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SONY PICTURES L.E.N.S. Program
The Leading and Empowering New Storytellers (LENS) Program aims to identify and hire talented individuals from underrepresented groups and provide them with access to feature animation industry relationships and storytelling techniques through experience within the production process and workflow, as part of their path to becoming a director, writer, VFX supervisor, and animation supervisor. The participants will use assets from an existing Sony property and utilize the Sony Imageworks pipeline to create a 2-3 minute short. This role will be a full time, paid position expected to last 9 months.
We are looking for a comedic writer from an underrepresented group who has an interest in writing animation. You may have experience in live action or animation.
FAQ
- Have at least one writing credit in animation or live-action
- This experience can be in feature or television
- A resume that shows your complete work history.
- A feature or television writing sample written in the past 5 calendar years.
- A narrative short film script that has been exhibited at a top tier film festival.
- Original TV pilot or feature script.
- TV episode script made for series distributed via traditional broadcast, cable or streaming channels.
- Script from digital short or digitally distributed webisode that has generated no less than 10,000 views online.
- Two written Statement of Intents:
Written Statement 1:
In 500 words or less, please explain:
- How has your personal and professional experience impacted your artistic vision?
- What is the audience you hope to reach with your writing?
- How will this program specifically support your career goals?
Written Statement 2:
In 500 words or less, please explain:
- How does your background and previous work history make you uniquely suited for this program?
- Additionally, tell us about a time you encountered diversity representation in family entertainment and how it was meaningful to you.
We can't wait to review your submissions!
TESTIMONIALS
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Jarelle Dampier, DirectorJarelle Dampier is a director and story artist at Sony Pictures Animation. Dampier started his entertainment career in television as a story artist on various Justice League animated shows, Skybound’s Invincible, Marvel’s What If…? and Marvel’s Spider-Man before moving on to feature animation boards. After teaming up with Sony to direct for the LENS program, Dampier went on to serve as a story artist for the highly-anticipated sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and is currently working on an unannounced feature at Sony Pictures Animation.
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Khaila Amazan, WriterKhaila Amazan is a writer at Sony Pictures Animation. Prior to starting in the LENS program, Amazan began her entertainment career as a story trainee in the creative development department at Columbia Pictures, followed by executive assistant positions at the development departments of Walt Disney Studios and Netflix’s Original Independent Films group. Amazan’s TV writing credits include Netflix’s Freeridge and Blumhouse x Amazon Studios’ upcoming series The Horror of Dolores Roach. On the film side, Amazan wrote ACE Entertainment’s A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea & Tomorrow and co-wrote Stampede Ventures’ K-POPS! with Anderson .Paak.
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Clara Chan, VFX supervisorClara Chan is a visual effects Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks with over two decades of industry experience. In 2001, Chan joined Imageworks as a technical director in the lighting department. Her credits include the upcoming animated feature Spider-Man: Across the Spider- Verse, the Academy Award-nominated Over the Moon, first three Hotel Transylvania films, Storks, The Emoji Movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, Cats & Dogs 2, G-Force, Beowulf, the Academy Award-nominated Monster House, The Polar Express and Stuart Little 2. Earlier in her career, Chan worked as a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Chan earned a B.S. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree in visualization sciences from Texas A&M University. In her spare time, Chan is also directing and producing an animated short film, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
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Joe Darko, Animation SupervisorJoe Darko was a senior animator at Sony Pictures Imageworks, most recently completing work on the highly anticipated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Darko joined Imageworks in 2017 and his credits include the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; the Academy Award-nominated The Sea Beast, for which he served as animation lead; The Mitchells vs. The Machines; Smallfoot; The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Vivo. Darko’s earlier credits include Thor: Ragnarok, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and The Son of Bigfoot. Darko attended Bournemouth University in the south of England and graduated with a degree in Computer Animation.