Royer Studios, is an award-winning education and entertainment corporation with over 25 years of technical, creative, and film, video, animation production experience. Royer Studios is also committed to youth empowerment through media arts, engaging young people in violence-free and experiential projects and programs that include animation and video production. The goal is empowering and enabling youth to make a difference, be persuasive, enhance their imagination, and find their voices through art. With a history of successful projects in the education and youth development markets, Mr. Bruce Royer brings integrity, commitment and extensive expertise to each of his productions. To date, nearly 200,000 youth have participated in programs developed or co-developed by Mr. Royer. Learn more about Royer Studios Animation Programs.

In 2008, to expand Royer Studios’ commitment to serving children and youth, Bruce Royer and Linda Johannesen co-founded Royer Studios’ Animate Your Learning (RSAYL!) in order to develop a new generation of intuitive digital arts and animation tools for easy use in K-12 classrooms, at home, and on mobile devices. The design of all RSAYL! tools and programs are based on the belief that creative expression through the arts is vital to human development and a sense of well being, and are based on a theory of learning that supports:

1) the social and collaborative nature of learning and content creation;

2) the critical thinking skills involved in creating works of art;

3) the unique power of the digital arts and social networking to create and reshape powerful content; and

4) the development of 21st century skills and habits vital for successful participation in the new workforce: discipline, flexible and adaptive thinking, innovative and creative problem-solving, communications skills, ethics and integrity.

The RSAYL Vision: A world in which all children and youth have access to digital arts tools and quality arts learning, enabling them to fully explore and express their human potential as creative, productive participants in the 21st Century economy and global on-line learning community.

The RSAYL Mission:

• To develop intuitive tools and strategic public-private partnerships that will hasten a “tipping point” in defining the 21st Century classroom so that digital and media arts tools are ubiquitous -- valued as basic tools in making meaning, assessing student learning, and communicating ideas;

• To empower educators, teaching artists and other stakeholders with research-based and validated tools and a robust professional learning community in order to bolster the successful integration of the digital and media arts into curriculum planning, instruction, and assessment, thus level the playing field for English learners and special needs students to represent their new knowledge using multiple symbol systems and intelligences.

• To close the socio-economic gap re access to rigorous arts learning and the digital and media arts.

Learn more about Animate Your Learning! programs and services

Royer Studios’ Leadership Team:

The Royer Studios Leadership Team brings decades of experience in film, video, and animation production, as well as in K-12 arts education, professional development, the development of classroom tools for students and teachers. products and tools as well as experience and expertise in developing public-private partnerships to design, implement, and evaluate scaled-up demonstrations of powerful arts learning in schools.

Bruce Royer, President, Royer Studios & CEO, Royer Studios Animate Your Learning!

Linda Johannesen, President, Royer Studios Animate Your Learning!

Bruce Royer, President, Royer Studios & CEO, Royer Studios Animate Your Learning

Since 1985, Bruce Royer has been a creative force behind the development, production and marketing of socially responsible, educational and entertainment-based films, media products, programs and events. Driven by his quest to create innovative products and experiences that support underserved youth, Royer now focuses the majority of his talents working with youth and providing meaningful and rigorous engagement in the art of animation. In addition to Royer Studios’ Animate Your Learning, current programs include the California Teen Advocates for Safe Driving campaign, Classroom Awareness Through Animation Program and the Classroom Animation Studio Activity Kit; the Funtastic Animation Program and the Funtastic Animation Activity Kit. Bruce Royer is also co-founder and former President of the Los Angeles-based organization, AnimAction which continues to provide youth animation programs. Internationally, close to 200,000 youth and teens have participated in Royer Studios and AnimAction workshops and related activities.

Previously, Royer served as President and Chief Operating Officer of CrainRoyer Studios, Inc., dedicated to creating socially responsive interactive multimedia products that encourage underserved youth to live productive and socially responsible lives. During this time, Royer identified a growing need for affordable professional training in animation and he co-founded and funded The Bridges Institute of Visual Arts in 1994, to serve talented but underserved Angelinos seeking careers in the animation industry. Over 85% of the Institute’s participants successfully launched meaningful careers with prominent studios throughout California. Successful graduates include: José L. Zelaya, Senior Development Artist at Disney Television Animation; Raymond S. Persi, Director of ten episodes of “The Simpsons” and five additional Assistant Directors on “The Simspons.” ( Article from Variety)

Bruce Royer earned his Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies with a major in Film Production, and minors in Animation and Television Production. Bruce’s passion for production is reflected in over 80 short films (live action and animated), and a feature film to his producing credit. He has produced for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, D.A.R.E. America, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Fresno County Office of Education, Kern County Office of Education, Young People’s Press, and more. Royer is also an active member of the local business community where he serves as Vice President and Media Chair for the Topanga Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Board of Directors for Common Peace: Center for the Advancement of Nonviolence, a California non-profit organization.


