Image ©2012 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

The VIEW Conference has announced the European premiere of Pixar Animation Studios’ latest short film, Partysaurus Rex, to be presented by award-winning director, animator, actor, storyboard artist and writer Mark Walsh.

Walsh graduated from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1997, winning a Student Emmy for his animated short film, Extra Crispy. At Pixar, Mark became part of a group of fellow actors and stuntmen, animating on such films as A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., the animated short Presto, and the Academy Award-winning feature The Incredibles.

Dedicated to bringing together experts from around the world to inspire, engage, teach, and astound, VIEW, Italy’s leading computer graphics symposium, proudly announces highlights from its upcoming 13th annual confab.

“This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting VIEW conferences ever,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “We are privileged to bring two feature film directors to Torino this year, Genndy Tartakovsky and Eric Darnell. Also, the European premiere of the Pixar Animation Studios latest short, Partysaurus Rex presented by its director Mark Walsh and also the amazing Gary Rydstrom from Skywalker Sound, and director Dan Attias who shares his award-winning expertise in broadcast television. Plus, we have highly-honored speakers from the top visual effects and game development studios. And, we are offering our first Creative Bootcamp. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the program this year.”

The VIEW Conference is proud to announce that award winning director Genndy Tartakovsky (“Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Samurai Jack,” “Star Wars: Clone Wars”) will present and discuss his feature film debut, Sony Pictures Animation’s 3D monster comedy Hotel Transylvania, for the first time in Italy during the 2012 conference, October 16 to 19 in Turin, Italy.

Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monsters they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of the world’s most famous monsters — Frankenstein and his wife, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more — to celebrate his daughter Mavis’ 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem — but his world could come crashing down when a human stumbles on the hotel for the first time and takes a shine to Mavis.

Columbia Pictures presents a Sony Pictures Animation film, Hotel Transylvania.  The film features the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg,Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, and CeeLo Green.  Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.  Produced by Michelle Murdocca.  Screenplay by Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel.  Story by Todd Durham and Daniel Hageman & Kevin Hageman.  Executive producers are Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel and Allen Covert.  Music by Mark Mothersbaugh.  Music Supervision by Liza Richardson.  Imagery and Animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc.

By Nancy Phelps

This year was a very special 30^th Anniversary for the Trickfilm Festival of Animated Film in Stuttgart, Germany.  My week began Monday evening, the night before the official festival opening, when I attended the opening reception for an exhibition of works by former students of Professor Albrecht Ades, founder of the prestigious Film Academy Baden-Wurttemberg in the nearby town of Ludwigsburg.  He is credited with ushering in a new era of modern German animation which was highly influenced by Czech works and laid the foundation for today’s thriving entertainment industry in the Baden- Wurttemberg region.

The large outdoor screen

From 1980 to 1991 some 30 films were produced in his class and the Professor’s strong motivating influence on his students is reflected in the works of some of the now famous animators who studied under him.  Looking at the graphic works in the exhibit, some by Thomas Meyer-Hermann, Andreas Hykade, Sabine Huber and Gil Alkabetz, I could see that they have taken their teacher’s motto “We must kill Mickey Mouse” to heart.

For the 2012 opening night ceremony, the festival staff chose a new format.  Instead of the usual round of introductions and speeches followed by a screening, the first competition program was interspersed among the introductory speeches.  The festival received a special birthday present when Malte Dringenberg, head of Mercedes-Benz Classic Press Office, who announced to the audience that Mercedes-Benz has become a very active festival sponsor.  (Stuttgart is the home of Mercedes-Benz.) Another high point of the evening was  the awarding of special Life Time Achievement Trixie Statutes to Professor Albrect  Ades and Gabriele Rothemeyer.  Ades founded the Trickfilm Festival and served as its first artistic director from 1982 to 2003.  Ms. Rothemeyer followed him in the position from 2003 to 2005, and succeeding her is Ulrich Wegenast, the present director.

Paperman Producer Kristina Reed and Director John Kahrs.

