Second Day of Ottawa...

Just came back from the Concept Art and Art Direction lecture with (in order) Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi, Ambiguously Gay Duo's J.J. Sedelmaier, and Lucasfilm's Erik Tiemens (concept artist and painter on Episode 3). Make sure to check out Erik's new paint/sketchblog - Virtual Gouache Land. Erik also hinted on the fact that he's now working at Lucasfilm Animation, working on "Something that's 180 degress in the other direction of Star Wars" - and added that it was something like a fairytale.

Also, check out this ambuously gay Alex Ross cover:


By the way, last year's group film, The Terrible Error of the Replacement Mayor, is finally online. Check it!:



At the Picnic:

Amid Amidi (Again)



Dave Nethery



The Pumpkin Carving Winners announced.




Among others I met were Kevin Gamble from Studio B, Evan Spiridellis from JibJab, and Tom Knotts from Laika.

Animarket Opening:
Representatives from Disney, Blue Sky, Nelvana, Nerd Corps, Teletoon, Mainframe, and Cecropia were present (amongst other schools). Cecropia had a great 2D game to show off on the floor called "The Act" - definetely worth checking out Sorry, I didn't get any pictures - I'll post some eventually! I got a copy of Cartoon Modern from Amid Amidi and got it signed - make sure to check it out if you're at the festival!

Everyone else (Nick, Trev, Jeff, Sam, Olga, Rye, Dave, Halya, Steve, Toby, Robert, and quite a few other guys) arrived just in time for short competition 3.

There were three shorts in the high school competition, an interesting stream-of-consciousness film entitled "A Painful Glimpse into my writing Process (In less than 60 seconds), a few abstract films, a few narrative films that felt like abstract films, a few funny adverts (the one for Fedex and J.J. Sedelmeijer's are all pretty amusing). The best film of the night, in my opinion, was the short narrative film entitled, The Runt. The imagery in the film reminds me of a Michael Duduk De Wit film but is completely 180 degrees in the opposite direction in terms of tone. I would recommend seeing it if you get a chance.

The day closed out with the party at the Capital City Music Hall - even Michel and Tony where there. Died off quick though!

Anyways, onto day three!