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Walter Lantz Foundation: Investing in Character Animation left: CalArts student instructors of the cap Summer Arts (capsa) Program with President Steven Lavine below: A capsa music class held at Plaza de la Raza
The James Irvine Foundation: Connecting Kids, the Community and the Arts A longtime CalArts supporter, The James Irvine Foundation made two meaningful grants to the Institute. One grant is supporting scholarships for former cap participants who enroll at CalArts while also helping cap to design and implement a system to track cap alumni, with a special focus on understanding how many of them have gone on to higher education. This grant builds on the accomplishments of capsa, cap’s Summer Arts program, a three-week intensive arts experience for young artists who are considering higher education, that was launched with generous funding from the foundation. And through its Creative Connections Fund, The James Irvine Foundation provided funding for redcat’s Studio series and the New Original Works Festival — programs that play a vital role in enhancing California’s cultural vibrancy by creating opportunities for emerging artists to present new works and works-in-progress.
The Walter Lantz Foundation continued its support of CalArts’ renowned Program in Character Animation with a gift to fund technology improvements in the program’s main teaching lab, the Walter Lantz Foundation/Nicktoons Character Animation Teaching Lab. The foundation had been generously supporting this lab since 1996, and played a vital role in ensuring that the Program in Character Animation stayed current with the technological changes sweeping through the industry. The foundation also provides annual scholarship support for Character Animation students and presents the Walter and Gracie Lantz Animation Prize — a.k.a. “the Woody,” a nod to Woody Woodpecker, Walter’s most famous creation — as part of the program’s end-of-year showcase held annually at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Among the nearly 80 recipients to date of the Lantz Scholarship is Nicole Mitchell (Film/Video bfa 07), who won the Gold Medal in the animation
A still from Zoologic, by Student Academy Award winner Nicole Mitchell
category at the 35th annual Student Academy Awards in 2007 with a work titled Zoologic. Winners of the Woody have included Ben Gluck (Film/Video bfa 96), who, after graduating from CalArts, went on to work on a series of Disney animated films, including The Emperor’s New Groove, and is currently directing the animated feature Alpha and Omega.
Sanford Litvack Scholarships for low-income students
Pia Zadora and Meshulam Riklis Support for the construction of The Wild Beast Anahita and James B. Lovelace cap endowment support Puppetry and the Arts
The Skirball Foundation Support for construction of redcat and redcat’s film programming
The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Scholarship support for low-income students
Richard Seaver Support for cap and redcat programming
The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation Annual support for cap JL Foundation Support for the Writing for Performance Program and cap The Walt Disney Company Foundation General operating and scholarship support dance programming