Baumann wins Best Animated Film at NYLIFF

As far as I’m concerned, just being selected makes me a winner.”

Diane Baumann owner, Kidz Entertainment

Baldwin native Diane Baumann won the award for Best Animated Film at the 2022 New York Long Island Film Festival.

Baumann, a lifelong resident who is the owner of Kidz Entertainment Inc. as well as a filmmaker, was honored at the fourth annual festival at the Lindenhurst Moose Lodge Oct. 20-22. Her film, “Before It’s Time to Say Goodnight – A Bedtime Lullaby,” is a short animated 3D film featuring original characters like Pansie the Piglet, the lead character in the Kidz Entertainment lineup.

“It really is an honor,” said Baumann. “I as far as I’m concerned, just being selected makes me a winner.”

Baumann is a 1973 graduate of Baldwin High School who went on to Nassau Community College and eventually graduated from SUNY Empire State, in upstate Saratoga Springs, with a degree in business, marketing and economics. At age 3, she said, she began creating picture books for children, and later was trained as a classical vocalist.

Baumann is a song and book writer and a member of the Songwriters Guild of America, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Long Island Music Coalition. She said she is currently writing her eighth picture book, “The Mambo Toothbrush,” but her fourth book, “Before It’s Time to Say Goodnight,” was her first picture book that was turned into an animated film.

“This is a labor of love,” Baumann said. “It’s something I’ve been doing for a very, very long time. I’ve been writing for a very long time and performing all my life.”

From a collection of books and songs, she said, she created an assortment of animal characters to feature in the film, which teaches children not to be afraid of the dark, and that there are no monsters under their beds.

“I think that children need to learn these things at a very, very young age,” she said. “It’s more or less called socialization.”

Baumann said she collaborates with family and former classmates at Baldwin High School, like Jim Hoffman and Jan Perlow, to produce her projects, which include puzzles, clothing, plush handbags, songs, books and other media. Hoffman, a voice actor and narrator, was a fellow member of the class of 1973 (along with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister). 

“Diane is the kid at Kidz Entertainment,” said Perlow, who graduated in 1975 and is now a Baldwin-based freelance musician and artist. She said she has worked on art composites and voice-overs for Kidz Entertainment, along with Hoffman.

Hoffman said he voiced some of the characters in commercials for 3-in-1 Cuddly Fun, a plush animal hand warmer for children that is offered by Kidz Entertainment. He described Baumann as a creative type, and added that he worked with her to voice a number of her characters at Regrown Recordings in Baldwin.

“It’s so well deserved — she worked so hard,” Hoffman said of Baumann’s award.

Matt Barba, a Baldwin resident and sound engineer who owns Regrown Recordings, on Hayes Street, said he helped Baumann record voice-overs for her projects. Baumann got in touch with him through her son, Joseph Baumann, who went to Baldwin High as well and played in the Long Island Youth Orchestra with Barba. Hoffman, Barba said, reached out to him to see if his studio could do voice-overs for Baumann. 

“It was a lot of fun,” Barba said. “It was my first time doing voice-over work. I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially with animated characters.”

Baumann said she plans to continue developing her projects at Kidz Entertainment, and is working on a cartoon series called “Little Shop of Wonders.”