So what about the films?

... after all this is a film festival.

First of all I want to say that it's really hard to make an excellent film.

I'm just completing my fifth film, and believe me it's very easy to fall in love with your work, not so easy to see it with some objectivity.

All the films that made it into competition are here for a reason - there is something about them that is excellent. It could be the story, or the animation, or a unique voice and style, perhaps it's the way the story and music interplay, it could be an unusual technique, or a particularly superb sense of timing.

Stephen Beck (interim director, LSU Center for

computation & Technology) (l) and John Hays (animation

producer, Howl).

written by Joe Strike

I arrive at Baton Rouge’s Belle Hotel, which until April was the Sheraton Baton Rouge. (BR from here on, saves space.) The hotel’s terrible online reviews don’t seem to apply, as the place is actually quite nice. (Wish the internet service was a little more steady, but I’m online now – for the moment…)

Evening comes and Stephen Beck, the current director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Computation and Technology (the Festival’s host) picks me up. We’re heading for the Rave Theater a ways down from BR’s Shaw Center for the Arts, where the Festival is based. Rave? I’m expecting a spontaneous dance party in some empty warehouse, but the Rave is a classy 15-screen multiplex, and they’re about to show Tangled to various invited guests and schoolkids.

"Legends of Norrath" leads the "Into the Pixel" exhibit.

by Donna Bulford

Another great year of E3 in downtown at the Staples Convention Center. Lots of interesting announcements and events this year. The art exhibition “Into the Pixel” continues to chronicle the ascent of console game graphics from popular culture and street cred to the rare refined air of original paintings inspired by well-known games.  It’s a national sentiment, even the National Endowment of the Arts and the Smithsonian have gotten into the act with shows centered around “the art of video games” (http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/).

Gunnar, Nancy and Nik

Gunnar Strom, Nancy and Nik Phelps

By Nancy Phelps

ANIMATION VOLDA is a unique festival run by animation students at Volda University College.  Volda is a town of roughly 7,000 people of which 3,000 are students and the festival is primarily for students and festival guests.

ANIMATION VOLDA began five years ago by renowned Volda University College Associate Professor of Animation Gunnar Strom.  This year’s three student festival organizers,  Anja Malec, Lara Zlatar, and Ivan Dujmusic, did a wonderful job of decision making, programming, and problem solving but I have a feeling that larger-than-life Gunnar was always around to offer assistance when needed.

By Keeto Lam

Editor’s Note: Film critic and historian Keeta Lam did a presentation at the 60 Years of Hong Kong Animation event and was kind enough to provide AWN with a great synopsis of the history of animation in Hong Kong.

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Animation production in Hong Kong has roughly over sixty years in history. It is not until recently has it been recognized and appreciated as a respected industry.

As early as in the 20’s, when movie making was just emerging, the four Wan brothers of Shanghai had already been considering making an animation film. In the 40’s, Wan lai-min and his twin Wan gu-chen came south to Hong Kong to look for filming resources.  They used their animation "Princess Iron Fan", released in ’41 in Shanghai, as part of the Hong Kong film"Father and Son" which was directed by Shuen Wei in 1953.  The “Movie within movie” format made the record as the earliest animation in Hong Kong.  Until 50’s to 60’s, Hong Kong animation pioneer Mr. Lo kei-ping used self-developed special animation  technique to produce the early special effect films such as"The Buddha's Palm"in ’64(a series of seven films). A lot of animations were hand drawn onto the film stock, without optical synthesis.  Those “hand drawn” film copies were extremely precious.

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.

Eggy Robo was a favorite at the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery. All images courtesy of SIGGRAPH Asia 2008.

I spoke with the Computer Animation Festival (CAF) Chair Jinny Choo about her ideas and vision for CAF. Being the curator and manager of SICAF Seoul, Jinny’s aim was to bring a similar festival feeling to SIGGRAPH Asia and sees it as an opportunity to taste other styles in a global festival. So for the animation fan there were a plethora of programs to choose from. The Electronic Theater, screening the best of the best, was, as usual, the main event, with additional submissions selected for the Animation Theatre I and II and the Special Programme I and II. An addition was the Invited Screenings, showing previous Best of SIGGRAPH Award Winners; Gobelins, K’ARTS and Supinfocom selections; an Australian and India Focus and a Studio AKA Special; complemented by Festival Talks and Panels on Productions.

Grand Prize winners Pritt and Olga Parn

The grand prize went to "Life Without Gabriella Ferri" by Pritt and Olga Parn. This is a complex, sensual, poetic film. "Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death" by Nick Park took the special jury prize. Even though they are masters of the art, these filmmakers were pleased and genuinely touched by the recognition. (For the rest of the award winners see I Castelli Animati's website.)

So here I am in Ottawa, and the film I submitted this year to the festival was rejected. Not only this year but none of my films have made competition here. (I once made the Ottawa student film festival - does that count?)

Not only that, but I'm blogging on the festival and my blogs are really positive. 

So I'm thinking, maybe I should put in some heavy doses of criticism so the folks at the OIAF won't think I'm kissing their royal Canadian asses. But I don't care if they think that. Let them. I'll blog what I want.

written by Joe Strike

Whoops, my bad: what I called Red Stick’s ‘Best of the Fest’ award yesterday is actually their “Golden Baton” prize, and I saw all three films last night. In addition to the music video Lilac Wine, the two other contenders were a Hitchcockian spy spoof (Pigeon: Impossible) and the student effort Blackface, a mystical jungle tale.

While the creators of the first two films (Chris O’Neill and Lucas Martell, respectively) were present, Blackface was represented by Pascal Drzazga (honest to God – he wrote it down so I wouldn’t get it wrong), an instructor from the ESMA (Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques) animation school in Montpelier France where the film was made.