Anyone who has been at animation festivals in the past year has probably seen Dustin Grella’s moving film Prayer For Peace. His very personal animation has won numerous awards world wide culminating this past October with the 2010 Walt Disney Animation Studio award for Best Student Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
Now Dustin has launched a new project called The Animation Hot Line. During the month of February,and perhaps even longer if the response is good, Dustin has set up a voice mail service where anyone can leave a message. He will select messages to animate, trying to do one short strip a day.
The hot line is just not for animators, everyone is welcome to leave a message but there are a few simple rules. All messages must be under thirty seconds, preferably around ten or fifteen seconds long. You can say a few you overheard. It can even be a secret that you don’t want anyone to know or something that bothers you.
The message does not have to be in English so callers can speak in their native language. You can call more than once a day at any hour of the day or night. All messages will be anonymous unless you leave a name and want to be acknowledged.
Dustin has set up a Skype account under the name:
animationhotline
It is all one word and can be called for free via Skype from anywhere in the world. That means calls from Europe, Asia, anywhere in the world is toll free.
You can also call the animation hot line number:
212/ 683-2490
Dustin has sat up the site on Vimeo.com at:
http://vimeo.com/channels/animationhotline
So put his number in your speed dial and then check the site regularly to see what Dustin has drawn.
