While Goro Miyazak’s animated feature, Tales from Earthsea, stands on its own as an entertaining film that did well in its Japanese theatrical run, there’s no doubt that the inevitable comparisons to his father and scrutiny from the book’s fans would overshadow the film’s merits to some degree.

The arrival on Blu-ray of Miyazaki’s timeless feature, Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind reminds me why I mortgaged the farm to buy a top-of-the-line HD-TV and dvd player last year. The true beauty of the director’s visual style, his painterly landscapes and explosions of color have never been more apparent than with this new Blu-ray release.

Nancy Denney-Phelps travels to Norway to take part in the Fredrikstad Animation Festival. The event has an emphasis on screening Nordic animation but offers so much more. Along with Nordic short film and student competitions and screenings of animation aimed at the family audience, two days were devoted to seminars with international guest speakers from all branches of the animation world.

Bastien Dubois tells us about his personal journey making Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage.

Do you believe in magic? Do you remember how you felt when you saw a magic trick for the first time? Have you ever wondered what a magician’s life is really like? That is the story behind The Illusionist, a rapturously animated feature film by French animation director Sylvain Chomet about the languishing art of amusement, recently nominated for an Oscar.

Joe Strike sits in on Stephen DeStefano's storyboarding class at MoCCA, part of the museum's ongoing educational program.

The directors and producer of Day & Night and Tick Tock Tale discuss how small films really are big at their studios.

Without good direction, you end up with drek. Problems with sequence timing or the render pipeline can be solved with relative ease – problems of mismanagement are difficult to overcome and usually spell doom. Animation directors aren’t directing animation, they’re directing a group of people who are working in arguably the most time consuming and exacting of creative mediums. David Levy's new book Directing Animation at its heart strives to teach the reader how to keep an animation production crew happy, productive and on task.

The director of China's biggest animated feature discusses its hand-drawn importance.

Ryan Woodward's film "Thought of you" offers a great look at what hand animation has to offer, and what an animator and his audience can expect from the medium.

A close encounter with the five more YouTube Play award winners, L through N.

The big problem with the Oscars is that if there are more than 15 films qualifying, then the number of nominations expands from 3 films to 5. Obviously, with 5 films I have a much better shot, like Secret of the Kells last year. But with only 3 films nominated, they usually go to the Hollywood Blockbusters.

No other festival I’m aware of consistently generates as much controversy as does the Ottawa Festival. People may scratch their heads at the judging decisions in Annecy (insert favorite French joke here), but in Ottawa, beer-fueled grumbling and incessant whining are as much a part of the annual festivities as head-scratching competition screening introductions and the cavalcade of toothless panhandlers lining Rue Rideau.

My favorite lesson is one of the hardest for newbies to understand - and it is one of the most fun.

The first trailer for Walt Disney's upcoming hand-drawn feature WINNIE THE POOH has arrived on AWNtv.

Is love a bitch? Apparently so for British author J. R. Ackerley. He was always looking for an elusive companion to come to his life, yet this companion never materialized … until Tulip, a mischievous female German Shepherd came to his life and became inseparable. Together, they started many misadventures, including searching for the ideal vet and mate for Tulip, and other ordeals which turned out to be much harder than it seemed.

What are digital skills and why should you care about them? You're an artist, right? Well, if you are and you are reading this from the AWN Web site, you're already tuned into digital skills in a big way whether or not you're aware of them. The truth is, to be an artist today and get paid for it, a working knowledge of computers is a necessity.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) comes to an end with a highly anticipated closing ceremonies which were held this evening at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. OIAF organizers announced the 2010 winners of the official competition during the ceremonies.

Whatever you call it, abstract/experimental ruled the day in Competition 5. Here are some highlights.

I have no comment on Competition 3 and only a couple films stood out for me in Competition 4.