AniFest Unveils 2012 Highlights

Canterbury Anifest 2012 [1] is pulling out all the stops to bring the biggest names from the world of animation from the best animation studios at home and abroad. With talks from the creative teams from DreamWorks, Pixar and Aardman Animations, Canterbury Anifest 2012 boast a unique line up of international talent.

With models from Aardman’s latest feature film Pirates and the classic creatures of Ray Harryhausen’s on show, audiences will be able to see cutting edge characters next to legendary classics.  London based studio Double Negative, who animated the fantasy characters in the Harry Potter films, will talk about how they create the monsters in their feature films. The weekend will be rounded off with a unique animation themed Comedy Evening.

Following the success of last year’s festival, Animate & Create Studios have been contracted by Canterbury City Council to produce another weekend of animation for the third year running at Canterbury Christ Church University’s Augustine House.

Festival Director, Dan Richards, is thrilled with how this year is shaping up. “With this year’s Anifest we wanted to produce a festival not just for Canterbury but for a nationally and internationally audience. We’ve spent six months putting together a dream list from the world of animation and feel we’ve achieved an all-star lineup. Anifest 2012 is an opportunity to see characters from Aardman’s Pirates and the classic characters produced by the legendary Ray Harryhausen, as well as hear from the animators behind Toy Story and Madagascar over one weekend in the beautiful city of Canterbury.”

Anifest will again be hosted in Canterbury Christ Church University’s Augustine House, a modern, stylish building and a great venue for a festival celebrating creativity and innovation. Now in its sixth year, the festival will run over two days, incorporating events, workshops, screenings and competitions. It promises to be an exciting weekend, a window into the ever expanding industry that is animation.

Canterbury Anifest
Canterbury Anifest is the South East’s only annual animation festival. It’s a great community event that invites people of all ages to come and experience the magic of animation; allowing them to get involved with something out of the ordinary. With a range of workshops, behind-the-scenes presentations from industry professionals, screenings and family friendly events, Anifest has something for everyone. The festival also caters for specialists and those in the industry, featuring national and international awards and guest speakers from some of the most prestigious animation studios. For more information visit www.canterburyanifest.com [2]

Dan Richards, Festival Director
Dan has been Canterbury Anifest Festival Director for the past three years. He uses his industry links and experience to organise high quality events and professionals from some of the world’s best animation studios. Dan is the Creative Director of Animate & Create Studios, an animation company in Whitstable providing commercial animation production. Animate & Create’s community work provides workshops for young people as well as producing educational animation films. Dan also lectures in animation at Canterbury Christ Church University for the Film, Radio and Television Studies degree course. For more information visit www.animateandcreate.com [3]

Cassidy Curtis, Dreamworks
Cassidy Curtis is DreamWorks’ Supervising Animator for the summer blockbuster Madagascar 3. Cassidy has led the team animating Alex the Lion in the third installment of the Madagascar trilogy. He will be coming to Canterbury to show clips and talk about his work on many of DreamWorks’ best-loved films, such as Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and the Madagascar series.

Jim Parkyn, Aardman
Working at Aardman Animations since 2000, Jim has an impressive range of credits under his belt; including Creature Comforts, Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit. He has recently finished working on Aardman’s latest exciting Pirates feature film. Jim also runs modeling workshops across the country, getting involved with students and amateurs alike.

Eamonn Butler, Double Negative
After spending ten successful years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he worked on a number of productions including Fantasia 2000, Dinosaur and Reign of Fire, Eamonn joined Double Negative in 2006. He now oversees the development of the studio’s Creature Animation Department and has worked on productions such as Hellboy 2 and Paul.

Dan McCoy, Pixar
Dan has worked on numerous animations including Toy Story 2 & 3, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, and many more. He has held various positions within the company ranging from shading supervisor to rendering software engineer, so this is a great opportunity to hear from one of the talents behind so many of Pixar’s classic films.

Source: Animate & Create Studios