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Burny Mattinson, a Disney Legend who served as an animator, producer, director and story artist in his nearly 70-year career with the studio, died Monday at the age of 87 following a short illness. Disney announced his death on their official website.

The story goes that Mattinson, who was born in San Francisco in 1935, was transformed when his mother took him to see Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” at the age of 6. He knew what he wanted to do. As Don Hahn, who produced some of Disney’s most beloved movies during the Disney Renaissance, said of Mattinson’s life: “His life could be a Disney movie: teenaged kid shows up at the Disney gate with his portfolio under his arm and stays for 70 years. He was our story sensei, a brilliant draftsman who showed us what it was like to grind on a story until it was right.”

Mattinson’s first...

I have a really great memory when it comes to completely unimportant information. I remember seeing Who Framed Roger Rabbit in theaters in 1988. I remember the day I found out I couldn’t go to see Jurassic Park in theaters–I was too young and just discovered that the movie would not be rated PG. I remember the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters, Air Force One. While my memory works well for other useless trivia, you can detect a pattern revolving around movies. And yet, while I was like a lot of other people my age and saw plenty of family films when I was a kid, I know that I remembered names of people I didn’t need to remember.

How many people know who Glen Keane is? Probably not many, outside of his family, friends, co-workers, and those of us who are admirers of Disney animation from the 1980s onward.

Shutter Island" screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis and producer Hawk Koch will will be among those honored during the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s annual weeklong celebration, "UCLA 2010 Festival of New Creative Work," which runs through Thursday.

Kalogridis, who also served as exec producer on "Avatar" and "Island," is set to receive the Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting Award on Monday at the Screenwriters Showcase at the Freud Playhouse at UCLA.

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Koch ("Collateral Damage,” "Primal Fear") will receive the Vision Award during the Producers Marketplace on Tuesday at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood Village.

Additional industry professionals to be honored include Emmy award-winning director Joe Russo; animator Randy Cartwright; director/producer Roger Corman; and director/producer Lee Daniels.

There will likely never be a more enjoyable documentary about Disney animators than Frank and Ollie, Theodore Thomas' 1995 film about two very close members of the famed Nine Old Men. As far as informative chronicles go, however, the new film Waking Sleeping Beauty is at least a fascinating continuation of the studio's history and is every bit as captivating as its more recent predecessor and concurring account, The Pixar Story. Whether you're one of those hardcore Disneyphiles or merely a passive or nostalgic fan of the brand like myself, it's an engrossing and entertaining journey back to a significant moment in the company's past.

Waking Sleeping Beauty interestingly enough begins exactly as The Pixar Story does, with a home movie shot by animator Randy Cartwright as he tours the animation building in 1980 (introduction to a young, pouty Tim Burton gets an easy laugh). But while the earlier film quickly...