Tony DeRosa

Born: Anthony DeRosa
Birthday: January 1, 1959
Location: Brooklyn, NY, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute of the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Storyboard
Years active: 1981–present

Tony DeRosa entered Calarts’ character animation program in 1978 and was a classmate of Mark Henn. After graduation, he participated in his first professional project as a character designer and storyboard artist for a video short called Hoomania.

Tony was first hired at Disney as a breakdown artist on “The Black Cauldron” in 1985, and trained under animator Eric Larson. After assisting on several projects he completed his first animation on “The Great Mouse Detective,” followed by “Oliver and Company” and then “The Little Mermaid.”

DeRosa’s first supervising animator role was for the character of Bernard on “The Rescuers Down Under.” He also supervised the male leads of Beast for “Beauty and the Beast” and Aladdin on “Aladdin.” Tony would go on to provide supervising animation for Nakoma on “Pocahontas,” both Zeus and Hera from “Hercules,” and Moliere in “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” His animation is also seen in “Treasure Planet” and “Home on the Range.”

He left Disney for a time to supervise animation on “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” and “Fat Albert: The Movie.” He was the lead animator for the titular George in “Curious George” and provided animation for “The Simpsons Movie.”

DeRosa worked on many additional smaller and independent animation projects before his returned to Walt Disney Animation Studios in his familiar role of supervising animator to animate Lawrence from “The Princess and the Frog” and Piglet, Kanga, and Roo from “Winnie the Pooh.” He also lent his efforts to “Shademaker,” “Paperman,” “Get A Horse,” “Zootopia,” “Moana,” “Wreck it Ralph 2,” and “Frozen2.”

Tony was an Annie Award nominee for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Character Animation in 2004.

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Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee has been creating animated cartoons online since 1999/2000 for his website flashcartoons.org. Many cartoons on the site have gained viral video status reaching millions of viewers online. In 2009, Lavalle started learning hand drawn animation from Don Bluth in his animation classes, as well as attending his Masterclasses in Arizona. He has also personally studied animation and visual effects from Veteran Disney animators in Orlando, FL.

Lavalle is widely known in the animation industry as the creator of the TraditionalAnimation.com website. After seeing that most animation sites were about all types of animation, not any specific to classical hand drawn animation, Lavalle knew Traditional Animation needed to be represented online. TraditionalAnimation.com has become the leading website and social media account for all things 2D. The website served as inspiration for “The Traditional Animation Show” in which Lavalle was both producer and host.

His partnership with Don Bluth began when he championed the Dragon's Lair Indiegogo campaign as lead project manager, editor, voice actor and in-betweener. The campaign reached $730,000 dollars to produce a 7-minute pitch video. In 2017, Lavalle brought the idea of creating a school to Don Bluth, and Don Bluth University was born. After a decade of learning from Don Bluth and working together on multiple pitches and business ventures, Lavalle accepted the position as Vice President of Don Bluth's new company Don Bluth Studios.

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