Press release from ACM SIGGRAPH (New Orleans, LA) - Winners of FJORG!, the third annual "iron-animator" style competition and GameJam!, the first videogame competition were announced during SIGGRAPH 2009, the 36th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques taking place this week in New Orleans. Prestissimo, comprised of Sasapitt Rujirat, Phon Thiramonkol, and Lee Croudy was chosen as the winner of FJORG! for their animated reel, "Great Expectations." Team Prestissimo was chosen from a field of 10 three-member teams that competed for 32 non-stop hours to create character-driven animations under extreme pressure and multiple staged distractions. The team is from Thailand and traveled for more than 30 hours to compete in FJORG! As overall winners, Prestissimo will receive full SIGGRAPH 2010 conference passes, $200 gift certificates, first place medals, and a ride on a New Orleans parade float. Adhering to this year's animation theme, Great Expectations, AOM (comprised of Christopher Monti, XueMei Song, LinLin Si) received second place, with third place awarded to Team Riot (John Sabbath, Gayane Baddasaryan, Shuang Chang). These teams will also receive trophies and prizes. "Once again, we have been able to host FJORG! with tremendous support from the animation community," said Patricia Beckmann-Wells, FJORG! 2009 Chief Viking Priestess and chair from Bunsella Films. "Our participants benefited from onsite feedback from director Peter Berg, sound pioneer Randy Thom, and many other notable industry veterans who shared their expertise. The content was extremely difficult to judge, but Prestissimo won out because they executed their animation reel flawlessly." FJORG! judges included several industry experts, including lead Disney Animator Alex Kuperschmidt. The first annual GameJam! is a newly created competition for teams to create a 3D game using the Panda3D game engine and a 2D game using Flash during a 24-hour period. The team comprised of John Fielding, Rory Riggins, Ryan Neff created the 3D model that was chosen as Best of Show. The team comprised of Laurissa Hughes, Chance Dodd, and Melissa Guldbrand was chosen as Best of Show for their 2D videogame. Prizes were awarded to every team that participated. "With this year's expanded focus on gaming, we were excited to create a sister competition to FJORG! in GameJam!," said Tina Ziemek, GameJam! 2009 Chair from the University of Utah. "Games and game development have been a driving force in pushing the state of the art in real-time computer graphics technology, and our participants were able to create quality games in the short time allotted. All of them did extremely well, and we expect this will be the first of many more gaming competitions to come." The committee and programmers for GameJam! included Mark Sivak, Ryan Hipple, and Seth Sivak. To play all the games created during GameJam!, visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/contests_competitions/game_jam/index.php.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
