Hi Chris, I’ll start by agreeing that festivals are judged, that people who can’t deal with being rejected in festivals always have the option to go solo (it’s getting even easier because of the Net and Flash-for-cell-phones), and that artists require thick skins to enter the kitchen. Also, I want to stress that I’m NOT suggesting that you need to justify your position as judge. You’ve got more than enough cred. Rather, I’m talking about something else. I used to hate people like me when I did conference and museum planning. I called them hit-and-run-programmers. They’d give interesting yet unpractical suggestions and never had to deal with the consequences. So, forgive me if I seem to putting my 2-cents in your piggybank. BUT, I still maintain that articulating how your eye works is of immense importance not only to hopeful entrants, but to the general animation community. The question is how to do this. First, the format; there is a world of difference between a 1-2 “we regret to inform you” to a "detailed essay". Second, most conferences and museum special exhibits occur as annual (or bi-annual) events. One thing differentiating these events is the number of judges/selectors/reviewers. Museum exhibits range from a single curator to five or more committee members. Journals can have ten or more reviewers. Conferences can be subdivided into divisions (i,e, categories), with each division having dozens of members vetting submissions. Some large conferences actually require members to serve as reviewers, to handle submission numbers that can easily surpass 5000. And, if you think 2000 films are hard on the eye, try 2000 5-page papers. True, they have more reviewers and maybe tighter deadlines. Third, my experience is that solicited submissions come with some form of rubrics for criteria in which you are being judged. These rubrics range from fairly rigid rules (no hate-lit; no previously published; not more than 2000 words; must have a dog) to more arguable and comparative criteria depending on category or divsion (originality, applicability, significance, appeal, potential influence). The checklists are there to help articulate the frames of reference, not a code for automatic decision-making. In the words of the Black Pearl’s Captain Barbossa,”‘the Code is more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules”. Here is where you and I totally agree. Filling in or even creating a checklist is a moving target, precisely because of the co-evolution of reviewers and filmmakers. You’ve changed, the artists changed, their vision and the technology changes. That’s why OIAF’05 will be different from OIAF’97. The purpose of somehow articulating your judgment is that you are in a position to give voice to what makes OIAF different from Annecy. It’s not a bad thing that what you “like may be what Annecy dislikes”. There is a vibe at OIAF that differs from Fantoshe or Annecy, and I think that you and your fellow eyes are in a position to try (oh, I’ll push this to a “responsibility to try”) to describe that for entrants and the animation community alike. Finally, I still argue that it is not a whim that guides you, but a very motivated vision, that necessarily works too fast to be easily put into words. I bet, after reflection and a few drinks, you’d see a pattern of the types and quality of films you and your team have presented over the years. Played back in slo-mo, you’ll see what makes Ottawa different from Annecy, from Spike&Mike, and what kind of community you’ve created. Hey, I’ll even buy the drinks ;->

Chris, boy..I'm taking the punches. s'okay. been taking boxing for 5 years. I know how to duck and slip. I dunno... I wrote a manuscript that was all me (my voice--as opposed to some commercial shit I've written). It was repeatedly rejected. I was bummed, but I just moved on. I wrote other things. Eventually that book did get picked up. (now, okay..that's an unfair comparison in a way because manuscripts are a little more timeless than a completed film). I'm happy about it, but I dunno..I don't feel like it's going to change my life..or make me a better or worse person. I certainly didnt write that particular book (or anything I write for that matter) to find recognition. I write/create because I just desperately need to sort out the mess inside me. If I can connect with some people through that (as the Pimp has--much to my surprise) then..hey..fantastic...but it's not my reason for being. Hell...I don't need commentators to tell me if I've written a good or bad column (and yes, the fact that I even HAVE this forum is likely due to my role at the OIAF). I know myself. So..again... I stand by what I asked in the piece: If there is no money in shorts or experimental film... then WHY are you making them? If it's just for recognition, then there's problem. The only agenda i have is to pick the films that rock my soiled socks. Usually it's only about 10 of them (in a good year). The remaining 80-90 films are often decided with strong influence from colleagues at the festival. The bulk of those picks are the films that annoy me the least. AND---I can't honestly recall a time I put in a film simply because there was a sponsor behind it. As for my rep as champion of the underground. I aint out to impress or win over anyone ..I'm just being honest with my senses and tastes (which are certainly not limited considering what I said above). I didnt set out to be the voice of the 'ugly' cartoon (or whatever George called it). ANYWAY--- Annecy Plus--(which seems to be THE FRINGE you're referring to) in my mind was not some radical, fringe undertaking. It had two established voices behind it who HAD an agenda. Do you really think that if some truly unknown animator had devised the idea that anyone would have cared? And about me and Ottawa. I aint goin nowhere for the moment. Sorry. When the 'job' stops being provocative, challenging and stimulating (and yes, there are moments like those every so often--as with anything)..sure..then it'll be time to drive a cab. bottom line: all the piece was saying --as I've said before-- is don't kill yourself because one festival rejected you. The festival system is a flawed crapshoot just like this here life. BUT...if say..EVERY animation festival rejects your work (for many years)--then sure, yeah.. by all means..maybe it's time to off that part of yourself and follow another line of work. Also--this is a postscript to what I wrote to Janet: Contrary to what you might think, festivals are being judged. If people don't like what they see, they don't come back. It's a simple as that. Fortunately, most people DO come back to Ottawa and Annecy. And I think that's proof that both festivals are doing a decent job of speaking to different tastes. chris

