Pirates! Come to Plunder the Bayside Community Center

Our next family film screening will be this Saturday, April 18 at 6:00 pm. We will be showing the hilarious stop-motion animated film, Pirates! Make sure to be there on time to share in the community opportunities we will have available and to let your kids try their hand at their own animation with their friends.
The Bayside Community Center is located at 2202 Comstock St., San Diego, CA 92111. We ask for a $5 donation at the door to help us fund the licensing of the film.

Happy New Year! Big Things at Animate A Way!

There has been so much going on and so much good news at Animate A Way, that we have barely had the time to share it!

Most importantly, we are proud to announce that we are now an officially recognized 501c3 organization. After much deliberation, we have made this big leap. With it, we vow that our funding will come from donors and grants and that we will continue to serve our vital mission in the community of San Diego of raising awareness. If you would like to become a regular donor to our cause, please contact us. We owe a huge thank you to Lee Ann Kim and the Pacific Arts movement, for being our sponsor and role model for the past two years as we grew and discerned the best path forward.

We are very happy to announce that we have a new board president in Norma Roth (pictured above on the left with Executive Director Steven Topham and Development Director Karla Duarte). She has been an active philanthropist and businesswoman in the San Diego community for over a decade. She is a Rotarian and consummate leader, all while being a mother too! We are excited to find out how she and the rest of the board will help lead Animate A Way and the communities of San Diego forward.

Classes at Montgomery Middle School have been going really well. The students have created a great script and began production on the set the week before heading off for Winter vacation. The open community program at Bayside is a blast with many regular attenders. We are back from the holiday break and meeting on Thursdays at 3:30 pm. Lately, the students have been making short films every singly week, and you can see lots of them on our Facebook page, so be sure and follow us!

The screening of Coraline at the Bayside Community Center was a lot of fun, with the hugely imaginative film being projected on our new large projection screen. The next screening is February 20 at 6:30 pm, so put it on your calendar now and we will see you then for a great evening.

Bringing Your Ideas & Your Community to Life

With our new year of programming, comes a renewed focus on Community.
Community is everything. We come together in cities to live and work. We gather in public places to share in the beauty of what we can create. We sit in theaters together, laughing and sharing emotions. We tap our students into the community and endeavor to steer our communities towards greatness and safety. This year, we are partnering with the Bayside Community Center in Linda Vista to put on quarterly screenings. More importantly, we are holding community animation and filmmaking classes every Thursday from 3pm – 5pm. It all kicks off this Thursday with an open house. Since it is October 30th, we will of course have some trick-or-treat candy for all of our visitors.
These classes are open to all students from 4th grade all the way through college. We want to encourage those who do not have the resources to make the films they envision, to use our resources. Animate A Way will provide all of the tools as well as knowledgeable professionals, so that anyone who joins the class can see their project through.
No one will be turned away. We believe so strongly in the Linda Vista and San Diego community, that if a student comes to our doors desiring to unleash their creativity and vision, we will work with them. We will either find sponsors for each individual student, or students will make films commissioned by Animate A Way. Any student who can pay the classroom fees will be free to make their own film with our guidance. The classes will have a teaching structure, but will largely be focused around hands on steps towards the production of a film; just like we do in our after school classrooms.
We are so excited and proud to be in a position to give even further to the community and we can’t wait to hear all of the wonderful ideas that all of San Diego’s future filmmakers will come up with! Let’s bring your ideas to life.