Mentor Bio

    David Vallone graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1985. After college, Mr. Vallone spent a year as a freelance animator with Roto Effects of America, another year as a staff animator with Animation House Inc., and two years as an animation director at Stuart Lowder Animation Inc. In 1992, Mr. Vallone worked at LucasArts as a 3D modeler and animator where he produced work for four games. After spending three years at LucasArts, Mr. Vallone worked at Sony Pictures as a senior animator. In this position, Mr. Vallone worked on the films Stuart Little, Anaconda, James and the Giant Peach, Contact, and Hollowman. In 2000, Mr. Vallone became a character animator at Blue Sky Studios Inc. where he animated each of the four characters in the film Ice Age. From 2002 to 2007, Mr. Vallone was a lead animator at Blur Studio Inc., and in 2007, he became an animation supervisor at his current studio, Reelfx Creative Studios. In June of 2012, Mr. Vallone decided to step down from a supervisory position in order to animate full time, which he applied in the pre-production animation for the film Book of Life. Since then, Mr. Vallone has worked in assisting background animators in the film Rock Dog, and he has worked on virtual reality products for clients, as well as promoting in-house film pitches to different Hollywood Studios. Over the course of his career, Mr. Vallone has received several awards such as the Silver Cindy Award for Compact Disc Interactive in 1992, the Gold Star Houston International Film Festival for Best Show Opening in 1992, and the Tauth Award in 1987 for a PSA Ad Campaign. In addition to Mr. Vallone’s employment in the animation industry, he has been a mentor at Animationmentor.com since January 2006, and he has given instruction at several week long animation mentoring programs at the University of Texas at Dallas and the Texas A&M Vis lab.

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