Meet the Team at RLT

Rachelle Lewis is a top-tier talent acquisition specialist in the animation and visual effects industry and has been for over 20 years. Before launching her own company Rachelle Lewis Talent, she held the position of Director of Recruitment for Digital Domain and was a Senior Recruiter at Sony Pictures Imageworks, and DreamWorks. She began her career as Director of Artistic Recruitment for Klasky Csupo.

To complement her expertise in sourcing and placement, Rachelle also brings deep knowledge and understanding of all positions within the Animation and Visual Effects pipelines. Rachelle has a great eye for quality animation, VFX, and technical talent. This is an invaluable advantage when pursuing very senior and accomplished candidates. She speaks to both ends of the spectrum, from the production artist to the studio executives.

Rachelle lectures at universities and industry events throughout North America and Europe. She acts in an advisory capacity developing the animation and visual effects curricula with universities and works directly with artists in the area of career development. She resides between Los Angeles and Seattle.

Maryanna Aramian has over 25+ years of experience working in entertainment. She started out as a checker and then checking supervisor in tv animation and worked at various companies including Hyperion Pictures, Creative Capers, and Klasky Csupo. Some notable projects include Disney’s “The Proud Family”, and Klasky Csupo’s “The Wild Thornberrys”, “Rugrats Go to Paris”, and “Rugrats Go Wild” movies. From there, she moved into management and also travelled overseas (Korea and India) to complete projects. She has also produced several short films (live action) and created e-commerce websites. She resides in the Hollywood Hills with her husband Chris and their beautiful cat, Willy.

Lauren Littleton has over 20 years experience in production and artist management for feature films and television. She began her career as a Production Coordinator for episodic television shooting on locations in Australia and Mexico. Once back in the US, she transitioned from Paramount Pictures to Digital Domain, assisting with Coordination on the VFX unit for “Titanic”.

Continuing as a Production Manager at DD, she had the privilege of working on several VFX driven features with Directors including: Jim Cameron, David Fincher, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Michael Bay, Chris Colombus and John Favreau. After being recruited at Sony Pictures Imageworks to work as the VFX Production Manager for Robert Zemeckis’ “Cast Away” she continued working at Sony on several other films, including those from the Harry Potter and the Spiderman franchises.

Transitioning into Artist Management, she became the Director of Animation Production for Sony Pictures Imageworks, supervising crewing and scheduling, facilitating conflict resolution between productions, and career path management for over 300 artists.

Lauren enjoys problem solving with studios, digging into the interests and areas of strength of each candidate, and knows first hand the critical importance of hiring the right person for each and every role a production needs to fill. She lives with her husband, two sons, a bunch of kayaks and a menagerie of animals in a town outside of Seattle, WA.

Katharine McLean After completing her undergraduate degree at DePauw University, Katharine joined the RLT Team and made her debut into the VFX / Animation Industry. During her time as an undergraduate, Katharine completed two degrees at her University, majoring in Film Studies and Communication. She served as a Speech Tutor for her school’s peer-to-peer tutoring program, completed multiple production and marketing internships in her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky; and even studied abroad at the prestigious Film and Television School of Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, Czech Republic.

For her Senior Capstone, Katharine wrote her thesis on the 2008 animated feature film, WALL-E, focusing on contexts and events that contributed to the film’s overt messages regarding environmental concern.

Layne A. Smith Layne joined the RLT team eager to learn more about film and entertainment after a lifetime of fascination with the industries. An artist since childhood, Layne has been drawing and animating since she was little. She has continued her studies at Sheldon’s Art Academy with a focus in fundamentals for art & animation.

Lisa Sanders has spent over 25 years of her diverse career bridging the production and business sides of the Entertainment Industry across multiple content platforms.

She comes to RLT from her consulting practice, The Ronin Digital Group, devoted to production, studio operations, team expansions, and business strategy for digital entertainment companies. Under that banner, Lisa has taken on engagements at Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Game Studios, game publisher THQ, and Take-Two Interactive / 2K Games.

Prior to stepping out on her own, Lisa was Executive Director of Digital Production at Sony Pictures Imageworks, where she supported a group of over 350 Visual Effects, Animation and technical personnel, focusing on contract negotiations, artist development, and artist placement on productions. She also served as Executive Director of Operations at Imageworks, leading business planning and operational streamlining initiatives, and spent nearly a year as interim head of the facility’s VFX Editorial group.

Prior to her tenure at Imageworks, Lisa was Executive Director of Special Projects for Sony Pictures Entertainment / Digital Studios Division. There, she led planning teams for start-ups and ventures involving the studio’s production facilities as well as joint efforts with Tokyo-based Sony divisions. Lisa’s international experience also includes 2+ years in TV Syndication / Marketing at The Walt Disney Company Ltd. in London.

In addition to her more “corporate” roles, Lisa has worked extensively in the production trenches in Film, TV, and Games. Early on, she did a multi-year stint on film sets as a Location Manager & Scout on features and miniseries for Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, Amblin Entertainment, Showtime, and Working Title. Her transition from live action to the digital side of things was sparked when she was pulled in as a production manager at Disney Feature Animation – and never looked back.

Lisa currently lives and works in both Tampa, Florida and Los Angeles, covering multiple time zones with RLT where she’s able to stay close to her passion for digital imagery and storytelling, and the talent that creates it.