Different entities have spent years on developing strategies to get New Orleans to be a successful city that doesn’t just rely on one industry. The major industries have been tourism, food and oil & gas. In an effort to attract more young professionals and better jobs, there has been expansion into healthcare, arts & entertainment, ed tech and more. While digital media has been highlighted by Prosperity NOLA and other plans, I’ve noticed that software development is the niche that is always getting pushed to the forefront of this category.
I’ve been doing animation presentations for several years and workshops for the past two years. Last year, I took it into overdrive and that resulted in going up to north Louisiana to do a Saturday workshop for the anime club at Louisiana Delta Community College, my first stint as an adjunct professor this Spring 2017 and getting to do a presentation and workshop at the NOLA Mini Maker Faire. After doing a two-day workshop with KID smART where they helped us craft better lesson plans, I had an epiphany moment during a discussion where I really questioned whether it would be worth it to try and make animation a big thing in New Orleans. Mostly, from thinking if it was even possible.

I want to talk about increasing diversity in animation and share what I feel my role is and the topics surrounding that.

Representation

• I want to make sure that kids have the opportunity to see someone that looks like them doing the things they want to do. I can inspire kids, no matter what they look like to go into animation, but I want to make sure that little girls and minority kids get to see themselves represented.

Increasing the Diversity in the Diversity

• Sometimes, not all the time, the minorities and women in the animation industry have the same interests as the majority. I want to make the animation industry like other industries where you don't think of one type of person when you think of someone in animation. I want to reach that kid that's not a raving fan of Star Wars; that girl that has never watched anime; or that boy who doesn't want to work at a plant when he gets older.
  

In that I’m sort of a different breed of animation professional, I have to navigate through a lot of stuff that is pretty ridiculous when trying to grow as a young professional. I’m always applying to leadership programs and different young professional ventures and getting denied over and over again. I do realize that it’s partially because I live in Louisiana where connections are more important than accomplishments or degrees most times.

I feel like when I’m applying to programs or talking to people, there’s this air of “she’s in animation; what could she possibly offer.” Luckily, I’ve learned how to be more strategic lately (lately being last year). I purposely told someone I knew that I was applying to a leadership development program for one of the young professional groups here because she was a project manager for the program. Guess what...I made it in!! And then for another NOLA young professional ambassador program, I emailed someone I met in the the leadership development program because she works at the organization putting on the program. I made it into that, and during the first session, I was talking to her and she told me, “I fought for you!” I’m very appreciative of that, but I’m thinking, I’m pretty accomplished, why did she have to fight for me? I looked at the bios of some of my cohort members and I didn’t get it.

This speech was an overview of the 12 Principles of Animation. In that it was a 5-7 minute speech, I knew it was too much content, but giving this particular speech was more for personal evaluation than the evaluation of the club. I had just done a workshop for the Boy Scouts on these same principles and I realized that I spent too much time explaining them, so I wanted to see how quickly I could go over the principles. This will help me in future workshops.