Hi janet, First, Festival juries DO explain their decisions for awarding films. It's a requirement of most festivals that the juries produce a 1-2 sentence statement (yes, a far cry from an informative, detailed essay) to justify their choice. (Also, I disagree that other professions do receive concrete feedback. My experience has been that few if any publisher's bother to explain in any detail why they arent accepting your manuscript. Why? Probably because they are overloaded with submissions.) As for pre-selection (or the gatekeepers as seems to be the popular word)...how on earth can any of us (whether it's the ottawa or annecy systems) explain decisions in detail to an animator when we're receiving almost 2000 entries each year? As I've written many times, festivals ARE crapshoots. We're not like galleries or museums in the sense because they have programmes going on throughout a calendar year. They have time. A Festival has 5 days. In ottawa's case, it works out to about 500 minutes of total screening time. Within this ridiculous setting, my first priority for selection is simple: "Do I want to see this film again?" At the end of the day, I can justify every film that is in the ottawa competition. What I can't do is justify --in many cases-- why the other 1700 submissions arent. I think through all of what I've written over the years (and I've written about 3-4 columns now on this issue of judging) is that festival selection is FAULTY. And with there being different categories, it's almost impossible to say "Okay, here's are checklist." Besides, I'm completely against having some unchanging checklist... some list of certainties that a film must possess. It's too rigid for the filmmaker, judge and audience. At the same time, I know that some selection committees do have systems. But is it really serving any purpose to have the judgements of a few sent to a filmmaker? What I like about a film might be precisely the thing that Annecy (for example) dislikes --and vice-versa. In such a high stress context is it even possible for a judge to properly articulate just why it is that they don't want to show a particular film? So..Janet..I agree that I read as being a bit rigid. Yes..I was definitely generalizing to a degree just to create some discussion... but I think you're being just as rigid if you believe that there should or even can be a set system that defines what a good or bad animation film is (or even art in general). Am I demythologizing festivals, stripping their royal clothing off? Yes. For sure. And that's precisely why I've written repeatedly that filmmakers (in or out of competition) need to take these decisions with a grain. Because all judgements are faulty. That's not to say that my judgements or those of other festivals are ignorant or ill-informed (sure... some stuff floats by)... but just that there is no perfect system of judgement (and really..do you actually believe that galleries and museums and amazon have some perfect or ideal system of judgement?) Do you really want Ottawa or Annecy or other festivals to have a strict guidebook of criteria? That would seem really reductive and inhuman to me...and the one thing I like about most animation festivals is that they have a personality, that they reflect the tastes and whims of their creative people (which is precisely WHERE festivals are akin to galleries and museums). That's what makes the animation festivals so interesting. They're personal picks made each year by (in some cases) different members (gatekeepers) of the animation community. Take care, Chris

What bothers me about your argument, Chris, is the implied pathology in animators. You seem to be picking up Becker's underlying fallacy of either total autonomy or death-by-group affiliation. In fact, there is a dialectic between my Self and Others. This is not sickness; it’s the human condition. Animators (with a capital A) exist only because of the very social practice of Animation that defines what is meant by "animation” and who can be called an “animator”. Small-cap animators are amateurs (no dis intended), lacking not the "enslavement" of the community, but the social identity that comes with membership, and the sharing of their work with a larger audience. The production of my work requires no one: the reception does. If there is a "sickness", it is with how competitions are run. One problem is the opacity of festival judgments. Unlike other professions that require putting one’s work “on the line” to get accepted (e.g., into journals or conferences or book publications), animation judges rarely provide reasons for acceptance or rejection. Festival judges do a disservice to Animators by failing to live up to their part of the symbiotic relationship. In other words, judges know what is in the Animators' mind through the film, but Animators haven't a clue where the judges are coming from. I’m realistic enough to know that festivals hold the money, hype and attention of distributors, critics, and larger audiences, so this isn’t a self-righteous rant against elitism or commercialism. But right now, entering a competition risks hearing “your film sucks because I said so”. This isn’t fear of death; it’s fear of rudeness. If your judgment is worth making, it’s worth explaining. Without the reasons, festival applications appear as crap shoots, and the judges as mere arbiters of what’s hot and what’s not. I'm not talking about sending out form-letter rejections or acceptances; I'm talking about defining the criteria for judgment and ratings, the same way it's done in galleries, publication houses, Amazon, or Wikipedia. I think Sharon is looking for is this kind of clarity. In a festival-competition context, the artist needn't explain his/her motivation; the mass audience needn't explain the reasons for applauding or booing a film in panorama. But I do hold the judges, as primary gatekeepers, accountable. So it's not just the honesty of the other animators that is needed, Chris, it's the honesty of the gatekeepers. Your judgment may be “subjective” but not inscrutable.

