Lisa Barcy

Hi, my name is Lisa Barcy, and I am an Animation instructor at Columbia College and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I am also the Production Supervisor for Traditional Animation and general all-round multi-disciplinary artist. (wow, that's a lot of titles.)

My Commercial Credits include lots of animated Coke commercials, lots of sugary cereal commercials and a lot of miscellaneous commercials; they almost always involve sugar in some respect. Independent Films I've worked on include; The Angst Cafe -1993 and The Guilt Trip; or The Vaticans Take a Holiday -2001.

My background experience is mainly in fine arts, drawn and stop-motion animation. I mainly use the computer for sound design and editing.

It's hard to say how many people work in my end of the industry, since my work-life is spread all over the place. As far as instructor positions and commercial animation goes, the men definitely outweigh the women. There's more balance within independent filmmaking.

I believe women workforce has grown considerably, but women still need to attain more directorial type positions in the animation industry.

The only set back I can think of would have to be if someone were to discriminate on the basis of gender. As far as benefits go,. I think I have the benefit of experience in a wide array of approaches to animation. I'm very adaptable and willing to experiment.

Discrimination in the industry? That's a tough call. It's a difficult thing to prove, because no one is going to say to your face, "I'm not hiring you because you're female." I think discrimination is often displayed either unconsciously or in very sneaky ways. There are those moments when you didn't get to do certain tasks and you ask yourself, "Is this because I'm not one of the boys, or am I just being paranoid?" There is definitely a boys-club atmosphere in some work situations, and as office politics often go, if you don't fit in socially, you're discouraged from hanging around for very long. I should emphasize that this is not always the case and I have had some great experiences working for both male and female owned companies.

I don't know if the industry is in the market for more women, but I think it definitely needs more. More women directors, more women animators, etc. I think the best way to achieve this is for more women to go into business for themselves rather than wait for some man to give you a dream job.

Away from literal work, the work that brings home the money, I have several things I tinker around with. Right now I'm just trying to grow things in my yard, so I've been seeing a lot of bugs, which I like. I think I may make a film about bugs someday. Also, I'm working on a collaborative film with another indie animator. The working title is "The Ordovecians". I'm also just finishing up a semester of grad school.