Maria Norris Scaffido is an award winning filmmaker and animator based in Los Angeles. she runs Trash Cats Animation Studio out of her home, and works as a freelance animator, editor and video producer. She is currently open to work and taking on new clients.

Maria’s work has screened at festivals in cities across the country - and internationally in Canada, belgium and the u.k. She has also screened work at ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse, and at the hive art gallery in los angeles.

Trash Cats Animation Studio is named for its flagship project, trash cats - a stop-motion web series. The pilot episode won best adult short award at Duck & red Octopus film festival in 2023, and was the only fully-animated selection out of over 500 submissions at proof film festival that same year. The series also completed a fifteen month run on channel 101 and won best animation at the 2023 channies. The first three episodes of the series were featured at Silver Lake Shorts throughout 2023 and 2024. Production of the series is still ongoing, with season one set to release to youtube in 2026.

Maria began working as a freelance journalist & photographer for the Skaneateles Journal (now the press-observer) and the auburn citizen while attending high school in Central New York. She attended junior college at SUNY Onondaga Community College where she studied broadcast, radio, television & film production.

in 2015, Maria transferred to The college of Visual & performing arts at Syracuse University. The V.P.A film program focused on a"total filmmaking" approach - including film history studies, creative and technical aspects of production, as well as writing, producing, and directing short films at least once per semester. Maria was also enrolled in V.P.A's Bologna Film Program where she further studied European cinema and cinematography in Bologna, Italy.

additionally, Maria worked as a videographer, editor, social media coordinator, and transcriber for the Feminist Freedom Warriors while attending V.P.A. She also had the privilege of studying a variety of animation mediums - including traditional & experimental stop-motion, drawn-on-film direct animation, and some computer animation under David Hicock, Gail Hoffman, and Kelly Gallagher.​

Maria earned a B.F.A in Film & Transmedia, along with a minor in Women & Gender Studies in 2019. She regularly collaborates with other artists, musicians, and creators. She has been commissioned to create a variety of stop-motion projects and videos since 2020.

Past clients, collaborators and employers include: