Brooke Keesling is the Head of Animation Talent Development at Bento Box Entertainment. She has worked in the animation and VFX industry for decades as an artist, in production, in education, and in talent development. Prior to joining Bento Box, Brooke recruited animation talent for Cartoon Network, Disney, and Warner Bros.
Keesling earned her MFA at CalArts where she produced the Student Academy Award winning film Boobie Girl. Upon graduation, she worked in practical and miniature VFX on many films such as Inception, The Dark Knight, Hugo, and The Aviator. Brooke is the Vice President of ASIFA Hollywood, a member of Women in Animation, on the advisory board of the GLAS Animation Festival, and she teaches in the Character Animation department at CalArts.
Bob’s Burgers animation house Bento Box Entertainment is working on a number of tv-series projects such as: “Central Park”, multiple Emmy® Award-winning “Bob’s Burgers”, “Duncanville”, as well as upcoming series “The Great North” and “Housebroken”, “Paradise PD,” along with many other series, pilots and presentations. Additionally, Bento Box has produced animated music videos with Alicia Keys, Coldplay, LSD, Pharrell and other top artists.
Brooke will give a presentation during the 12th edition of the festival on her experience as a woman working in the big animated series and her journey answering some of the main questions on how to enter the animation business. How can you get your foot in the door? Does art school matter? What should be in your portfolio, and how to get in touch working with the big fishes? With the potential of developing the animation industry in Kosovo this presentation will be focused on the creative industry community, increasing their knowledge, capacities, and equating them with marketable skills on this stage of creating an industry here.
Thursday