By Ellen Besen

I really thought this next piece was going to be about festival programming but fresh from CTN Expo- which wrapped on Sun Nov 18, I feel compelled to shift focus to a more pressing topic: overall spirit. By this I don’t mean so much the mood of the attendees but more the spirit in which the event was conceived and carried out by the organizers. This last factor has a defining impact on every aspect of the event including the attendees’ mood and programming as well, which is precisely why it is the more pressing issue.

This kind of spirit can be an elusive subject- one that doesn’t really show itself directly.  Instead you kind of have to look at an event sideways, to use your detective skills and also keep in mind what other choices could have been made to suss out the organizers intentions.

By Ellen Besen

What makes an animation festival great?

With OIAF recently past and CTN on the immediate horizon, it seems like a good time to ask this question, one I’ve been asking myself in the aftermath of every festival experience for so many years I’ve lost count. I’ve also lost count of my many attempts to answer that question – most of them quite unsatisfactory.

In fact, I only started to answer the question in any meaningful way when I found myself taking over a sweet little festival- the late, lamented Kalamazoo Animation Festival International (KAFI)- from 2006 to 2009. We were charged, at the time, with taking a promising regional festival to the next level…and in the process of achieving that goal- if only for a moment before the economy, among other things, took the whole enterprise down- a great deal of what really makes a festival work was revealed.

By Zoe Chevat

On a rainy L.A. weekend in mid-November, the Burbank Marriott’s convention center was packed as young talent and seasoned professionals alike descended for the Creative Talent Network’s 3^rd annual expo. Hailing from as close as here in town, or as far away as San Francisco, Utah, and Egypt, the mob of students, young professionals, and animation fans were eager have their portfolios reviewed, browse artist’s sketchbooks, and soak up advice from some of animation’s most experienced names. While the packed convention floor played host to many kinds of exhibitors, including independent artists’ wares, studio reviewers, and cable-laded tech booths displaying the latest software, it was clearer than ever that, though the attendees might all consider themselves fans, this is no casual fan convention. An event like this aims to accommodate a broad swath of the animation community, but a large amount of its resources –and its advertising – are aimed at bringing in students. CTNX is for the young and hungry, boasting a crowd of current students and the recently graduated, who are looking at an angle into their beloved, but notoriously tough, contemporary animation industry.

Walt Disney was just one of the big studios at this year's CTN-X.

Now in its third year, CTN Expo has gotten over some of its growing pains. Gone was the hectic chaos that was last year's event, replaced with the efficiency that so impressed in its inaugural year. Los Angeles has been in need of a quality animation gathering and this fills the bill nicely.

"CTN is Bringin' it On to Pass it On - One Artist at a Time!"  

Dates: November 18-20, 2011
Venue: Burbank Marriott, Burbank CA

"Animation Capital of the World"
Website: www.ctnanimationexpo.com

Don Hahn is just one of the top

animation pros I ran into.

written by Bill Desowitz

The second day of CTN Expo was overflowing with interest for the informative panels, some of which I couldn't even get into, so I perused the exhibition floor and walked the lobby, making new friends and running into old ones.

For instance, I met Ken Duncan and his colleagues at Duncan Studio, who most recently did the marvelous 2D work on the How to Train Your Dragon Blu-ray/DVD short, Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon. They told me that they've done breakthrough work on integrating 2D into Maya and are working on making it available to the industry at large in the near future. More on that, to be sure.

I ran into Don Hahn, who mentioned that Tim Burton's Frankenweenie stop-motion feature was progressing well in London (early days so not much to say about the adaptation of the director's popular short other than that it will be in black-and-white and 3-D). Hahn was also pleased about the holiday DVD release of his acclaimed Waking Sleeping Beauty doc from Disney Home Ent. Hahn said that there were some nice bonus features, including deleted scenes.

Then I ran into Chris Wedge, who flew in from New York early that morning for a Q&A later that evening with Bill Kroyer. While Wedge played it close to the vest about his latest, The Legend of the Leaf Men, he positively beamed about Carlos Saldanha's Rio, which Fox releases next year on April 8. He said the animation is nearly complete for this Brazilian feast about two mismatched birds that fall in love (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway) and that the test screenings have been going well. Wedge also said that they've already outgrown their new studio in New York, but that it's great walking to work every day as opposed to the previous commute.

A behind-the-scenes look at Alice in Wonderland was one of the treats of CTN Expo 2010.

The CTN Expo has returned to Burbank for the second year. The conference has expanded a great deal from last year's event. It also has seen an explosion of attendees, which pushed off the scheduled start times of all the events as the eager guest were being registered. This created some bumps along the road for the two-year old event, which is again valiantly put together by Tina Price and her tiny staff with help from a host of volunteers.

Despite its problems, the event once again showed the real reason to attend once you arrived in the panels. First of the day for me was David Schaub, the animation supervisor on ALICE IN WONDERLAND, chronicling the process Sony Pictures Animation went through to develop the mind-bending visual effects of Tim Burton's hit film. Interestingly, the animators had a chance to experiment with the way the characters were to act, ranging from realistic to cartoony. Just goes to show you the leeway a big budget production has to experiment along the way. Burton settled on a stylized realism. In addition to completely animated characters like the White Rabbit, there were many hybrid characters such as the Knave of Hearts. One interesting challenge with that character came in the development of the costume. In all the renditions right up to the start of production, he had a large collar, so for the green screen shoot actor Crispin Glover was given a green suit with a high collar. When the final designs came, there was no collar, so the digital artists had to go in and add digital hair to fill in Glover's long hair that was blocked by the green suit's high collar.

The CTN Animation Expo is a new animation event based at the Burbank Convention Center in California. The Expo is mixed with traditional artist, computer artists, schools, software companies, book publishers, Women in Animation and ASIFA, recruiters from well established companies, and several other animation related companies.

I attended on Saturday, November 21^st 2009.  Young men stood outside the convention center spinning bright yellow signs directing patrons to the parking lot. The parking lot was full and I had to park across the street in another lot.  The inside of the convention hall was no different, packed full of people, slowly moving from one seminar room to the next. Clusters of people formed in different corners of the main lobby watching live art demonstrations and lectures.  Lines of people curved around every corner of the building with patrons trying to squeeze into main rooms to watch the seminars.  The expo floor was crammed with people slowly shuffling from one booth to the next. The booths were packed tightly into the expo area, allowing only a little room for foot traffic.  It was a claustrophobic's nightmare.

VFX Animation Supervisor Keith Roberts.

written by Rick DeMott

CTN-X kicked off its first edition on Friday. Nov. 20^th, bringing a new animation conference to Los Angeles. In it's first year, the event had quickly outgrown its home at the Burbank Convention Center with attendees lined up to attend various standing-room only panels. As can be expected from a first time event, there were a few hiccups I heard of from some attendees, specifically regarding registration lists, but overall the event ran smoothly and was put together with an desire to give people the biggest bang for their buck. In the halls of the convention center, there were animation demonstrations from 2D artists. Panels were broadcast in the halls for people to casually watch. A pirate was on hand for artists to sketch. There was plenty to do in between panels and walking the convention floor.

Sessions ran in two rooms in either 45-minute or 20-minute intervals. In a wonderful move, participants went outside after the panel to meet one-on-one with attendees to answer their questions. This gave attendees a more intimate time with panel members and also allowed for a steady flow between panels.