{"id":44272,"date":"2022-04-14T05:04:46","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T05:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skwigly.co.uk\/?p=44272"},"modified":"2024-02-09T00:04:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T00:04:37","slug":"autism-awareness-month-interview-with-dani-bowman-of-danimation-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skwigly.co.uk\/autism-awareness-month-interview-with-dani-bowman-of-danimation-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Autism Awareness Month: Interview with Dani Bowman of DaniMation Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year on Skwigly, we were fortunate to have writers, animators, and filmmakers join us to celebrate Autism Awareness Month<\/a> and talk about their projects and experience associated with both animation and the autism community.<\/p>\n

One of the people who have joined us for this year’s celebration is Dani Bowman<\/strong>, an autistic animator who founded her own company,\u00a0at the age of fourteen. She also teaches animation to children and young adults on the autism spectrum to give them the skills needed to boost their opportunities for work within the animation industry.<\/p>\n

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Dani Bowman. Source: Dani Bowman<\/p><\/div>\n

How did you start your journey into the animation industry and can you tell us about how you founded your company?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like many individuals on the autism spectrum, I had a language delay and didn\u2019t speak until age six.\u00a0 During this time, my parents fed me a steady diet of cartoons and animated characters. My father had a camera store and I started using the equipment to create stop motion animation from the age of three.\u00a0 You can say I was doing animation and telling stories before I could speak.<\/p>\n

My uncle had his engineering company, and my aunt had her travel agency, so I just thought it was natural for everyone to have their own company.\u00a0I asked my aunt how starting a company works. She kind of explained it to me, not really taking me seriously, but I was serious since I was recently inspired by Satoshi Taijiri. \u00a0With their help, I started to do everything that I needed to do like register an original name for my company, designed a website, and started to compile my art, my animation, and pitch bibles that I had created so far to include in my website.<\/p>\n

By age 14, my uncle helped me register my company DaniMation as Sole Proprietorship at first. Now it\u2019s LLC Social Enterprise because I originally just wanted to start an animation company, period. However as I started to research more about autism and employment, I found out that more than 80% of us people with autism are unemployed or underemployed regardless of IQ or education.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You have made some award-winning short films and PSAs over the years (such as the Autism Society of America’s PSA and the short film, The Audition), some of which were screened at Comic-Con. Among your animation productions, which one would you say you’re most proud of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am most proud of the latest short film that my team and I won for \u201cBest Editor\u201d from the 2021 EasterSeals Disability Film Challenge.\u00a0 In this contest, the team had just 5 days to complete a film; and the crew had to include at least 1 individual with a disability.\u00a0 Realizing the amount of work that goes into animation, they didn\u2019t allow animated films but I convinced them to include animation in 2020 and we submitted our first film.\u00a0 It\u2019s important for us at DaniMation to give our animation students opportunities to participate in animation challenges to teach them the importance of teamwork and finishing within deadlines.<\/p>\n

Our film won in the \u201cBest Director\u201d category in 2020 and it was so amazing for our team of 12, 9 who were my DaniMation students on the autism spectrum. We all came from different parts of the world to produce this film via Zoom during the Pandemic, and our entire team stepped up to the plate.<\/p>\n

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Dani Bowman. Source: Dani Bowman<\/p><\/div>\n

On March 31st<\/sup>, we received an award for \u201cBest Mockumentary Short\u201d during the Marvels of Media Awards at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and four of my team attended.\u00a0 I was so proud of our team and all that we\u2019ve accomplished.\u00a0 Our short film is displayed among many other great works made by people with autism for the entire month of April.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n