Tag Archives: film fest

NW Animation Festival Kicks Off Next Week

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The Northwest Animation Festival gets underway next week, offering over 200 amazing films gracing the silver screen at the beloved Hollywood Theater.

Highlights will certainly include the Oregon Animation Industry Showcase:

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portlandia_ratsWednesday, May 7 at 7:00pm  |  $12  |

Get a tour of the amazing commercial animation work being done in Oregon: advertisements, music videos, product demos, video games, and visual effects.

The evening kicks off with a showcase of video clips from our world-class local studios and freelancers. You’ll be surprised to learn which brands take life in Portland, and by some of the curious uses of animation in the world of business.

Against this backdrop, Shelley Midthun from the Portland Development Commission will then interview a panel of Portland’s luminaries about art and innovation in professional animation production. Speakers include Shilpa Sunthankar from Fashionbuddha, Roland Gauthier from Hinge Digital, Anna Kvorning from LAIKA, and Will Lewis from the Portland Indie Game Squad.

The evening concludes with a very special hour-long presentation, “Bent Image Lab presents: Animating Portlandia, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Improv in Stop Motion.” Rob Shaw, animation director for the hilarious Portlandia rat gang skits, will give insight into this unusual collaboration, show videos, and answer audience questions. Animation puppets from Bent will be on display in the lobby—don’t miss your chance to see these tiny celebrities in person!

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Tickets on sale here for this one time only event.

Another highlight should include the Meet the Animators panel.  Although the specifics are a little vague, it looks promising:

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Sunday, May 10 | 12noon

Arrive early on Sunday for a live interview with some of the filmmakers in this year’s festival. “What keeps you inspired as an artist? What unusual tricks went into making your film? What advice do you have for aspiring animators?” …Bring questions of your own for an open Q&A at the end.

FREE EVENT – with free doughnuts provided by Voodoo Doughnut!

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Also, don’t miss possibly your last chance to catch 2014’s Siggraph Animation reel –

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Tuesday, May 5 at 7:00pm  |  $8  |

The annual SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival is one of the world’s most important showcases for innovative and visually stunning digital animation. Films that win honors here are qualified to compete for an Academy Award, and several in recent memory have been nominated for or received an Oscar for “Best Animated Short.” Films chosen for this special “best of” show include narrative shorts, time-based art, visual effects, scientific visualization, and real-time graphics.

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Tickets for this one here.

More info about the fest:  http://www.nwanimationfest.com

Next VFX/PDX Meeting – Short Film Saturday (Nov 15) w/Lessons Learned, Proximity & More!

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FlyerA special program for the next VFX/PDX meeting – your short films!  It’s no secret that many of us visual effects and animation artist types are also filmmakers, and when a good idea presents itself we jump behind it full force.  We burn the midnight oil, sometimes outside of our day jobs, and do whatever we can to make it happen.  We roll up our sleeves and get it to the screen!

It’s with that mindset that I present to you our first ever “Short Film Saturday.”  A heavy dose of inspiration that should give us all that Vitamin D like boost we sorely need this time of year.  We’ll screen the films and then break out the microscope and find out what makes them tick.  Be ready for behind the scenes you’ll never see on any DVD-extras, and feel free to fire away once we get to the Q&A.

On the docket as this year’s headliners are Toby Froud’s Lesson’s Learned and Joshua Cox’s Proximity.

Lesson’s Learned is a practical puppet short about a young boy who receives an intriguing birthday gift from his father; a gift that will stay with him for the rest of his life.  After the screening, Director Toby Froud (with puppets!), VFX Supervisor Adam Sager, and Layout/Matte Painter David Manuel will present the visual effects from the film.  Adam and David are tremendously talented, and Toby steps into the spotlight with literally a lifetime of training – a family history of filmmaking that’s both rich and unique.  Watch the trailer here.

Proximity is Director Joshua Cox‘s tribute to a collection of his grandmother’s that inspired him to craft a story that is a “suspenseful romantic crime drama involving ceramic statues.”  Joshua is a talented filmmaker, and that all-encompassing title may be the one that best captures the many hats he’s able to wear:  Animator, Technical Director, Graphic Designer, Producer, on and on.  His skills will be on full display with this film, and I’m sure we’ll never look at grandma’s shelf quite as innocently again.  🙂  Full VFX breakown after the film.  Watch the trailer here.

Rounding out the program will be shorts from
Kameron Gates/House Special, A Tale of Momentum and Inertia
Paul DeSilva, A Spark at Darkest Night
James Chick, Legend of Baby Chick
Jacob Miller‘s Conception Trailer
and more films TBA.  If you were recently involved with or know of a locally crafted film that has a VFX component and you’d like to submit, please get in touch with J immediately.

All of this and more will be shown on the legendary OMSI Empirical Theater screen, what with it’s 4 stories of 4k projection + Dolby Atmos sound system bliss.  Worth noting that all of the films are safe for a younger audience, and that OMSI is graciously offering a $2 discount on admission to the museum and current Animation exhibit after the show – so feel free to bring any young, budding vfx artists in your clan and make a day of it!

Tickets are free and you can (and should!) reserve your spot over at Eventbrite now:
http://shortfilmsaturday.eventbrite.com

VFX/PDX Meeting:  Short Film Saturday!
Saturday, November 15th, 10am-12pm
OMSI Empirical Theater
1945 SE Water Ave, Portland, OR 97214

See you all there!

Spark Conference & Job Fair in BC This Weekend

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The 2013 Spark FX conference, film festival and job fair takes place in Vancouver, BC this weekend.  A hop, skip and a jump across the border gets you access to a killer headliner lineup including Joe Letteri and all of the lead VFX Supervisors on the Hobbit w/Weta Digital, Scott Ross (formerly of Digital Domain), journeymen Bill Taylor, Hoyt Yeatman Jr. and others.

These are heavy hitters and certainly worth the drive.  Plus, if you’re lookin’, there’s a job fair as well.  Looks like over the course of Friday and Saturday it will catch all of the major players in the Vancouver market – Image Engine, Digital Domain, MPC, Pixar Canada, etc.  I’ve not been super impressed with Vancouver job fairs in the past, they usually seem to just be going through the motions (what’s that aboot, eh?) – but with so many new studios opening this past year there might be a genuine demand this time around.

More information at sparkfx.ca