(April 5, 2012) -- “When do you ever get to meet the people who made your childhood movies? It was so amazing,” said junior Joni Kang when she talked about animator Tom Sito, who came to visit Clark during Art Appreciation Month. “I was intently watching every single moment of the speeches,” said Kang. “I could totally see him making the movies that I watched when I was a little kid.”

In honor of last month’s Art Appreciation Month, Clark hosted four speakers from different art industries during enrichment over four days. The speakers talked about how they got to where they are and what they do in their fields, some going above and beyond to talk to students. “After everybody left there was still a pocket of people who didn’t have a bus to wait for. [Sito] was there talking for another good hour or hour and a half afterwards,” said junior Brendan Mallory. “I helped get him here to speak to us. I think out of the dozens of people who were there, there were maybe five people really holding on to what he was saying, but those five made all the effort of getting him down here worth it.”

Sito is an animator who has worked on movies such as Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King. In 1998, he was voted one of the top 100 most influential people in animation. He spoke about his forthcoming book about the history of animation. “Generally, I find a lot of the books written about computer graphics are written by engineers. My slant is talking about the art aspect of it,” said Sito during his talk to about 200 students. “I’m interested in the creative people and how they looked at these giant government computers and decided to use them to make cartoons!”

Other speakers who came were Nicole Glavis Elisseos -- a motion graphics designer from Symbient Interactive who worked on shows such as Alias and CSI doing interactive graphics -- and Tony Yao, a former teacher at Art Center College of Design and CEO of Concept Cube, a portfolio preparation school. Yao shared his story about getting into Art Center. “I was rejected three times. Even my mom said, ‘If you don’t get in this time, it’s over. You have to come home. The dream is over.’ So on my fourth try, I got in.”

Adrian Belic was the last speaker who came to Clark. He and his brother make documentaries such as Beyond the Call and Oscar-nominated Genghis Blues. Mostly, he spoke about his film Beyond the Call, because teachers Matthew Stroup and Kelly Brinker had shown it in their classes. “The title came in the last hour of editing,” said Belic. “Our test audiences kept saying that these people went ‘beyond the call’---whether it was beyond the call of duty, beyond the call of being American---and then I realized that it was the perfect name for the film. It’s not about how some of us are doing things, how we should be ashamed that we’re so fortunate to live here, but really it’s to inspire each of us to find what our calling is, and go beyond it.”

Many Clark students found the speakers to be interesting and informative. “I thought the speakers were great. They are useful to those who want to pursue a career in the arts,” said junior Marina Mosis. “I think Clark should do this every year, because it was pretty great!”