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2013 Ottawa Animation Festival Day 5 - All Good Things Must Come to an End

Sadly, we've come to the last day of the festival...

Goodbye and thank you, Canada!

By Lia Abbate

Greetings from freezing Ottawa, cyber-festers ~

So we’ve come to the last day. Time to bid farewell to our new “festival friends” and exchange cards and good wishes for safe journeys home. The organizers programmed the Awards Ceremony on Saturday night for the first time this year, which is completely understandable. On Sunday, many of the participants are packing up and making their way back home, making it a tad melancholy to watch the crowds slim as the festival winds down.

My “festival friend,” artist/teacher Ron Kilbride, who treats his kids as if they were his own kids. Lucky kids.

Best of the Festival

For those who stay, the Best of the Festival screening is really a treat, a chance to review what you loved, hated and to go meta become your one jury of one judging the work of the official ones. Because the films in Ottawa are more challenging, the second viewings bring more of an appreciation for the works to wrap up and cement the experience in a surprisingly satisfying way. These films demand that you study them and so really stay with you.

Here Mark Farren, Lucila Maccagno, Gary Schwatrz, and Karla Monterrosa (whose Unfortunately was in the Canadian Student Competition) keep the networking going into the final hours of the festival. Those are Karla’s storyboards on that ipad Gary's holding.

Back in reality, just brushing my teeth or taking a step, I’ve noticed the switch has been turned up on the intensity of my attention. Every little sound now, the ones I make, the ones that just happen, take on an importance. And I have become keenly aware of the movement around me. I quiz myself on how one would recreate that on a screen. Must be a good time to download the McLaren’s Workshop app.

Who says that animators can’t dance? Quite a few were happy to cut a rug at the Closing Party.

Dan Sarto's picture

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.