Best of Ottawa Screening, February 28, 6pm

2012 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, Oct. 27-28

The 2012 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation will be held Oct. 27-28. The opening program is at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., at 2 PM on Saturday Oct. 27. Festival guest Nancy Andrews will present her films at the 7 PM program on Saturday at DePaul in the Daley Building theater, 247 S. State St, and there will be two programs on Sunday at 1 PM and 4 PM at DePaul.

Eyeworks is a festival focusing on abstract animation and unconventional character animation. Festival programs showcase outstanding experimental animation of all sorts: classic films, new works and rare masterpieces. We have collected some really amazing short films this year, including some classic abstract films, some rarely-seen treasures, and some of the best new experimental work being made by animators today. We're especially excited about our festival guest, Nancy Andrews, who will be showing three of her beautiful puppet films on Saturday evening. And, DePaul's very own Jo Dery will have a piece showing on loop in the theater lobby throughout the weekend.

The full details on the festival, including showtimes, lineup of work, and tickets, are on the festival website: www.eyeworksfestival.com.

We would be thrilled if you would join us for the festival! No matter what kind of animation you like, I guarantee that you will see something unexpected, inspiring, hilarious, and amazing at Eyeworks.

Assistant Professor Alexander Stewart goes to Croatia

DePaul Animation would like to wish Alexander good luck as he heads to the 25FPS festival in Croatia this week! His short film, Crusts, is in competition. You can watch the trailer for the film here.

And the winner is...

Last week's Senior Capstone screening was a big success, with friends and family cheering on the accomplished filmmakers in a full CDM theater. The faculty wanted to recognize the outstanding capstone projects so we handed out a number of awards, as well as polled the audience about their favorite film. Here are the results and a few pics of the proud filmmakers! 


Faculty Award: Doublington's Disorder by Michael Tran


Below: Michael with his award, a half-lumberjack/half-werewolf stuffed doll! 





Audience Choice: (tie) Doublington's Disorder by Michael Tran and Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy! by Molly McCandless


Audience Choice, 2nd place: The Golfer and the Goose by Andrez Aguayo and David Johnson


The "Up All Night" award (recognizing the most hours spent on a film): Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy! by Molly McCandless


Below: Molly with her prize, a token for a free cup of coffee! 




The "Most Punk" award (recognizing the most raw animation): The Hour of the Wolf by Frank Shuford 


Below: Frank with his award, a yo-yo! 




The "Future Blockbuster" award (recognizing great production values): The Golfer and the Goose by Andrez Aguayo and David Johnson


"Best film from and Engaged Couple" (recognizing exemplary team-work): The Axius Trials by Alex Keller and AJ Klingelhoffer

"Best Poop Joke in a Film" (recognizing great character design!): Hometree Nursing by Alex Dejak & Alex Bull

Below: Alex and Alex and their trophy, a giant pencil! 

The "Wiggly Belly" award (recognizing great exaggerated animation): A Miniature Matter by Sarah Feldman

The "Cute Overload" award (recognizing  a too-cute film!): Teddy by Margaret Orr

The "Miniature Epic" award (recognizing the shortest saga): Shattered World by Trevor Kettelkamp 

Below: Trevor with his award, a light-up bouncy ball! 

The Onion A.V. Club interviews Eyeworks

The founders of the Eyeworks Experimental Animation Festival, Lilli Carré and DePaul Animation professor Alexander Stewart, were interviewed about experimental animation and their festival on the Onion's A.V. Club website.

A.V. Club: Animation is a ridiculously painstaking process. What kind of person does it take to be an animator? 

Alexander Stewart: That’s a good assessment. Animation is extremely tedious, time consuming, and exhausting in terms of inspiration. In general, a 3-to-4-minute short film, would take an artist a year or nine months to make. So you need either to be crazy, or else mind-bogglingly patient to be an animator. You’re not depending on actors or a director of photography to make your film; you can sit down and, with the simplest tools, you control the ingredients involved to make exactly what you want to put in. It’s about expressing a singular artistic vision.

Don't forget to purchase tickets from the Eyeworks website and attend Eyeworks this Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5 and 6, at DePaul's CDM Theater downtown!  We all love Eyeworks, and we're very grateful that Lilli and Alexander have held it at DePaul for its first two years.  

Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation 2011

Lilli Carré and I are planning the 2011 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation for Nov. 5 & 6. We'll be showing about 35 short animations, focusing on abstract animation and unconventional character animation. It's going to be held at the DePaul CDM Theater in 14 E. Jackson. Full details on our website.

Malcolm Sutherland at OIAF 2011

Meghann Artes and I went to the Ottawa International Animation Festival this year, which was a valuable and inspirational event for anyone in the field of animation. One of my favorite filmmakers in attendance was Malcolm Sutherland. He had two short yet substantial films featured in a very competitive category in the same year. He mentioned that he cranks out a film in about 3-4 months. He picks up an occasional freelance job, then works like mad for a concentrated period of time on his own films. Here are the two screened at Ottawa.