Thursday morning, before the show opened, the AVIXA Women’s Council hosted its 10th annual AVIXA Women’s Breakfast. Sponsored by AVI-SPL and Q-SYS, a sold-out audience was on hand to connect and celebrate the collected achievements, while welcoming keynote speaker Danielle Feinberg, visual effects supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios and “geek of many things “.
Before Feinberg took the stage, AVIXA Women’s Council Co-Chair Christina Cruzeiro and Tammy Fuqua – Fuqua via short video because she was unable to attend the breakfast – welcomed everyone to the packed North Hall conference room and reminded everyone why they were there: empower, support and uplift the women of Pro AV to create a more inclusive and vibrant industry. Cruzeiro offered a few ways to do this, including building your brand, building your network, teaching people how to treat you, and constantly challenging yourself.
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An advocate for diversity, Feinberg’s accomplishments at Pixar only tell half her story, a story she would recount in detail over the next hour. Aside from his work on some of Pixar’s biggest hits, starting with his first role in Bug life—Feinberg is a mentor to teenage girls, where she hopes to further engage future AV professionals in coding, science and math. She is also known for her 2016 TED talk, The Magic Ingredient That Brings Pixar Movies to Lifewhich was one of the most watched conferences of that year.
While Feinberg talked a bit about the challenges, underestimation, the “imposter effect” and AI (“humans need art made by humans,” she offered), it was his journey that brought imaginary worlds to life. It begins with her earliest memories as the “lawnmower girl” in her male-dominated high school engineering class (where she was the only one to bring the lawnmower to life) to her computer science class at Harvard, which led her to a 1995 film called toy story. She was one of the few female engineers at Harvard, estimating that those classes were 10% women, which made her feel like she didn’t belong.
After graduating from Harvard in June 1996, Feinberg joined Pixar in February 1997, and the rest is history… although the path she charted wasn’t easy. She started in the modeling department, moved into lighting and eventually became a team leader, consisting of nine men and herself.
This is what made his accomplishment on Turn red all the more impressive. The film was a daunting task, shot during the pandemic and mostly remotely. But that’s minimal compared to the film’s impact on the studio’s history. Turn red was the first all-female directing team in Pixar history. “Feeling the victory of what we had done together…we delivered the film several days early and under budget,” Feinberg recalls. “We had a crew who repeatedly said how disappointed they were that the film was finished because they had such a great experience in such difficult times.”
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And impact is what Feinberg has always done and continues to do. When asked what her favorite movie was, she quickly stated Coco. Not because it was an amazing movie (because it is), and not because Land of the Dead was one of the most difficult universes to build, a world in which she declared that her team’s task was to “create a world like no one has ever known.” Already seen.”
Feinberg and his team were terrified at the idea of being Americans making a film about Mexican culture and its holidays. On top of that, he was set to debut after horrific earthquakes hit Mexico City. After some debate about postponing the premiere, the show, as they say, must go on. “At one point I got this message on Facebook,” she said as she began reading the exact message she received that day from a teacher in Mexico City. “You have no idea the positive impact that coconut had on my country…. Watching coconut reminds us how our culture, history and traditions have the power to continue fighting for what is good, to remain positive in difficult times and to live fully in the present.
You never know the impact they can have on others. “When we walk our own path, one filled with the things we love and not what others think we should do, we find great inner strength,” she concluded. “To help us get through the days when doubts may set in and the days when I find myself just like the other person in the room, I hope you will join me in being the shining pot of green among the sea of beige, ready to challenge convention; ready to transform into the powerful beast within; ready to fight for yourself and others, so that perhaps we can create a world like no other. haven’t seen one before.
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