written by Johannes Wolters

You know what´s interesting about the fmx?. You stay there in the foyer, in the halls, you have this big accessibility to each and everyone. So I found myself talking to one of the big visual effects designers of this planet.

Kevin Tod Haugs worked on "Quantum of Solace," "The Kite Runner," "Finding Neverland," "Panic Room" and many more. An his opinion about the stereoscopic films is a technical one: “I just find it heartbreaking, that after years and years and years of dealing with resolution, we are finally getting to the point, where its 2k or 4k, we could make choices, its all gonna be fine, we get digital cameras, we get rid of scanning, its all gonna be fine and then we have to make it twice as complicated. Just, when its gonna be easy, we have to make it hard.”

Tim Willits is the Creative Director at id Software, where he's been since 1995. One of the interesting things in the gaming industry is how so many of their issues predate identical issues in other arenas.

One example is the current UGC / open source / community ownership explosion online, which is having a dramatic impact on music, film, and television. id has always allowed people to modify their games, which has the added benefit of allowing them to identify skilled and passionate talent. All of the designers they've got in software now are from the community; young people out of college with no experience can download games, make changes, add levels, create new art, and use that for their resumes to get into the industry.

The festival’s last day begins with Red Stick’s now-annual Pitch Contest. It might not as well attended as KidScreen’s similar event, but the presenters are every bit as passionate about their projects and after several days of tutoring from industry pros they’re ready to rock: Tim Raglan wants to turn his beautifully illustrated kids’ book Uncle Mugsy (featuring a stuffy bulldog and his mischievous niece and nephew in a Victorian canine universe) into a movie, followed by “many episodes or sequels depending on your personal preference;” Greg Farren and Jeremy Melton merge hot rodders (only their characters race spaceships, not cars), 1950’s-style sci-fi and rockabilly music into an inspired mixture called Crazy Eights; Digital Tap’s Martin Grebing presents Zap Squad, a team of adolescent superheroes (“they’re not your average kids next door”) on time travelling adventures; Patrick, a local cartoonist whose last name I missed offers Guns McMenanin, “the most bad-ass repo man in LA,” and Chris – again last name missing – does as much stand-up as pitching (“this is the most attractive crowd I’ve ever seen at an AA meeting”) while presenting two projects – Spells, a gross-out effort starring a trio of macabre witches (“mean-spirited fun for everyone”) and El Mucho Grande, Wrestler for Hire. (“He’s so big it took two women to give him birth.”)

Partytime at Annecy! Do you know which party is going on today? Are you invited? How do you sneak into a party? And why should you do that?

When I first went to Annecy, I was totally concentrating on watching as many films as possible. I thought that´s the proper way of behaving while being away on a big event like Annecy. Then I discovered the possibility to talk to the people, who actually were responsible for some of the magic I experienced while watching their movies. You could meet them after the screenings, standing patiently in the foyer of the Festival Center called Bonlieu. If you were lucky they would answer some of your questions and draw you some very nice sketches. Then it went back to the next program.

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.

 

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.

You know you've seen too many films when:

You can (almost) always tell an animator by their t-shirt, so I figured the young lady in the Supergirl tee waiting for the hotel shuttle at the Baton Rouge airport had to be in town, like me, for the Red Stick festival. The Supergirl fan turned out to be Carmen Llanos from Comet Entertainment, soon joined by her partner Raquel Benitez in a Chinese dragon tee. (Me, I’m wearing my Comic Book Legal Defense Fund shirt with the tough, healthily-chested cat babe pointing her gun right atcha and politely inquiring “who you tellin’ to shut up!?!”) Last year Carmen and Raquel were here with their Santa vs. Claus feature, the screening of which I missed due to an early departure. This year I’m staying to the very end, which means I’ll get to see their new one, Around the World for Free, which they tell me started as a TV pilot, became a feature and will spin itself off into a TV series after all.

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.

AniFest celebrates the centennial of Czech puppet Master Jiří Trnka with the dedication of AniFest 2012 to the magic of film puppets. Exploring the life of film puppets in the 21st Century, a retrospective of Trnka’s films has been scheduled, along with a unique exhibition of puppets, scripts, original designs and photographs from family archives. Program highlights include film screenings and puppets from Estonia’s Nukufilm Studio, presentations from world-renowned studios such as Mackinnon&Saunders and SE-MA-FOR, and a workshop on how to make your own film puppet.

Festival organizers announced that British animator, director, designer and teacher Barry Purves has accepted the role of honorary president of AniFest 2012. Purves is known as one of the most influential figures in stop-motion, as well as a representative of queer cinema, and will be presenting the best of his films with talks about his work and background, and will explain the entire process of making his masterpieces.