RFX is hosting its annual technology BBQ, featuring free training, product debuts and a chance to meet developers. Below is a list of attending companies: * Alias - Maya 7 & Motion Builder 7, talk with Senior Application Engineers. * Apple - Shake 4, meet Developers and Support Team. * The Pixel Farm - Debut of PFClean (dust removal and clean-up tools), also PFTrack (3D tracking) PFPlay (2k playback). See Shake/PFTrack/Maya workflow. * The Foundry - Furnace 3 Debut Meet with the Developers. * mental images - mental ray + FREE TRAINING meet experts from mental images. More info on training here. * Next Limit - Real Flow + FREE TRAINING talk to fluid dynamics experts. More info on training here. * Silhouette - Debut of Roto with 2D paint. * Cirque Digital - GDI Explorer (asset management). * WaveGen - Textureloader Pro for Maya. * The Gnomon Workshop - Training DVD's. * Pixologic - Zbrush - 3D modeling RSVP to rsvp@rfx.com, including your name, company, email, phone and street address. The event will run from 12:30

The Slamdance Screenplay Competition accept screenplays in every genre, both feature and short length, on any topic from every country around the world. The grand prize is $7,000 and best short prize is $500. The Duke City Shootout Special Prize gives the winner a production package worth $50,000 for a short screenplay under 15 pages.

For the first time, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will include "The Comix Strip," an entire section of the popular event dedicated to showcasing comics, graphic novels and manga. "The Comix Strip" will feature booths from prominent comic book publishers, retailers, and distributors as well as the inimitable writers and artists who create these hip and unique works. Comix Strip-related programming will include a special Festival panel to be hosted by LOS ANGELES TIMES pop culture writer, Geoff Boucher, entitled "Comics: Superheroes of the Page and Screen." Panelists include Jeph Loeb, co-executive producer of the smash TV hit HEROES and writer for some of the industry's most well-known characters, including Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America and Wolverine; Mike Mignola, creator of HELLBOY; and Steve Niles, creator of the 30 DAYS OF NIGHT graphic novel franchise. Other panels include "Reading Manga: A Japanese Phenomenon Comes to America," and "Graphic Novels: Every Picture Tells a Story." Additional comic book luminaries are slated to participate in autograph sessions at booths throughout the weekend. Image Comics, Boom! Studios, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Animation Magazine, and Animal Army Comics are among the list of exhibitors. More than140,000 attendees are expected this year, as the festival brings together a cool, eclectic and family-friendly line-up of talent, storytellers, celebrities, musical performances and literary giants. The Festival will be held April 26 and 27 on the UCLA campus. General event information can be found at http://latimesfestivalofbooks.com/ or by calling 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 7BOOK. Admission is free, but tickets are required to attend author/panel discussions and lectures. Because seating at these events is limited, tickets will be made available for a $.75 per ticket fee at Ticketmaster.com and through select Ticketmaster locations in Southern California beginning at Noon on April 20 and until capacity has been reached.

The 16th Annual Digital Hollywood Spring is a leading conference for the entertainment, media and technology executives. The event will feature special events, exhibits, sponsorships and speaking engagements. More than 300 industry speakers will be participating in the event. For more information, call (212) 352-9720 or visit www.digitalhollywood.com.

Organized by International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), the 16th Annual Kid Power! conference will be held June 8-10, 2009 at the Disney Yacht & Beach Club in Orlando, FL. This industry-leading forum for Marketing and Brand Strategists explores the latest trends, case studies and research in how to reach kids, the whole family and "whole child".

Changing government regulations that dictate the "how" and "what" of marketing to kids, the public backlash against product initiatives and the increasing placement in alternative mediums adds to the complexity that marketers face and has driven more relationship-oriented trends in marketing. The 16th Annual Kid Power! features innovators in the "kid space" including The National Football League, LEGO, Boy Scouts of America, Scholastic, Tween Brands, MyYearbook and more. Participants will stay ahead of these ever-changing trends by:

-- Understanding who their target audience is and how to reach them in an engaging, constructive way
-- Learning new research on connecting with moms, dads, grandparents and other family members
-- Exploring new technologies, like social networking & mobile marketing, and how to use them successfully
-- Using partnerships for targeted marketing to reduce marketing spend in the current economy

The audience for this event includes Kid, Youth and Family Brands and professionals involved in Strategy & Trend Analysis, Branding, Marketing & Advertising, Merchandising, Web & Media, Agencies and Licensors.

For additional information, visit www.kidpowerx.com, follow Kid Power on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KidPowerX, or contact Abby Lombardi at +1 212-885-2660 or abby.lombardi@iqpc.com.

