The Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema is a unique film festival celebrating the artistry of the animated feature film. Founded in 2001, the Waterloo, Canada-based festival routinely presents one of the most comprehensive showcases of feature animation in the world.

The festival presents three main programs: World Cinema, a showcase of the latest in feature animation; Retrospectives, rare screenings of historically and artistically significant feature animation; and Tidbits, a program of discovery of feature animation created by very small teams -- sometimes even teams of one.

Further details at www.wfac.ca.

It's time for us to have some chatting and hanging out time at Lelabar on Monday, June 29th, from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. There will be a special Women In Animation happy hour price of $7 for wine. Everyone is welcome! Please join us at Lelabar: 422 Hudson St. between Leroy & Morton (www.lelabar.com) RSVP to Lisa by noon on Friday, June 26th at lisaggoldman@yahoo.com.

For our May 15 meeting, WIA would love to welcome Donna Friedman Meir, President, and Melanie Grisanti, VP, Production of National Geographic Kids Entertainment. We'll learn more about National Geographic Kids - the brand and what is in development. The address for Little Airplane Productions is: 207 Front Street in the South St. Seaport, New York, New York. When: Thursday, May 15 from 6:30-8 p.m. RSVP : To Lisa Goldman by Tuesday, May 13th at lisaggoldman@yahoo.com. Directions To Little Airplane: By Subway: Take 2, 3, 4,5, J, M, or Z to Fulton Street; A and C to Broadway-Nassau. Walk east on Fulton Street to Water Street. Enter the seaport and walk one block to Front Street and make a left. LAP is halfway down the block on the left. By Bus: Take M15 (South Ferry Bound) down Second Avenue to Fulton Street. Walk east on Fulton Street to Water Street. Enter the seaport and walk one block to Front Street and make a left. LAP is halfway down the block on the left. By Car: From West Side: Take West Street southbound. Follow signs to FDR Drive. Take the underpass and keep right. Use Exit 1 at end of underpass. Turn right on South Street, about six blocks. By Car: From East Side: FDR Drive South. Take the underpass and keep right. Use Exit 1 at end of underpass. Turn right on South Street, about six blocks.

The next meeting of the Los Angeles XSI user group will take place at Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Blur Studio will show their short film GENTELMEN'S DUEL. In addition, Andrew Jones from Pixel Liberation Front will discuss linear lighting. Technology and production issues will also be tackled. Beer, drinks and pizza will be served and door prizes will be given away. Gnomon School of Visual Effects is located at 1015 North Cahuenga, Hollywood, California 90038. Door open at 7:00 pm with the presentations beginning at 7:30 pm. For additional information, visit www.xsila.com/.

YOW Animation is a new group for animators in the Ottawa/Hull region. The first meeting will be on Tuesday, November 18th at 8 p.m. at The Fox and Feather Pub (Fox Room #2, second floor) at 283 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Canada. The meeting is open to commercial and independent animators. Bring your ideas of what you'd like the group to do, meet some new friends, and join in some animated conversations.

From 6:00 - 9:00 pm, Gnomon School of Visual Effects welcomes back Pixologic for its first User Group Meeting since the release of ZBrush 3. Learn how two artists: Meats Meier and Ian Joyner use ZBrush to create models and illustration. In particular, Meier will be demonstrating his working processes when using ZBrush 3 for character creation and texturing and he'll show his efficient methods of base model creation using Zspheres. Then, he will take the sculpture all the way to a final model, ready to animate in an external 3D package. Ryan Kingslien will also talk in-depth about ZBrush 3 and what it's like to develop a next generation sculpting application. He'll demonstrate how to look at it, how to understand the brushes and what it means, as a developer, to be thinking about a users experience. The event will take place at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects - Stage 15, 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, California 90038. To RSVP to the free event, e-mail reserve@gnomon3d.com.

Gnomon School of Visual Effects and Pixologic are hosting the first official Pixologic ZBrush User Group meeting. Bay Raitt will discuss the strengths of ZBrush and its use in various production pipelines, i.e. Weta Digital, Valve Software. Meats Meier, The Gnomon Workshop, will demonstrate how he has used ZBrush in the creation of his personal artwork. Timur "Taron" Baysal will demonstrate modeling and displacement (medium to high rez details) and possibly rendering displacement in Messiah.

It will take place at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, California 90038. A meet and greet time will start at 6:00 pm with the meeting beginning at 7:00 pm. RSVP to rsvp@gnomon3d.com. Please include your name, phone number and number of people you are bringing including yourself. For more information, visit www.gnomon3d.com/title.html.