Network World, 01/04/99

PAUL YANOVER VICE PRESIDENT OF TECHNOLOGY, WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION

Talk about a great job. Paul Yanover and his team are responsible for the network computing infrastructure that brings Disney's animated movies to life for audiences around the world. We're talking "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Hercules," "The Lion King" and "Mulan" here, kids.

The network pros at Disney Automation not only get to work with some of the industry's most skilled artists, programmers and writers, they get an early look at the films that will have children and their parents shelling out hard cash for tickets and all the products linked via marketing tie-ins to the movies.

Yanover is a firm believer in founder Walt Disney's maxim that technological innovation is key to the company's continuing success. With the help of a powerful ATM network supporting Disney's Computer Animated Production System, Yanover and his talented team have dramatically upped production of feature-length animated films. That's meant more revenue and profit for the Disney money machine.

Yanover is now leading the design and development of new computing systems for Disney Animation's digital studio, which opened in 1997.

YANOVER'S CHALLENGE: Disney Animation is renowned for marrying art with animation to produce classic movies. Yanover, his designers and his network experts will have to keep wedding technology to innovation to produce big returns for Disney.

Prior: Whitacre

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