‘Spongebob’ writer, among int’l animators lined up for Guyana workshop

Local animators in Guyana and the Caribbean will be given a chance to hone their craft when the Guyana Animation Network (GAN) kicks off the country’s first-ever Animation Writers workshop slated to be held virtually on February 2 for two weeks.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GAN Jubilante Cutting told the News Room on Thursday that participants will be given first-hand training from the Staff Writer and Storyboard Artist of SpongeBob, Richard Pursel, who is also an Executive Producer at Netflix.

Pursel will appear alongside the Director, Writer, and Animator of The Sky Princess, Dara Harper who also worked on projects for Disney, MTV and Nickelodeon.

“The ultimate purpose of this workshop is to strengthen the skills capacity of all attendees and to be a space for long-form and short-form animation writing and story development,” Cutting told the News Room.

She explained that the workshop was designed to challenge Guyanese and Caribbean artists, animators, writers and creators to produce narratives about Guyana and Caribbean culture that could be consumed and understood by global audiences.

And the GAN CEO added that it will allow for cross-cultural collaborations with Guyanese and Caribbean diaspora and international writers with an interest in creating animation and TV content featuring Guyanese and Caribbean culture.

The five-day workshop will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and will provide training in writing and structuring of a three-page animation script with a comic focus. Cutting explained that workshop days will also feature animation script mappings, outlines, and structure, idea discussions, collaboration among writers, story brainstorming, and script production.

And at the end of the workshop, top scripts and participants will be selected and given the opportunity to work on a paid animation project centered around Guyana’s culture.

“Our ideal participants are Guyanese and Caribbean nationals who are fiction and non-fiction writers, authors, poets, spoken word artists, singers, songwriters, musicians, filmmakers, animators, artists and persons professionally seeking to enter the animation industry through writing and storytelling,” she added.

The workshop will also be open to the Guyanese and Caribbean Diaspora as well as international animation writers seeking to tell Guyanese and Caribbean stories through mainstream animation and TV.

Interested participants can visit https://animateguyana.com/writersworkshop/ to sign up.