written by Joanne Weikel
Day 2 of the animation competition kicked off at 9am with a loud drumbeat and Afro Brazilian performers. The sound drew a large crowd in to watch the performances. The animation teams had worked through the night on their films so the very lively dancers lent some much needed energy to the competitors.
Paul Tillery, In Pyo, and Julien Lasbleiz, all of whom have films in the animation festival listened to the story pitches and gave the teams some last minute advice and critiques. Miles Perkins, the Computer Animation Festival Jury Chair also came in to see each films progress.
With only three hours left, the teams focused hard on finishing their films on time. So in Fjorg fashion, two more distractions were in store. First a belly dancer performed and was enticing enough to make quite a few people stop working. Within the hour a group of Samba dancers arrived and just about everyone stopped to watch. A few people were dragged onto the stage to join the dancers and the Fjorg chair and Viking High Priestess Patricia Beckmann-Wells joined in at the end. The infusion of energy kicked the teams into high gear for the final 2 hours.
All team rivalry disappeared as the end neared and teams were helping each other solve last minute problems. Sparkle Kittens were the first to turn their film in just under the hour mark. A spectator crowd had started to gather with 20 minutes left and cheered the teams on as they turned their film in to the tech support staff. As we waited for the last team to submit their film, Patricia, talked about the evolution of the event and passed the crown off to Tereza Flaxman who will preside over Fjorg for 2010. Finally with minutes to spare, the last team handed in their film.
Films will be available for viewing on the Fjord blog Wednesday and the awards ceremony will take place on Thursday at 6pm in Hall E 1-2. Find out more at wp.siggraph.org/fjorg