L-R: Herb Scannell, president of Nickelodeon, Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom and Albie Hecht, senior vice president of worldwide production and development for Nickelodeon. Photo © 1997 Elaina Verret.

The Competition
With 40 awards categories, the competition aspect of the festival was the least impressive, being simultaneously enormous and uneventful. Almost all of the independent films had already been seen at other festivals during the past two years, and the proliferation of TV shows, commercials and home video productions really clogged up the program. People were not talking about the films during social times as they usually do at festivals, maybe because they'd already seen them at other festivals during the year, and few people were attending the daytime competition screenings in the uncomfortable, makeshift upstairs theater. The presence of 40 separate awards categories severely diluted the impact of any one award, especially during the final awards show, which turned out to be very anti-climactic and confusing, more like a graduation ceremony than a proper awards show. Ending the show with Terry Thoren's self-congratulatory roll-calling of all festival staff and volunteers on-stage took the focus away from the filmmakers, a shift from the usual "behind-the-scenes" invisible persona of festival organizers.

The staff and volunteers of WAC 97. Photo © 1997 Elaina Verret

Overall, the after-festival buzz about Hollywood is positive; exchanges of impressions among colleagues ring with phrases like "I had more fun that I expected to," and "It was great for networking." Well, fun and networking are two good things. The pressure and expectation on WAC were particularly high, as this was something that has been hyped-up relentlessly in the industry for years without any results. Everyone was exhausted at the end of the week, a good sign that an event was appreciated, or it could just ,mean that the closing night Klasky Csupo day-glo party got a little WAC-ky. . . . Organizers say that the festival will happen again in 1998, so it looks like those of us who went this year will get to enjoy another week in sunny Pasadena, and those skeptics who waited this year out will have to come out from hiding in their studios and join us.

See also the list of WAC Award winners on the World Animation Celebration official web site, and Harvey Deneroff's pre-festival interview with director Leslie Sullivan.