Thanks to our judges!

I should thank our judges and let you know how things were decided in the pre-judging. Everyone I asked responded right away and said they would love to help. I wanted to get alumni with a varied experience in games, 2D and 3D who didn't know the current group of students (other than through guest lectures) Here is the jury (with links to their blogs or websites...click on their names):

Jeremy Tin: 2D Flash designer @ Studio B
Jesse Schilperoort: Animator on Skunk Fu (Ireland), now back in town
Sarah Airriess: grad and former designer at Bardel, now at Walt Disney Feature Animation (1st pick: House of Wooo!)
Seng Lau: 3D theatrical animator at Vanguard, now at Next Level Games
Clio Chiang: storyboard artist at Studio B and independent artist (Flight series)
Derek Stenning: concept artist at Next Level Games. Derek also brought in:
Sean Murch, the CEO of Playful Entertainment who has developed projects for Nelvana, EA and Radical. Derek and Sean decided together and picked R.I.P. Alice as their first choice.

I asked each judge to give me their top 6 picks, in order. The results were varied: of the seven judges, there were five different first place picks! So I took each 1st place pick and the remaining 6th pick was determined by math. Princess & Mermaid was the 3rd pick of four judges and no other piece ranked as high so it was included too (fortunate for us!).

I'm opening this site up so that the other entries can be seen too...they deserve to be. I plan to do this again next year so get to work! There were a lot of people who should have entered pitches but didn't and I bet a lot of first years didn't think they had a chance. But if you don't produce, how can anyone see how great you are?

Thanks again to our artists and judges!

We Won!

Congratulations, you did it!

The industry judges chose Mike's "R.I.P. Alice" as a first place winner, tied with another entry.

They picked Colleen's "House of Woooo" as the second place winner.

The Animation Magazine Staff Picks were: 2nd place, Jo's "The Princess and the Mermaid" and 3rd place: Emily's "Cow Kitty"

When choosing a winner, judges didn't know which entries were students or working professionals. You guys were competing with the world and did great! Also, I was told this morning (Shanghai time) that there was a strict critera: the concepts weren't just what the judges liked but what they could actually green light at this moment (i.e. what they're looking for for concepts).

I think we also did something in the public vote as well but I don't know for sure. Great stuff and a special thanks to our own local judges!

Here are all the entries...Sorry, i didn't know they were happening or I would have contacted you all to get out there and vote for your favorites.

http://www.animationmagazine.net/pitch_party_08_vote.html


I'm in Shanghai showing the grad book around and talking to potential educational and industry partners. Back Wednesday.

Don

Hi Don,In addition to Capilano students taking (tie) for 1st place Judges choice and 2nd place judges choice (RIP Alice and Wooo)....you also got:Animation Magazine Staff Picks:Second Place: The Princess & The Mermaid (Ju Reid, Capilano College)Third Place: Cow Kitty (E. Mullock , Capilano College)

Who wants to work in Montreal's NFB?

NFB Animation Hothouse 5 is Now Open for Submissions!

Deadline: July 18, 2008
Program Dates: September 2 – November 21, 2008
Location: Montreal, QC
Theme: ““The Time I Changed My Mind”

Yes it’s time. You have until Friday July 18 to submit your film proposal for a chance to take 1 of 6 seats in the Animation Hothouse, an intensive paid apprenticeship for emerging filmmakers which runs this year from September 2 – November 21 at the NFB Animation Studio in Montreal.

Your proposal must be tailored to a 1-minute film idea and be based on, or a reaction to, the theme: “The Time I Changed My Mind”.
What does that mean? You tell us…

Check out our website for full submission details, including selection criteria and eligibility:

http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/hothouse/?page_id=164


Kindest regards
Yours truly
Good luck.

Maral Mohammadian
Associate Producer, Animation Studio
National Film Board of Canada
Tel: 514-283-2510
Fax: 514-283-3211
www.nfb.ca

Pitches Pitched!

Thanks Jo, Colleen, Emily, Mike and Karen for sending me the final art and descriptions. I sent everything off on Monday and Animation Magazine confirmed delivery. It should be online at Animation Magazine in late July, I think. And printed in the August issue. Good luck!

And the winners are....

Congratulations, here are winning entries (in no particular order), as voted on by our esteemed judges, Clio Chiang, Jesse Schilperoort, Jeremy Tin, Derek Stenning, Sarah Airriess, Seng Lau, and Sean Murch. Thanks for your help, everyone!

The winners should check their email later, read the suggestions and touch up their entries. I'll need them by Sunday since the Animation Magazine deadline is Monday.

To everyone else, thanks for competing...many of you had votes too, just not enough to be selected. I wish we could afford two pages because there were great entries that we didn't have space for. Thanks!

Good Luck!

Hi Everyone!
I'll open up this blog so that our esteemed judges can take a look at the entries today. Each judge will be asked to take a look at all the entries, read the Animation Magazine criteria of what they're looking for, and give me a list of their top six. I'll compile the list into a single list based on their choices.

