jack!, and Tiny Chef. But before her career in screenwriting, she worked as a food writer for the Orange County register for 8 years! Learn all about her career shift, and the...

This week we are honored to spotlight Rise Up Animation, an organization that offers mentorship and portfolio reviews to burgeoning BIPOC talent. (fun fact: the idea for Straight Ahead was inspired by Rise Up!) To tell us all about this wonderful organization is co-founder and 16-year industry veteran: Frank Abney. We have such a great time chatting with Frank and listening to his wealth of insights into the Industry. We chat about the history of RUA, its goals as an organization, and some...

This week we are proud to host Black Card Members' founder Celeste C. Black Card Members is a space meant for empowering creatives of color from all backgrounds. They are an online, international-friendly community that provides a safe space for creatives to grow and bond while providing prompts and events to nurture that creativity. Cel chats with us about her background as an event organizer and creative person themselves, and how BCM began as a humble Zine project. We chat about BCM's...

This week we are spotlighting Asian Queens in Animation: an organization dedicated to fostering a community of Asians of underrepresented genders in the animation space. We have the pleasure of talking with co-founders Maansi Sunkara and Shrav Yalsangikar, along with one of their admins, Sanisha Agarwal. We talk about the inception of AQIA, how their built their brand as an organization, and their panel at Lightbox Expo. These achievements are topped by their most successful program, Coffee...

This week we are joined by the amazing Jim Mortensen (founder of SFA) and Tristan Cabral (Admin of SFA) as we learn all about their amazing program: Story For All! Volunteer-run and completely free to join, SFA is a mentorship program focused on 1:1 mentorship between industry professionals and budding storyboard artists. The organization helps mentors onboard, guide them on how to touch base with mentees, and even how to finish that mentor relationship in case they have a big gig coming up....

Kicking off our August Special Speaker series with one of the co-founders of Diverse Toons: Jade Seaberry! Diverse Toons is a East-Coast (USA) based organization and resource dedicated to uplifting diversity in the animation industry. Jade shares the story of how she and Monique Henry-Hudson created Diverse Toons, and how they wanted to foster a community outside of the West coast. We learn more about Jade's own history: forming her own production company, president of Women Against Rape and...

Joel Zamudio is a Location Designer for Disney TVA! We chat about his "first three starts" in animation: working on the Sony Animation's Mitú project, then as a freelance character designer for Shadow Machine, and then again for Disney TVA. Why so many "starts"? Well, we talk about the clarity of losing your ego after graduation, and continuing your education after school to become industry-ready. Joel also tells us about his time working on The Loud House comics, and how that differed from...

Zharia B Rahn is an African-American artist working as a Model Designer for Disney TVA! This means she works on both props and characters, and she shares her workflow with us and how she makes and meets her own work quotas. She also tells about the multi-platform work she and her team does, and how this emerging department has evolved into this fast-paced age of social media. We also chat about her time as an intern for ImagineX: an indie animation collective headed by an upperclassmen of...

Isabella Martinez Luna is a Colombian artist working as an Associate Artist at Blizzard. Join us as we learn about the world of 3D Modeling and why Bella enjoyed learning the technical side of Animation. She has worked in a variety of different 3D pipelines at a variety of different studios, from small indy studios like Ignite Animation Studios to big studios like Blizzard Entertainment. We hope you enjoyed learning more about her journey in animation as much as we did. Also don't forget to...

WE ARE CELEBRATING 100 EPISODES! Thank you to everyone who has been following our podcast and giving us a platform to spotlight BIPOC voices. We are so honored to have hit this huge milestone! To celebrate our 100th episode we brought back previous guest that we have had on the podcast. Join us as we catch up with Trilina Mai, Li Cree, Joon Chung, and Rebecca Chan! Also don't forget to support us on ko-fi, every little bit helps! Host Ray Mendoza Landa @raydiosilence Yuki Okamura-Wong...

Ash Tahilan is a fil-am artist who grew-up in the melting pot of Hawaii. She shares with us her journey of bumping to a few different studios, each time as a revisionist to ease on to the production before promoting into boards. We chat about her incomparable time on Craig of the Creek, the culture of the production, and her foray into writing a fan-comic for a property she worked on. Ash also has a message for you: Don't Hold Back! Write and draw what you love, show your passion in your...

We are joined by young Sean Yeung, a member of the Riot Games champion skins team. He shares his experience going from intern to full-time employee, and the expectations within those positions. He shares his process in developing game animations for work by creating pose sheets, a standard practice in the industry. He also talks about going to Worlds 2022 in San Francisco, and how that really put into perspective the audience that enjoys League of Legends, and sees his work. Sean also shares...

Our guest this week is Devin Yang, a Chinese-American Concept Artist currently working in games. After graduating college Devin found a corporate job as a motion graphic artist. However, after two years he decided to take the leap of faith and jump into freelancing before landing a full-time position in video games! Devin credits twitter and his personal project The Witching Hour which garnered him a lot of attention from future clients that really gravitated toward his artistic...