Healy to Head Animation Production for IDT Ent.

Former DreamWorks head of digital production Janet Healy has been appointed president of animation production for IDT Ent. Healy comes to IDT fresh off the success of the DreamWorks animated feature Shark Tale, on which she served as a producer.

In her new post, Healy will oversee all budgets, staff and production schedules for all IDT Ent. animation projects. In addition, she will be responsible for developing and implementing a strategic plan that will maximize the production effectiveness of all the IDT Entertainment animation studios.

As head of digital production for DreamWorks Animation, Healy oversaw the digital and computer graphics process for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. She would later be instrumental in transforming DreamWorks’ Glendale, Calif. 2D animation facility into a 3D animation studio.

Prior to joining DreamWorks in 1999, Healy worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation as head of digital production. There she oversaw the computer graphics work on such major animated films as Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000 and Dinosaur. She also played a key role in setting up the Northside Digital Studio for Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Before Disney, Healy was a key executive at visual effects juggernaut Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), first serving as co-head of production and later becoming senior visual effects producer. In that capacity, she oversaw the visual effects and animation on more than a dozen projects, including such digitally groundbreaking films as Willow, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park.

Among IDT’s upcoming animated features is Yankee Irving, a Capra-esque father-and-son story that Christopher Reeve was directing at the time of his death. Read more about that project at www.animationmagazine.net/article.php?article_id=3067.

Reeve was one of several celebrities tapped by IDT to help facilitate its emergence as a computer animation powerhouse. IDT’s DPS Film Roman is working with crooner Harry Connick Jr. on a one-hour, 3D-animated holiday special titled The Happy Elf. Meanwhile, IDT’s Canadian CG animation house, Mainframe, is working on the direct-to-video animated feature Boom Boom Goes the Circus with skateboarding legend Tony Hawk.