OIAF Day 2

OIAF: Day 2

Today there was a TON of screening competitions, both feature length and short. What struck me yesterday, but really sunk in today is that here, there's no real such thing as anyone arguing over which medium is better,
cause everyone uses everything! I've seen some incredible 2D and 3D work, I've seen animation with chalk, stop motion clay animation with both 2D and 3D effects (how's THAT for a combination!) Literally, if hands can manipulate it, it seems to be fair game! Especially when we got to a section of .. abstract animation shorts, but that's an entirely different thing in and of itself!

Between sessions, there was a Meet the filmmakers session in which we could speak to the animators and directors who were responsible for the previous days shows. Unlike previous times I went to this festival, instead of Q and A with just the films I liked, I went out of my way to talk to the directors about the shorts that completely escaped me, gain a better understanding of all kinds of thought processes, and absorb some of the cultural differences that went into their work, which I natrually missed. doing the same thing I found was another more local animator, Luke Conrad; CEO and Creative producer of Cartoon Conrad in Nova scotia! Refreshing to meet more maritime talent, especially company owners! Cartoon Conrad is a 2D centric studio which has provided series for CBC, Fox Kids, and Teletoon! They just wrapped work on a series called Razzberry Jazzberry Jam he tells me.

Speaking of meeting, I ran into another familiar face from a previous festival, Dominic Leblanc of Teletoon. She's one of the project managers, in charge of scooping up potential properties as series to air on the network. Easy to see why someone like that might be here, which is why I'm aiming to get our student work on that fesival screen. And on that note, other participating schools!

While milling about waiting for shorts to begin, I met and spoke with students from Max the Mutt Animation School, Algonquin College, and Vancouver film school asking asking them about their programs, how they feel about them, and even got to speak with one of the department heads of Boston University Center for Digital Imaging. Lots of people from all around, but I'm sure that's more than gotten accross already, more details on this wheh I return!

And lastly, there was an interesting screening highlighting animation aimed at childeren and how demographics, and more important, censorship has changed for the more family friendly audiences of today as opposed to yesteryear, aiming even as far back as the 1930's.

And now for more mingling/schmoozing! Tune in tomorrow for more!