Last year's Opening Ceremonies at the Grand Salle in the Bonlieu. Can't wait!

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. 

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.

The Festival Garden open air screening.

By Nancy Phelps

This year the sun was shining down brightly on the Trickfilm Festival in Stuttgart in more than one way.  Outside, the sky was a beautiful blue and in the screening rooms the films were as brilliant as the sun.

While the competition programs were strong and the feature films in competition offered some interesting surprises, and the highlight of the festival for me this year was the large number of special presentation screenings.

With 170 films in the competitions plus another 800 films screened in special programs and over €61,000 in prize money, Trickfilm Festival has become a major  international event.  Even though it is becoming a large festival with an audience attendance of over 50,000, Stuttgart manages to retain the very personal feeling of a smaller festival making every one of the 2,000 accredited guests feel welcome and special. 

Anita Killi's Angry Man.

There were some tough films in this competition. Three stood out for me.

Cam gets his chance to meet Sundance Buddha Robert Redford

I just got back from the Directors brunch at the Sundance institute approximately one hour out of Park City Utah. I was one of the lucky, being a director/animator for a short in this year's festival called The Real Place, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

This brunch is for many one of the highlights of the festival and though we went last year it was equally exceptional and inspiring. It is a wonderful way to get to know some of the best filmmakers in the world and hear what is on peoples mind.

Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs shows more 3-D potential.

The exhibition has closed but the conference continues on this last day, with 3-D screenings (including some new Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs footage) and E-Tech still attracting lots of attention, even spread out in several rooms and isolated on the third floor. The emphasis is on interactive sensory techniques. And what's hot? "The interconnectivity between the machine and human," asserted Manabu Sakurai, Emerging Technologies chair. "If you see the gaming industry, your console is not just a game console anymore -- part of your body is the game console. And the machine understands your natural movements. And then, in an opposite way, the display, what you see is also getting closer to humans. The key word is 3-D."

A fine display of design and carving skills. The rest are posers. Except the guy with the pumpkin speedo.

By Dan Sarto

The Animator’s Picnic is inspired event programming – stop all proceedings, go to a park, eat, drink, see and be seen.  Find old friends, meet new friends.  On this unseasonably beautiful Autumn day, as I gaze out on the crowd of young animators, the future of our industry, I can’t help but think…I feel so old. Nothing like a large gathering of energetic young hipsters, free from the burdens of metabolic decline and hearing loss, to remind you just what a sorry-ass geez you are.  The crowd gets younger, the walk to the Bytowne Cinema gets longer and no amount of Advil or Scotch can change that.  Sometimes I wonder, if I start talking to a young female animation student, am I perceived as someone who has something useful to say, or just a perve?  Can one be both?

Check out a selection of pictures from this year’s picnic and pumpkin carving contest…

"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

Provocative Ottawa 09 poster.

OIAF 2009 got off to a brisk start in equally brisk Ottawa weather of just 5°C or 41°F.

Still, it was toasty inside the Chateau Laurier hotel, where the 6^th annual Television Animation Conference (TAC) got underway. Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien made opening remarks at the TAC breakfast, welcoming delegates to the sold-out conference and remarking on the growth of the animation industry and inviting more animation companies to set up shop here.

TAC’s Day 1 keynote speaker, Josh Selig, founder and president of NYC-based Little Airplane Productions, spoke to the capacity crowd about creating personal projects that animators “want to do and are born to do” rather than those “that networks want to buy.”

This philosophy has proved a winning one for Selig, who has created such series as The Wonder Pets! (Nick Jr.) and 3^rd & Bird (BBC and Treehouse, Canada).

During his TAC keynote, Selig screened a new Little Airplane project, Small Potatoes, which featured some very cute potatoes singing about the power of imagination. The concept was recently shopped at MIP, and Selig tells AWN, “I have a buyer for that show.”

Selig described a little of Small Potatoes animation style. “We used photo puppetry for The Wonder Pets! but we sculpted the potatoes and animated them in after effects,” he says. When creating Small Potatoes, Selig fused writing the script and writing the music, which is all recorded in-house at Little Airplane.

Aimee McCammon of Park Road.

AnimfxNZ 2008 began with a song.

A contingent of Maori gathered to perform a 'powhiri', or New Zealand traditional welcome. The foreign visitors and speakers lined up so the kaumatua could determine if they were friends or foes. Thankfully, there were no enemies among them, and the conference was able to proceed.