Linda Johannesen, Co-founder and President, Royer Studios Animate Your Learning! (RSAYL!)

Linda Johannesen is a national renowned author/developer of educational products, programs, and training systems. Most recently Johannesen was President of the Galef Institute in Los Angeles (1990-2005) where, as senior author/developer of Different Ways of Knowing, she led a national team of researchers, educators, and teaching artists in the development, testing, and national roll-out of the award-winning and nationally-acclaimed whole school turn-around design (comprehensive school reform) that focused on the unique role of the arts in teaching and learning, especially with English learners, special needs students. Different Ways of Knowing has been implemented in over 700 schools in 23 states and U.S. territories and funded by regional public-private partnerships of federal, state, corporate, and foundation grants and individual donors.

At the start of her career in education Johannesen worked for the Chicago Public Schools in 1976 as a classroom teacher, in their Dept. of R&E, and then as team leader in their Dept of Curriculum developing and field-testing the district’s new reading program. Soon after, Johannesen launched her entrepreneurial career and in 1978 co-founded Art Worlds, Inc. a non-profit arts organization whose inaugural museum exhibition was chaired by Royal Highness Prince Takamatsu of Japan and U.S. Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer. In 1983, Johannesen co-founded Acamedia, Inc., a non-profit education organization dedicated to media literacy, winning the Chairman’s Award for Excellence from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)., and LA, Ink., an educational publishing company whose projects include the development and testing of Writing and Thinking: A Process Approach; Think ‘N Write; and Insights: Reading as Thinking K-4. Together, with Different Ways of Knowing, Johannesen’s products have generated $100+ million in sales revenue.

As an education consultant, Johannesen has worked with the California Dept. of Education to develop training program for the English/LA Framework; Mattel Toys, Scholastic Publishing, Society for Visual Education, the Wright Group, ArtWorks For Kids! a Utah-based family foundation; and public school districts and state offices of education in California, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, Connecticut, New York, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.

Currently, Ms. Johannesen is a member of LAUSD’s Media Arts Planning Group and serves on the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles Art Association, the Student Voice Project, and the Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts where Different Ways of Knowing is their classroom curriculum for project-based and arts-integrated teaching and learning. Johannesen is also a member of the Creative Economy Task Force in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She holds a B.A. Degree in Elementary and Special Education from Northeastern Illinois University and a Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology and Cognition from the University of Chicago.

Royer Studios’ Advisory Team

James Catterall, Professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies where he has served on the curriculum and education policy faculty since 1981. He is Director of the Imagination Group, a collaboration group of academics, students, teachers, and art professionals interested in learning through the arts. Dr. Catterall's research focuses on the roles of the arts in human development, and on arts-related instructional and curriculum policies impacting teaching and learning. He is nationally known for works related to children at risk, and in recent years for his studies examining the influences of participation in the arts and learning development.

Ted Kahn, Ph.D. co-founder, President and CEO of DesignWorlds for Learning, Inc. Ted has been actively involved in developing and marketing innovative uses of interactive technologies for creative lifelong learning for over 30 years. Previously, Dr. Kahn was Executive Director of the Atari Institute for Educational Action Research (Atari/Warner Communications), Picodyne Corporation and Digital F/X, as well as advanced learning technologies research and development experience at the Lawrence Hall of Science (U. C. Berkeley), the Center for Educational Technology (Israel), Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL).

Peter Mays, Executive Director, Los Angeles Art Association, Los Angeles’ oldest arts organization dedicated to emerging artist. Mays has curetted exhibitions throughout Southern California and was recently honored at the LA Art Show with the 2009 Art to Life award sponsored by Art & Living Magazine, Sotheby’s International Realty and A&I for his work on behalf of emerging artists. Mays was Director of School Services for the Galef Institute. Currently Mays serves on the West Hollywood Arts and Culture Commission, Board of Directors for MOCA Contemporaries, Fellows of Contemporary Art and the Executive Arts Leaders Forum.

Royer Studios Productions List – Archive (partial list)

 

Royer Studios info@royerstudios.com
120 N. Topanga Cyn. Blvd. • #105• Topanga, CA • 90290 • phone (310) 455-7120 • fax (310) 455-3393