2017 Animation Immersive Mentors
Cinco Paul
Cinco Paul grew up in Phoenix, Arizona dreaming of becoming a famous pop musician. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, abandoned his dreams of pop stardom, got an M.F.A. in screenwriting from USC and became a screenwriter instead. Life’s funny that way. With Ken Daurio he has written the movies Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, DR. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, DR. Seuss’ The Lorax, The Secret Life of Pets, The Santa Clause 2, Bubble Boy, and the upcoming Despicable Me 3. He also wrote the lyrics for the six songs in The Lorax, and is the recipient of the ASCAP Sammy Cahn Award for lyric writing and the Harold Arlen Award for the score of Bubble Boy the Musical, the original cast recording of which was just released on Sh-K-Boom Records. He currently lives in southern California with his wife Amy in a house that feels really empty now that his three children have grown up and left home.
Kaaren Lee Brown
Kaaren Lee Brown is a freelance writer and producer with a passion for play and a commitment to quality. She is the credited creator, writer, producer and/or executive producer on 20 live action and animated children’s television series, including CAKE, Dance Revolution, Strawberry Shortcake and Liberty’s Kids. Brown was the story editor and writer for Tarzan and Jane, a Netflix Original Series; and she’s currently the showrunner for another Netflix Original Series, the highly anticipated animated preschool show, Super Monsters, launching in Fall 2017.
Brown has held executive positions with numerous entertainment and toy companies, including Hasbro, DIC, Hanna-Barbera and Mattel. She is also the author of two chick-lit thrillers, Bullets & Tiaras and Intuition: A Kylie Anderson Vacation.
As part of her personal commitment to developing young talent, supporting new storytellers, and promoting diversity, Brown serves on the board of directors for Women In Animation as its Chair of Mentorship.
Pamela Ribon
Pamela Ribon is a screenwriter (Moana, Smurfs: The Lost Village, Bears), TV writer (Samantha Who?), comic book writer (Slam!, Rick and Morty), and best-selling novelist (You Take it from Here, Why Girls Are Weird). She’s recently been named one of Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch and is a 2017 LA Film Independent Director’s Lab fellow. She has developed original series and features for ABC, ABC Family, Sony, Warner Bros., Disney Channel and 20th Century Fox Productions. She’s currently co-writing the upcoming Untitled Wreck-It Ralph Sequel.
Pamela was an Oprah.com contributor, a flagship contributor to Television Without Pity, and a weekly columnist for the Austin American-Statesman. She’s known as a pioneer in the blogging world with pamie.com, where she launched such viral essays as “How I Might Have Just Become the Newest Urban Legend” and “Barbie F*cks it Up Again,” the latter of which led to #FeministHackerBarbie, a revamp of Mattel’s products and marketing for Barbie, and the creation of Game Developer Barbie as “Career of the Year.” Pamela’s stage work has been showcased at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival and she created the accidental international scandal known as Call Us Crazy: The Anne Heche Monologues. Her critically-acclaimed comedic memoir Notes to Boys (and Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public) was just re-released in paperback.
A former Austinite with a BFA in Acting from the University of Texas, Pamela has been entered into the Oxford English Dictionary under “muffin top.” (That is not a joke.)