An upbeat Cartoon Forum, recently ended September 16th in Sopot, Poland- seems to have made a tremendous impact on the European animation business scene.   Sixty-six new animation series from 19 European countries were presented to over 800 participants at this year’ three-day event.  “The best Cartoon Forum in years” reverberates in post-Forum conversations with broadcasters, co-producers, distributors, investors and creators.  It’s unanimous.  Everyone loved Poland, and has had little time to go home and catch their collective breaths before heading to Cannes, France.

Cartoon Forum participants will “continue the Poland conversations” in the south of France, during MIP Junior (October 1 and 2) and MIPCOM (October 3-6). Many producers are optimistic about securing significant, tangible results for Cartoon Forum animation projects.  Making new deals needs to be done quickly all agree, due to the scary economic climate everybody’s facing today across Europe, and the rest of the globe. 

 

By Linda Beck

To get the most out of KidScreen, you need to set up as many meetings as you can ahead of time and on the fly with other delegates and/or companies.  In order to have meetings, you need to have something to talk about and that's usually a property you'd like to pitch or an idea of what you'd like to option with which you'd like to partner.  The opportunities are there, but dance cards fill up quickly.

By Ellen Besen

Festival fever can hit hard - you’re all pent up ready for a good time - and then just as suddenly it’s over…          

OIAF is wrapping up for another year - a good time to consider the best and worst of this venerable festival. Festivals can be addictive with all the ups and downs that word implies - a chance to break and out and party with friends from all over the world - but also an exhausting slog during which you inevitably hit moments where you wonder why you do this year after year. What elements feed these opposing sensations? A whole bunch of details it seems some which change over the years and some which form the traditional foundation of any particular festival.

February 27, 2013. Two months before FMX opens its doors, Europe's most influential Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia is pleased to announce that two Pixar films are part of the FMX Conference program. Firstly, the Director and Scriptwriter Saschka Unseld presents his latest work, the Pixar animated short The Blue Umbrella, in Stuttgart. Furthermore, newly-awarded Oscar winner Brave has been confirmed for a presentation. In April 2013, the technical focus at FMX includes a series on "Cloud Gaming" and "Cloud Computing" opened by keynote speaker Jon Peddie (JPR). What's more, Austria, Toronto and Turkey count among this year's "Innovative Places." In addition, market leaders such as Adobe and Autodesk invite attendees to take part in exciting Workshops, while the premiere of the "Fast Forward Education" seeks to build bridges between academia and industry.

Monday nights' Evening Theater began with the introduction of host Miles Perkins, senior staff at Industrial Light and Magic. He kicked off the award ceremony by paving the way for Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic. Scott presented the awards for SIGGRAPH's 2009 animation festivals. Out of 770 submissions the following were selected for three categories.

Imagina, a longstanding computer graphics conference in Europe, has transformed itself in 2009 to cater more toward the industrial and building industries, with the prior media and entertainment scope being served by one of several sub-conference tracks. The tracks in 2009 include Architecture & Urbanism, Driving Simulation, Landscape and Territory, and Media and Entertainment. Addressing this shift, the Media and Entertainment track included speakers and panels intended to address commonalities and differences between architectural visualization and feature film visual effects work.

Friday, the final day of the VIEW Conference, and a time for summing up. Let’s make a list:

• That luscious gianduia chocolate.

• On the technical side, the computer graphics folks such as Paul Topolos of Pixar, Lucia Modesto of PDI-DreamWorks, and Jack Grahm of Double Negative seemed to revel in showing off what they have been able to do with their new toys and techniques.

The VIEW Conference 2009 [http://www.viewconference.it/] is the 10th International Computer Graphics Conference, which started on November 4^th and will last until the 7^th of November 2009. It's held in the beautiful city of Turin, in the north of Italy, where I had the pleasure of attending this event, now for the fourth time.

Previously I have had the opportunity to tell the wonderful series of events happening at the Torino Incontra Conference Center to a magazine, a blog, and a CG portal. This year I have the great honour to talk to Animation World Network's readers.

The sparkling energy behind VIEW is Maria Elena Gutierrez who is driving a group of partner institutions, private and public sector, in investing in innovation and knowledge-sharing in the field of Technology and Creativity.

 

 

By Dan Sarto

Take a quick glance at some of the people I met up with yesterday while stumbling around the annual Animator's Picnic and later, while trying to get warm at the Arts Court cafe and Aniboutique.  Old friends, new friends, a pretty uninspired procession of eviscerated gourds. Oh, and have I told you, it's cold here? Aye?

 

 

By Dan Sarto

My flight to Geneva leaves tomorrow morning at 7:50, an ungodly hour to begin 24+ hours of delirium shuffling through airports, getting groped by stink-eyed security drones, squeezing into airline seats designed for anorexics, all the while wondering why I’m not home asleep in bed, or watching Archer reruns while sipping a delicious Kamikazee.

Just in the last year, while traveling to events, I’ve had my laptop perused for 30 minutes by a grim-faced soldier with a flak vest, Baretta 9mm and little sense of humor, I’ve endured strange hands on my package that weren’t my own or my wife’s, I’ve set off a metal detector with a long forgotten Bit O’Honey bar in my back pocket (at least I could dry my tears at the gate with yummy nougat).  I’ve even been engaged at a customs desk for 10 minutes of banter by a policeman who went to grade school with Andrew Stanton. I never would have guessed that “Andy was a good drawer” way back in 4^th grade. No matter where I travel, my embarkation gate is always the last one in the terminal, past the mop bucket, around the corner from the dusty construction zone, right next to the kiosk that only sells overpriced vitamin water and 20 magazines with Lady Gaga or Simon Cowell on the cover.

Contrary to popular wisdom, not only is travel these days less than fun, it downright blows.

However, at least I know that after 24+ hours of travel starting in the wee hours tomorrow morning, I’ll arrive in Annecy.  Though I loathe the path, the destination is worth the hassle.