The last days of Ottawa...

I kicked off the Saturday by attending the Animators for Hire seminar - an interesting speed-dating-like service to talk to studios that were hiring. I think the process works moderately well and it was an interesting thing to be a part of.

Next up was the international showcase. Two of the best film I saw at Ottawa were at this: Disney's The Little Matchgirl and Matthew Walker's Astronauts - a hilarious performance driven 3D film, and Guide Dog, a hilarious Bill Plympton short. All in all I think the international showcase had the strongest films at the festival - which begs to question - why weren't they in competition?

The Bob Clampett Retrospective was next - it was definetly a hoot! Thanks to Chuck for sponsoring that!

After that I caught Short Competition 5 - which had an amazing high school film "Black Box", Stefan Mueller's amusing "Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker," a screening of "Le Building", and it went abstract from there on it. A good mix overall, but definetly not the best competition group I've seen at Ottawa.

After that was the Saturday night party - which was a blast! Barrymore's is quite the venue.

Onto Sunday!

Short Competition 4 was up first - the United Airlines spot "Dragon" was definetly notable - as was Marc Sylvain's short, "Fertilizer Soup". Also great was Blair Kitchen's UN Spot "Lion and Zebra" - Chuck did a great job on it and I gotta pat him on the back for it! Then it moved back into the sex and the abstract.

The last thing I was able to catch was some of Evan Spiridellis' talk about "The Rise of the Independant Creator" - you've definetly got to read about what JibJab's doing - it's pretty amazing stuff! Check out Mark Mayerson's post on this because it's said in a more eloquent manner than I would be able to on the subject.

As for the winners?

The Christies took the Feature Competition, Dreams and Desires took the best short, Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker took best Student Animation, the Fedex: Stick commercial won for best commercial and Le Building won best Undergrad animation

Umbrella Boy took 2nd place at the Teletoon Continuing Ed Competition - great job Andrew and all the guys who worked on it! Also, Kent Hugo, Jay Edry, and Brad Kinley took home the Continuing Ed prizes - great job Sheridan!

Not so great however was the Sheridan Booth, I plan to talk to someone about that one.

Before signing off on this Ottawa post, I wanted to show off this music video that Trevor and Ben worked on - apparently they're embarrased by it but I don't think they have any reason to be:



See you next year, Ottawa!