Judges have until 6PM to send me their lists and I should have the final list by 9PM.
I'll let you know who the judges are once the lists are in.

Thanks for the great designs and really creative concepts. I hope the operating procedure was okay with everyone. Let me know if you think it could be done better next year.

Let the judging begin!

Mine's probably late too!

I was planning to do something new and the due date snuck up on me.

This is probably too late!!

Just in time.

last minute pitches

Last Day to Enter Your Designs!

Hi everyone! Judging will start tomorrow so please get your work uploaded by tonight! We have great judges who have agreed to help out. Most are grads, now working locally and in the states as well as the CEO of a games company with lots of experience in traditional and digital show development!

I'll open up the site temporarily tomorrow so the judges can review the work. By 6 PM, I'll have their picks and will announce the winning designs by 9PM Friday on this blog. Then, the winners have a couple days to fine-tune their work and we'll send it off to Animation Magazine.

The work is looking great....keep it coming!

Good luck!

Alzeron

Ant-hill Inc

Here's my two. Made at the last minute as usual.

Everyone's posters are looking really cool!

Derek Steel

Here is my second entry. Just in time...phew...

Lemonade

Circus Mafia (Finished)

Here is my two entries for the pitch party. Good luck everyone!

finit

ok.. so as you can see I have 3 pitch posters here.

 Don(and jury), If you decide to go with the "oliver's odyssey" idea, I'm leaving it up to you on which one of the two posters to use. I'm not sure which one to go with so I'll let all of you decide.

-j

Ms Margi

Sorry it took a while to send this in. I was a bit delayed with my wallet being stolen and having to deal with bed bugs at the same time. arg...

Anyway, here's one of my characters that I remodeled these past few days. Hope it is ok. I'll try sending in one more pitch idea for you before the 5th.

Kritterz

Here we go. I look forward to seeing everyone else's =^-^=

Circus Mafia

Here's my idea for the pitch party, Circus Mafia. This is one poster idea, sort of a spoof of 'The Godfather". I like it but one issue is it doesn't show a lot of the character, or any other characters. But on the other hand it sorta makes you want to know more with the simplicity. Any ideas at all from anyone would be lovley.

June 5th Deadline!

Hi Everyone! I hope you're working on your designs! Please plan on posting on or before June 5th. I''m in the process of getting a few distinguished judges to take a look at the entries and pick six to send off to Animation Magazine. I'll let you know who they are shortly.

If you signed up to this blog you HAVE to submit something by the deadline! Or else!

Please look at the post directly below this and click on the link to last year's submissions. Take note of the better ones that use good composition and colour, character designs that stand out and would "work" in an animated show, and (very important) clear and concise descriptions (and attractive typography choices) that "hook" the reader into the possibilties of the show without getting too wordy.

As always, email me if you have any questions.

2007 Examples of Pitches

Click on the title

Format

Hi everyone. I figure everyone is waiting until the last minute to post their creations so as not to share them too early. That's fine (but thanks for posting yours, Jo!).

If you want the correct format, there's a 6MB Photoshop file you can download by clicking on this link. It doesn't have to be photoshop though. Any medium will do.

Oliver's Odyssey (working title)

This isn't the final poster.. it'll be a little longer to match up with the size its supposed to be. and I'll have the title where it goes black. I have one question though,  Do i have to have additional text on the poster to kind of describe what the story-line is? example: "Think of a post-apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland.." I have one more poster.. I'll post it within the next week or so.

thanks. 

Welcome to the Competition!

Animation Magazine announced their annual Pitch Party for ideas for new shows. They sell you a spot on their page to pitch your idea.

Commercial Animation is buying a full page (six "pitches")and we need your designs to fill the space. Each pitch would normally cost you $375 US but we're going to cover it because it will get the word out that we have such an awesome group of artists.

So this is a mini-competition whose winners will have their work submitted to Animation Magazine's competition (and be published).

Capilano's Pitch Party Procedure

1. Important: email Don or Craig to get invited to the Pitch Party Blog (and then accept the invitation) so you can post!

2. Post as many designs as you like. Read the instructions to make sure you know what the magazine is looking for. Though it would be nice to have six different students represented, there's no rule that says the same person can't win two out of the six spots.

3. The Capilano competition deadline is 11PM, June 5th (the Anim Mag deadline is the 9th). You may post early and get feedback from people. Only invited blog members (competitors and judges) will be able to visit the blog.

4. Judges will be selected from current grads and maybe a couple esteemed alumni.

5. The winners will then have a few days to tighten up their designs (or not) and we will submit them to Animation Magazine for publishing. The Animation Magazine rules are at this link.

6. Submit:

a) An image, 2.25 inches wide by 4.875 inches high

b) Up to 30 words to pitch the idea or character

c) A title (optional)

d) Contact information



Here is an example of a full page of 6 pitches: