About the Director
Carlos Baena:
Born on the Canary Islands and raised in Madrid, Carlos Baena came to the United States in 1994. He’s worked at Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar Animation Studios, on films such as Jurassic Park III, Star Wars: Ep II, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Toy Story 3. For his work in the film Cars, Carlos received a 2007 Annie Award nomination for Best Character Animation. Carlos also directed the acclaimed live-action short films “Play by Play” (2011) and MarketSt (2015). From 2013-2016 Carlos developed Feature Animation content at Paramount Pictures and served as Chara...read more
About the Director
Carlos Baena:
Born on the Canary Islands and raised in Madrid, Carlos Baena came to the United States in 1994. He’s worked at Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar Animation Studios, on films such as Jurassic Park III, Star Wars: Ep II, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Toy Story 3. For his work in the film Cars, Carlos received a 2007 Annie Award nomination for Best Character Animation. Carlos also directed the acclaimed live-action short films “Play by Play” (2011) and MarketSt (2015). From 2013-2016 Carlos developed Feature Animation content at Paramount Pictures and served as Character Director at the Robotics Studio Anki on the First AI Toy “Cozmo”. In 2017, Carlos was Supervising Director on an Upcoming Animated Anthology. He is also a co-founder of the online school Animation Mentor as well as the Cloud based Virtual platform Artella. Carlos currently lives in Los Angeles, California. For more information, check out his Web site: http://www.carlosbaena.com
Rani Naamani:
Rani Naamani is a Supervising Animator at Dreamworks Animation. He is Lebanese-Canadian and earned his Diploma from the Vancouver Film School. Throughout his career, he has won several awards such as EA’s Great Canadian Art Competition, Redstick International Animation Festival, and the special Jury Prize at the Knoxville Horror Film Festival. He has also been nominated for many awards including an Annie Award nomination for “Best Charatcer Animation in a Feature Film” for his work on the Boss Baby. He has also received two VES nominations for “Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature” for his work on Minion and Boss Baby respectively. At Dreamworks, he served as Character Lead on King Julien for “Madagascar 3”, Minion for “Megamind”, he supervised the charatcer “Boss Baby”, and is currently supervising animator on the upcoming “How To Train Your Dragon 3”. Several of his live action shorts gained online recognition and Vimeo staff picks. One of the shorts “Too Late” was screened at Fantastic Film Festival.
He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife.
You can find more of his work at www.raninaamani.com
Carlos Puertolas:
Born in 1981, Carlos Fernandez Puertolas is a Spanish animator/director who found his passion for storytelling from a very early age. Carlos launched his animation career at the age of 18 and got his big breakthrough when he was offered a position at Dreamworks Animation. Without hesitation Carlos packed up his bags and moved to the US where he worked on movies such as “Madagascar,” “Megamind,”and “Shrek.” In 2015, Carlos became the Head of Animation on the Oscar nominated film “The Boss Baby” and most recently has signed on to be the Head of Animation on the critically acclaimed franchise “Trolls 2”. Outside Dreamworks, Carlos also directs live action Short films through his production company Side Films, which he created with a fellow Dreamworks animator. Puertolas is also a proud member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and currently lives in Glendale with his partner and tiny dog.
