SIGGRAPH announces the Computer Animation Festival's Best in Show, Jury Award, and Best Student Project recipients for SIGGRAPH 2010 to be held in Los Angeles this July.

South African animator Mike Scott has created a new 52-episode shorts series called HAPPYLAND SHORTS.

Anima, the International Animation Film Festival of Brussels will take place at the Flagey Centre from 4th to 13th March 2011 and will be celebrating its 30th edition. In fact, the first ever Anima took place in February 1982. Over one hundred films in the official competition (shorts and features, commercials and music videos), retrospectives, exhibitions, film master classes, workshops for the kids, the Futuranima professional days, round table discussions, numerous guests and cine-concerts, make Brussels THE international appointment with animation for the beginning of the year. If you add events like "the Animated Night", the Cartoon d'Or and the Cosplay, Anima has established itself as a must for the thirty thousand spectators that flock to the Flagey Centre. And a special date to mark with a cross this year: we'll be celebrating thirty years of surprises, fun and discoveries.

Anima 2011 Competition

Short-film: short animated films made after June 30, 2009 regardless of its geographic origin, except of Belgium.Student film: short animated films made after June 30, 2009 regardless of its geographic origin, except of Belgium.Music videos and Commercials : short animated films made after June 30, 2009 regardless of its geographic origin.Feature-film previews: animated feature films made after June 30, 2009, regardless of its geographic origin.Feature-film for children previews: animated feature films made after June 30, 2009, regardless of its geographic origin.Belgian shorts: Belgian animated films completed after June 30, 2009.

Amongst these categories, some shorts will constitute an international competition and some others a national competition, with money prizes from 1.000 up to 2.500 Euros.

The Festival looks after the round trips of selected films and awards anumber of cash and other prizes to the winners.

Deadlines

Entry forms: October 15, 2010 (no entry fees)
Arrival of prints: February 11, 2011

ANIMANIMA Festival is open for the applications of the authors from all over the world. All works created frame by frame in any available techniques are acceptable. If film presents combination of animation and live action, animated parts are to correspond to at least 50% of the total length of the film.

Competition - Categories:
1) films attended for the general public with the running time up to 30 minutes
2) animated commercials and music videos.

Festival Awards:
Grand Prix - “Golden peg bar”, “C&M Special” for the best animated commercial or music video, Best art directing, Best animation, Audience Award. There are also Festival Jury's special distinctions for the best script, music&sound and artistic achievement.

Competition Screening: DVD (PAL) – Region Free. Supply high quality DVD copies.  

3D art creation and animation software from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) played an integral role in Remedy Entertainment's production of their recently released video game, "Alan Wake."

The waves are building off the coast of Spain, set to crash into the beach in June when Director Patrick Trefz' latest surf movie, Idiosyncrasies, hits the Amstel Surfilmfestibal 8 in San Sebastián.

AWNtv has posted an exclusive clip from Pixar's new short film, DAY & NIGHT.

This week on the Frenzer Foreman Animation Forum, Alan experiments with the fine art of circular breathing and Joel achieves a record-setting number of "nows" while both puzzle over the continuing misappearance of the FFAF computer. Then, after some hard-battled man-powered guest-summoning, screen writer and Troma film starlet Adeline Colangelo enters the Forum to dish about writing for animation, how one stumbles into being a professional writer, and the finer points of like, ya know, mumble-core.

We are just finishing our second week of production on MIMI AND GACK. This year there is a whole new crew with a set of veterans from last year’s production of PETE’S ODYSSEY.

In an interview with MSN, TOY STORY 3 director Lee Unkrich talked about the future of the TOY STORY characters.

While our nation's military conflicts continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new generation of Veterans are returning to tell their war stories on film by becoming the directors and producers of their own documentaries. In Their Boots, a documentary series, presents OPERATION IN THEIR BOOTS, a paid film fellowship that will allow five Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans to get behind the camera and transform their experiences at war into powerful films fit for the silver screen.

This endlessly clever short is one of the best produced by Pixar. Teddy Newton’s film features two 2D characters with a CG world alive in their bodies. One represents day and the other night. When Night sees the beautiful women sunbathing by the pool inside Day, a howl of jealousy bellows from him. He tries to take what day has, but every attempt shows that things that go on in the light are not the same in the dark.

 

Each year the Sundance Film Festival selects 200 films for exhibition from more than 9,000 submissions. More than 50,000 people attend screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. In addition to discovering filmmaking's newest talent through the Festival's program of documentary, dramatic, and short films, Festivalgoers experience live music performances, panel discussions with leading filmmakers and industry figures, cutting-edge media installations, parties celebrating the Festival community, and more.

Tokyo Disneyland has said it will launch a new 3-D Mickey Mouse attraction on January 24th, reports VARIETY.

Superfad's short film "Preguntas Hermosas" evokes a time that was shared between two people, told through a combination of "Poema X" by Pablo Neruda and "Under the Harvest Moon" by Carl Sandburg.

Sydney Opera House in partnership with Screen NSW invites the worldwide animation community to take part in Graphic: an online animation competition designed to celebrate the innovation, creativity, and imagination behind the art form.

Illustrators, animators and storytellers of all levels – from established to up-and-coming and newcomers – are encouraged to enter. The winning entry will score $20,000 prize money and be screened at a major Graphic Festival event at Sydney Opera House in August.

A panel of expert judges and members of the public will vote for the most original and creative animations over the course of 3 consecutive rounds.

The competition starts on June 10 and entries for Round 1 must be submitted by June 26.

How it works

Participants will be required to create 3 x 20 second animatics that come together to form a 3-part series. All styles of animation will be accepted and could be anything from a story board comic to stop motion to 3D. Live action will not be accepted. An entrant can be an individual or a creative team.

In round 1, entrants must create a 20 second animatic that includes ALL of the following elements:

i. Overarching theme: Recovery

ii. Characterising element: 7 years old

iii. Sound FX: A yawn

In rounds 2 and 3, entrants must build on their initial story and an additional element will need to be included in each animation.

Watch our introduction video from animation guru Rob Coleman and our 3 demonstration videos (on the right) which showcase different animation styles, the breadth of what can be done and how the supplied elements have been incorporated.

Visit the competition website at http://www.graphic.sydneyoperahouse.com.

Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest, an animated short, is about Ms. Ingrid Pitt, a young Jewish girl and Holocaust survivor. When she was 8 years old, Ms. Pitt miraculously escaped the Stutthof concentration camp with her mother, surviving in the forest until the end of the War. I have the great honor to be invited by Beyond the Forest director and producer Mr. Kevin Sean Michaels and two-time Academy Award nominee Mr. Bill Plympton to be the sole animator for this film.

The Annecy International Animation Festival wrapped up its 50th edition on June 12, 2010.

On this decisode of the Frenzer Foreman Animation Forum, Alan and Joel lament over the mysterious disappearance and unplanned obsolescence of The FFAF Computer, while entertaining a career in side-show freakery. Then Baman Piderman's own power-couple, shoe-illustrator Lindsay Small and shoe-phobic Alex Butera, discuss dinner, dating, working in cartoons, cartoon networking, avant-god animation assignments, and how perfectly complimentary skill sets boost both animation production and home economy. FFAF then gets a personal invite to their wedding where Joel and Alan will release doves through inventive voice-acting calisthenics.

SHUTTER ISLAND writer Laeta Kalogridis has sold his pitch for a live-action remake of the Serbian animated short, TECHNOTISE; EDIT AND I, to Legendary Pictures, reports HEAT VISION.