It's a two hour train ride from Montreal, Canada's cosmopolitan capital to Ottawa, the national capital. Forget the stock images of the Parliament buildings, the Mounties, or the concrete barriers in front of the block long US embassy.

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.

So here I am, curled up with a real printed version of the Ottawa International Animation Festival schedule, which I picked up at a local grocery store.

And a red marker.

One more page, last page. It's a handy-dandy candy pink, blue and green, colour coordinated idiot proof festival schedule with all the dates and times.

I can see that half of my choices conflict with each other.

I'll sign off now while I make extreme choices and chop dream screenings.

The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9!

OIAF is a huge event, with lots of activities in numerous venues. As the festival came to a close on Sunday night, it was a pleasure to be able to sink down into the seats of the ByTowne Theatre and watch the Best of the Fest – the award-winning animation shorts.

In my humble opinion, the quality of the animated entries surpassed 2008. Perhaps it is the passion and vision of young student filmmakers that freshened the fare.

The Adobe Prize for Best High School Animation was awarded to Did U See That? by Yuri Rhee, Ha Jung Kim, Paul Kim and Hyun Jung Lee, Korea Animation High School, South Korea. The black-and-white lines of this animation were simple and the story was too – about a young boy haunted by the appearance of a menacing sea turtle and flying hogs. The teen goes to the authorities to report what he’s seen, and is promptly locked up in the loony bin. However, his psychiatrist soon discovers that pigs do fly.

The Best Undergraduate Animation prize went The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! directed by Jake Armstrong, School of Visual Arts, USA. This short had real comic-book space adventure sensibilities in its design and storytelling. It was also an engaging shaggy-dog story, with the shaggy dog being a goggle-eyed alien monster instead of a mutt.

The Best Graduate Animation award was given to Lebensader, directed by Angela Steffen, Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemburg, Germany. This beautifully rendered animation makes bold use of brilliant, flowing colors as a child regards a leaf and witnesses the interconnection of all living things. The animation design has strong kinship Canadian native art styles – simple at first glance but increasingly complex as the eye takes in all the nuances of the presentation.

Special projects like Ultramarines are keeping animators animating.

OIAF’s Chez Ani Café was transformed from a peaceful koffeeklatch to the crowded, boisterous AniMarket as throngs of job-hungry animators jostled to get in line and chat up recruiting companies.

Exhibitors included Walt Disney, Rainmaker, Nelvana, Pipeline Studios, Starz and Studio B, as well as such schools as Algonquin College, Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Sheridan College, Carleton University Interactive Media and Design, Vancouver Film School and Durham College.

The Simpsons' David Silverman.Only at OIAF can you get a chance to talk about the crazy Balloon Boy escapade with veteran Simpsons director David Silverman, and get to compare that incident with a Simpsons episode where prankster Bart pretends to be little Timmy, a boy who has fallen down a well. Happily, like Bart/Timmy, Balloon Boy was safe and sound the whole time.

Silverman talks about his work on The Simpsons – both he TV series and movie – with great affection and enthusiasm. “The Simpsons challenges the intellect and stimulates the intellect,” he says. This, despite the fact that the show relies on what he calls a “double act” routine – with one big idiot leading a lesser idiot.

When asked if another Simpsons feature is in the offing, Silverman replies, “I’m sure in future there will be. Right now, we’re too busy on the show.”

Silverman advises that The Simpsons series is being adjusted for HD format. “Backgrounds had to be redesigned and updated, and that involves a lot of fine line work,” Silverman says.

In 2000, Silverman departed Simpsons territory and co-directed Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado and in 2001, he co-directed Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. “I had been working on The Simpsons for 10 years, and I thought, ‘This can’t last forever’,” Silverman recalls. As it turned out, after those gigs, Silverman returned to The Simpsons’ comfortable couch for another extended run.

David Silverman talks to a packed house at TAC.

It’s a good life when your job involves watching cartoons.

Attendees at the Day 2 Television Animation Conference (TAC) address got to watch some seriously funny cartoons. David Silverman, animation director and producer long associated with The Simpsons, let Homer talk for him through selected clips screened during his speech. And with grainy black-and-white footage showing comedic inspiration as a backdrop, Silverman went on to explain the origin of Homer’s famous “D’oh!”—culled from the exclamations of such comic greats as Oliver Hardy and the Three Stooges.

Silverman also recalled how he got involved with The Simpsons back when it was first created as part of The Tracey Ullman Show. Silverman credits his admiration for the work of Matt Groening (Life in Hell) for his decision to work on the show.

“We didn’t know if The Tracey Ullman Show would get picked up or if The Simpsons would get picked up as part of the show,” Silverman recalls. “We worked hard… all hours of the night. We were trying to please ourselves.”

Years later, that philosophy still holds as Silverman has continued work on The Simpsons show – directing 22 episodes – as well as directing The Simpsons Movie. Other credits include working with DreamWorks on The Road to El Dorado as co-director and with Pixar on Monsters Inc. as co-director.

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.

OIAF Artistic Director Chris Robinson previews Chainsaw by Australian animator Dennis Tupicoff.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) is trying out some new elements this year, including a new venue (the Canadian Museum of Civilization), a new free shuttle bus between venues and new additions to programming, like a live art presentation by Daniel Barrow, who uses an overhead projector and narration to create something called "manual animation."