By Haley Hughes

Premiering at The Los Angeles Film Festival last Sunday June 17^th, Disney’s Paperman, directed by John Kahrs and produced by Kristina Reed, is a very sweet short  film that embodies Disney’s optimism and romanticism.

My cat Dexter, doing his impression of the look the waiter at the Imperial Palace gave Max Howard after he'd inquired as to the whereabouts of the capuccino he'd ordered 15 minutes previously.

By Dan Sarto

As the week winds down and I find myself craving a simple green salad, I figured I'd share more images from my time at the festival.  Formal write-ups will have to wait until early next week I'm afraid, when I've recovered from the jet lag, the lack of sleep and the searing memory of a student film in competition depicting a man being sodomized by an umbrella.

My cat Steven, doing his impression of the look the waiter gave me at lunch Monday when I told him the salad dressing had too much Dijon mustard.

By Dan Sarto

Since I’m finding time so scarce this week, I have not yet finished any of my formal write-ups.  So for now, I'm posting some initial images from the first couple days of the festival.  I apologize in advance if I don’t name everyone, or if I messup a name.  My memory has been dulled by too much cheese.

By Mika Kennedy

Conventions (or "cons", in the fannish parlance) like Creation Entertainment's SupernaturalCon in Burbank, CA aren't looking to secure their next legion of television-watching prospectives.  They're not like San Diego's Comic-Con, with a warehouse full of vendors, promotional panels, or enticements designed to help you remember their name.  If you've been to Comic-Con in the last six years, you're there for what's to come--television's new spread of genre shows this season, exciting upcoming developments in extant genre shows, the newest set of genre tropes graving the silver screen this summer.

Supernatural's Burbank Con isn't like that, nor does it try to be.  "News" doesn't factor in, and rarely does "new" in any sense.  If anyone was there to glean some juicy spoilers, talk candidly and specifically about what the next few episodes will have to offer, they walked away empty-handed.  And if you stop to think about it, it makes sense:  within the realm of single-series fan conventions it's a sure bet that your target audience, by virtue of the rapid-fire dissemination of info via Twitter, Tumblr, and LiveJournal (the dinosaur of this triumvirate)--they already know the hottest info you could possibly offer.  There's almost no point in bringing any news to the table, because your audience already heard it from Ask Ausiello; they Tweeted a producer and received an answer; someone hiding in the bushes in Vancouver Instagrammed paparazzi photos of that day's scenes and now the entire Internet's already seen it.  Should you disregard this ineffable truth and choose to divulge something at the con, the fans on the outside will absolutely hear about it before half the audience does, thanks to the more nimble-fingered Twitterers in attendance.  And I can speak from experience on that one--the first thing one of my Internet pals said to me when she learned I'd been to the Burbank Con was, "SO YOU SAW JENSEN IN A HOODIE???"

By Emily Wong

Hong Kong Animation Filmmaker Society

By Keeto Lam

Editor’s Note: Film critic and historian Keeta Lam did a presentation at the 60 Years of Hong Kong Animation event and was kind enough to provide AWN with a great synopsis of the history of animation in Hong Kong.

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Animation production in Hong Kong has roughly over sixty years in history. It is not until recently has it been recognized and appreciated as a respected industry.

As early as in the 20’s, when movie making was just emerging, the four Wan brothers of Shanghai had already been considering making an animation film. In the 40’s, Wan lai-min and his twin Wan gu-chen came south to Hong Kong to look for filming resources.  They used their animation "Princess Iron Fan", released in ’41 in Shanghai, as part of the Hong Kong film"Father and Son" which was directed by Shuen Wei in 1953.  The “Movie within movie” format made the record as the earliest animation in Hong Kong.  Until 50’s to 60’s, Hong Kong animation pioneer Mr. Lo kei-ping used self-developed special animation  technique to produce the early special effect films such as"The Buddha's Palm"in ’64(a series of seven films). A lot of animations were hand drawn onto the film stock, without optical synthesis.  Those “hand drawn” film copies were extremely precious.