The Florida Motion Picture and Television Association (FMPTA) is hosting the Crystal Reel Awards (CRA). The Crystal Reel Awards have been compared to Florida

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka has been organizing the International Exhibition of Drawings since 1968. Forty years after the first exhibition, drawing returns to Rijeka, this year accompanied by animated films. Over time, as the museum kept bringing forth themes that asked questions and gave answers on definitions, nature, borders and techniques of drawing, as a central axis of Rijeka exhibition's reflection, always and again we reached new and unexplored domains of using the process and product of drawing. From one year to another, international exhibition represents drawing under various lights, questioning relation between drawing and other arts, adding and updating the basic definition that "drawing is a graphic depiction of forms, exercised on any surface". Its extensive application is being observed and continuously monitored. Norman McLaren, one of the giants of animated film, defined the latter as invisible space that exists between the drawings. In his own words: "Animation is not art of a drawing that moves but art of movements that are being drawn. That which happens between each photogram is more important than that which is in it. Animation is, therefore, art of manipulating the invisible spaces that lay between photographs." McLaren's definition of animated film is a starting point from which we move into exploring everything that animated film and drawing are. The basic idea of international exhibition is to collect and exhibit original drawings, and present animated films because of which this drawings were created in the first place. We wish to invite some of the authors whose works are going to be exhibited. Exhibition will go on for three months and will be accompanied with film screenings, workshops targeted at various ages and lectures on animated film, all of which will provide us a possibility of insight into actual questions and researches in this field. Herein we primarily refer to the unavoidable question of using the new techniques which, to the great extent, had their hand in animated film's realization. Besides the central show at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, there will be few smaller exhibitions set in Mali salon gallery, at Rijeka's main street of Korzo. Arist/Works: 1. Atushi Wada -- DAY OF NOSE 2. JJ Villard -- SON OF SATAN 3. Izibene Onederra -- HEZURBELTZAK, A COMMONE GRAVE 4. Michaela Pavlatova -- CARNIVAL OF ANIMALS 5. Simone Massi -- LA MEMORIA DEI CANI 6. Igor Kovalyov -- MILCH 7. Priit Parn -- KARL AND MERILYN 8. Andreas Hykade -- THE RUNT 9. Elizabeth Hobbs -- THE TRUE STORY OF SAWNEY BEANE 10. Igor Coric -- LEFTOVERS 11. Koji Yamamura FRANZ KAFKA'S A COUNTRY DOCTOR 12. Thomas Hicks -- I TURN MY FACE TO THE FOREST FLOOR 13. Daniel Suljic -- FILM S DJEVOJCICOM 14. Paul Driessen -- 3 MISSES

From December 3-10, film fans flock to Leuven. For the 17th year straight, the International Short Film Festival Leuven offers a broad and very colorful selection of the best short film has to offer. Expect hundreds of new shorts, animation films, videos, documentaries and innovative cross-overs, selected out of thousands of international entries. The festival is a round-up of a great year in cinema, but also looks at the future. Besides being a platform for the short film medium, it also acts as a major talent hunt, where tomorrow’s filmmakers are able to present their first professional productions.

Festival Highlights

EUROPE IN SHORTS: Sundance, Clermont Ferrand, Regensburg, Hamburg, Locarno… our festival team travelled all over the world in search of the very best European short films. Once home, we go through over 2000 entries and select only forty, the cream of the crop of European shorts. The European competition shows films from over 17 countries.  In the non-competitive programmes dozens of new European shorts will be screened, in sections as "The Labo", "Short Films for Children", "Animation Nations" and "Finest Irish Shorts".MILESTONES IN SHORT FILM HISTORY: Milestones in Short Film History” is a collection of the most influential short films made throughout a century of cinematic history. It entails thirty movies produced between 1900 en 2000 that are typical of certain movements and evolutions in movie history or that introduced new techniques, procedures, styles, genres or directors. Together with the programma, the ISFFL presents a publication with the same title (Dutch-English) in witch all films are discussed.SHORT FILM COMPETITION:The ISFFL organises a Flemish and European Short Film Competition in which audience awards and jury awards are being granted. Besides the ISFFL awards the Flanders Audiovisual Fund grants 5 “Wildcards” for new Flemish film talent. The value of the prizes reaches almost 300.000 euro. The winners are announced at the award ceremony, on the last day of the festival, December 10thINDUSTRY ACTIVITIES: Each year, the International Short Film Festival welcomes countless young filmmakers and film professionals from all over the world. This edition boasts quite a few professional activities this year: an info session about Crowdfunding (organised by MEDIA Desk Flanders and SACD), a 2-day seminar about the Short Film in Flanders, a lecture by the Danish-American short film professor Richard Raskin “Story Design in Short fiction Film” and many more.

The 18th annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards will showcase more than 100 films by students graduating from the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department at the School of Visual Arts. The program includes three days of screenings of short films, videos and animations; a screenwriters night, where professional actors read excerpts of screenplays by graduating seniors; and an awards ceremony and gala reception with notable presenters from the film industry.

Each year, outstanding achievements awards are presented in the following categories: screenwriting, cinematography, video, editing, directing, film, acting, traditional animation and stop-motion animation.

2007 Festival Schedule
* Tuesday, April 24: Screenwriters Night
The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, 7:00 pm

* April 25 - 27: Screenings
Directors Guild Theater, 110 West 57 Street, 10:00 am - 10:00 pm

* Monday, April 30: Awards Ceremony
Directors Guild Theater, 110 West 57 Street, 6:30 pm

* Monday, April 30: Gala Reception
Le Parker Meridien Hotel, 118 West 57 Street, 8:30 - 10:30 pm

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.sva.edu.

The 18th Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference, held at Trinity University, has a theme