Hans Rijpkema

Friday is field trip day at the Red Stick Festival – It seems as if half of Baton Rouge’s school population has been bussed in to take part in the festivities. I share an elevator With Walt Santucci of Duck Studios, on his way to lead an all-day animation workshop with the local school kids. I bump into him again at days’ end; his group produced some 9 anti-global warming PSA’s, with some of the best work done, he says, by kids with no previous animation experience. If you teach them too much at once they start worrying if they’re doing it right or not…

Overlooking the canal

By Dan Sarto

25 hours after leaving my comfy LA bed, I’ve arrived in Annecy.  The town is quiet, but it’s the quiet before a storm brewing on the distant horizon.  The calm is in direct contrast to my second flight, from DC to Geneva.  Sprawled within 5 feet of my seat were not 1 but 2 families, 6 kids total, 4 parents, 1 nanny and 1 set of grandparents.  Not one kid was over the age of 7.  In an age of fundamental change in airline comfort, service and safety, where the indignities of modern travel begin when you undress to get through security, one thing seems perfectly clear – kids either should be confined in storage or not be allowed on planes at all. Nothing like getting woken up by a toddler pulling your arm, asking you, “Why are you so fat?” How cute. For that matter, teens should be barred from travel completely. And from the dinner table.

SIGGRAPH winner - Wojciech Matusik

Well, there’s been a lot of anticipation and curiosity about SIGGRAPH returning to New Orleans (or Nola), not only since this marks the first major conference since Katrina but also because of the severity of the downturn. Yes, attendance may be sparse, but, you know what? A light turnout is in keeping with the quaint vibe here. And, despite the predictable heat and humidity, it’s not as bad as I remember growing up in nearby Ocean Springs, Mississippi (near Biloxi) back in the early '70s. And this new Convention Center (though very long) is beautiful, clean and easy to navigate -- so far.

sex, lies, and videotape director and cast celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark indie feature.

I am sitting in the filmmakers lounge at Sundance headquarters watching the historic inauguration of Barack Obama. I am amongst a crowd of filmmakers, and there is a clear sense of hope and relief that this day has arrived. Cheers and boos accompany politicians as they show on TV (take a wild guess who gets the boos). It’s an event that rightfully will overshadow the Sundance film festival but fitting when thinking about the 20th anniversary screening yesterday of sex, lies and videotape, by Steven Soderbergh, as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Sundance.

VIEW Conference visitors The Hive filmmaking collective presents their credentials and contemplates transformation

The autumn haze in Turin is downright metaphorical. The precursor of another grey Po Valley winter, a haze that creeps into the bones and causes a ridiculously high percentage of arthritis in these parts. Sunny Italy my foot.

Annecy Poster

By David Tousek of 3BOHEMIANS

First time travelling to Annecy, a place that has such a positive canotation just through people talking about how it was like when they visited the Festival, that thinking about coming myself was tempting for quite some time already. Now I took the chance. We have arrived late on Tuesday, June 7th taking it slowly from sunny bohemian Prague to a slightly rainy, but still pretty warm, French town on a lake under the Alps. That’s one nice and picturesque idea to explore this week.

"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

Nancy and Estonian animator Kasper Jancis doing what they do well.

By Nancy Phelps

Each year I look forward to Anima Brussels because it is my first festival of the year and an opportunity to see a large number of new Belgian animated films.  Over the ten days of ANIMA there are also many noted guests and old friends.

Roland Emmerich talks about the end of the world in 2012.

San Diego Comic-Con 2009 continued to astound audiences daily as the Hollywood studios debuted their most prized properties for public consumption, many for the first time ever. Friday was Disney’s animation showcase day in Hall H with their annual sneak peek of what the esteemed animation division has coming to theaters in the next year. The major coup was Disney/Pixar’s John Lasseter welcoming Japanese Animation legend Hayo Miyazaki to the con for a panel on his upcoming release Ponyo. Focus also showed off their stop-animation gem, 9. And then Saturday was blockbuster day for Warner Bros, Sony and Paramount with films such as Jonah Hex, 2012 and Iron Man 2 earning major audience kudos and con buzz.

Zap Squad in pitch contest.

Red Stick began today for real, sort of. An abbreviated session wrapped up around 4, in time for people to go out and enjoy the warm Louisiana sun – which they needed to do after spending the past several hours in the sub-zero temperatures of the Shaw Center’s Manship Theatre. (Don’t they know this is Earth Day, you’re supposed to cut back on the AC and all that?)

First session was dedicated to ‘New Business Models,’ which are actually combinations of old business models and guess what, the internet. Animation distributors and networks are on the lookout for “content that people are already connecting with,” according to panelist Leah Hoyer of the Disney Channel, adding that videos that spread virally (what they used to call ‘word of mouth’ before there was an internet) turn the internet into an ad-hoc focus group; if a comedy or animated video gets 500,000 hits in a few days, a major distributor can safely assume a lot more of that demographic will be interested in seeing the video too. Phrases like ‘branded entertainment,’ ‘monetize on-line content,’ ‘user-generated content’ and ‘DRM’ [digital rights management] were bandied about by all present. The takeaways: high-definition content is in demand – and practice your pitch on your friends before you go into a for-real meeting.