Chris and Bill (Plympton), Excellence is a moving target .. what we think of as excellent today may seem very dated only five years from now; and what we may find unfamiliar or strange and, therefore, not excellent by today's standards, may clearly be just the early phase of a new approach or style. The problem for festival directors is that, like curators of exhibitions, they are trying to program a festival that reflects the best of what is familiar to them right now. This may have nothing to do with excellence of the work per se. History will take care of what will endure as excellent. And the problem for the filmmakers is that, for those who are dedicated (read devoted) to producing work of the highest standard that they can achieve, it is heartbreaking not to be heard. After all, a film is only a series of frames without an audience. And so filmmakers are dependent, at least to some degree, on the gatekeepers (festival directors) to make it possible for their films to be shared with that audience.

Egoism is a part of human nature, it is something that we will never erase and when I'll think again... why do we really hate it and despise it so much, when it lives in most of our actions? One of the reasons of holding a festival is satisfying the authors ego, after all, we all know how hard is to make an independant animated film. If we didn't feel that way about ourselves, we would never need any festivals because there wouldn't be any animatons to show anyway.

Art is not a competition. Festivaldirectors make a competition out of it, so it's strange to hear you complain about filmmakers that want to join a game that you brought to life yourself. If you really think that the only motivation of animators to send their film to a festival is to have their film shown to an audience, than you should turn the Ottawa festival into a non-competitive festival (just like Telluride, which has a good atmosphere because of that). By the way, it's not allways so bitchen to show a film to an animationfestival audience that's encouraged by artistic directors to throw paper airplanes to the screen during the show and shout incomprehensible things about rabbits. (Or is that another festival?) I rather go to a soccergame.

Chris, You wear so many hats (intellectual uplifter of the vulgar cartoon form; champion of the personal, marginal and innovative; sincerely sensitive self-revelatorian; and festival honcho with semi-detached bully pulpit) that one scarcely knows how to get properly angry at you. But I do feel that (and these are only feelings, not facts) your praise of the "panorama" selection at Ottawa, and by extension at all festivals, is at best disingenuous. No matter how much you exhort us to grow up and get over it, your inner Darth Vader must surely recognize the pain of rejection. It's almost as bad as being ignored. No matter how you dance around praising the "panorama" concept there's simply no way to avoid the fact that it's really a salon des refusées, yet chosen by the very authority that rejected the films for competition! It seems to me perfectly valid for rejected animators to storm the barricades and show their own goddam films. Wasn't this the motivation for the original Chez Ani? The problem isn't really programming but competition itself. Where does award-giving, animators in the spotlight, vast cheesy ceremonies with obligatory politicians, and all the attendant anticipation and anguish come from? Hollywood? Or the state agricultural fairs that hand out red ribbons for the fattest hog or sweetest honey? We shouldn't settle for such blandishments, particularly if we want animation accepted as an art form. Just pick the films and program them thoughtfully, without a class system that denies privileges to certain guests whose films don't quite make the grade. Exhibition is its own primary reward, and passionate critical discourse in print or at public forums runs a close second. GG

Let me clear something up. I love the NY animation community. They are down to earth folks who are loving, sharing and giving people. They go out of their way to support and encourage one another (all with the best intentions. The ASIFA East Festival and Avoid Eye Contact dvds are prime examples. And personally....the last two times I've been to NY, Bill Plympton has hosted a party in my honour. NY's animation community is unique and special. NY's role in this Pimp and the May one about Panoramas was simply as a catalyst. They were simply iniators of three separate things that made me want to discuss/ponder the implications of in greater detail: Why are some animators insulted by Panorama? Why are some animators so angry and beligerent when they get rejected? Why DO these people make short films? What's the point of a festival if you're going to say fuggit and organize your own screening AT that festival? The reactions are interesting and very revealing of their authors. Chris

By the way, the fact that so many comments are posted by anonymous people prooves your point that the short animated filmworld is fragile and small and that the members are affraid to tell each other the truth.