What would you say is going on in this picture? Or any of the others, for that matter!

Daily Drawing

I'd like to start posting a drawing almost every day. Here's another:

More drawings

Drawings

I've been going through some old drawings- here are two samples:

Sample from today's Animation Draw

By Cameron and Catherine!

Random drawing

I'm going through some old photos and am coming across some work I forgot about. Here's one:

Uncle Paul's Story Time Part 1

Shitty Bedford, one of my favorite artists alive today, has recently begun posting on YouTube. I wasn't involved with this particular video- in fact it was shot by Sirius Bee- but I find it most amusing:

Hannah video from Xiamen

Cameron and Brett jam

Thanks to my lovely and amazing teacher Nirvana, I'm able to barely play some very basic viola.

Thanks to Bradley for having Cameron and myself over, we were able to jam, which felt wonderful. I loved playing music with my close friends so much!

Thanks to Catherine, there's a video of us jamming.

I felt so encouraged after this that I hauled my viola on my trip to Cinanima in Portugal, though I didn't actually practice at all (bad!).

Anyway, here is Cameron and me jamming:



My pinky is not proper (it should be bent, not stiff and straight) and my posture isn't so good either, but I love how Cameron and I sound together.

Xiamen 2009

As an ASIFA international board member, I was invited to the second annual Xiamen animation festival, where I gave a talk on early American animation.

Here's a photo:



I have some footage as well.



Lots more pictures from Xiamen

Thanks to Anni and Jonchill of ASIFA-China for inviting us!

International Animation Day 2009

International Animation Day

Wednesday, October 28th, 8pm, FREE

High Museum of Art Rich Auditorium

Click here to reserve a free ticket!

Also, thanks to Linda Dubler at the High Museum of Art and Jay Blodgett, our ever-reliable and amazing secretary of ASIFA-Atlanta, we have a lovely article about the event:

International Animation Day article

Animation Draw 5 (silent)

Once a month at WonderRoot, we bring light tables, paper, and markers and animate on paper- our monthly "Animation Draw" event!

Animation Draw 6 was today; here is Animation Draw 5, just shot and uploaded:



When it's ready, I'll post the version with the soundtrack.

Post by Harvey Deneroff about "Georgia Animation on My Mind"

Yay!! Harvey posted about "Georgia Animation on My Mind", which was a great event- a collaboration between ASIFA-Atlanta and Society for Animation Studies:

http://deneroff.com/blog/2009/09/25/georgia-animation-on-my-mind-qa/

Thanks Harvey!!

Atlanta Flood Pictures

I saw some of the flooding as I drove home from work- I truly wish I'd gotten some more pictures, but perhaps it was safer to avoid my compulsion to document. Anyway, here are the few I did snap while driving.

This was Moreland Ave:







I turned around when I saw this one:



But I drove through this one:



The wave from a car going the opposite direction hit my front bumper with a thump!

Many more pictures from other people at the Atlanta Flood 2009 Flickr Pool.

VAMMOPHONE FRANK SAX ONE

Beautiful video directed by Shitty Bedford, who also invented the VAMMOPHONE FRANK SAX ONE, available for only $200

Professor Spitwash played by yours truly, Brett W. Thompson

Society for Animation Studies / ASIFA-Atlanta "Georiga Animation on my Mind", Q&A part 1

Thanks to Ian Nathanson for filming!

ASIFA-Atlanta Animation Draw 4, with sound

Bowling!

I love bowling!

We went recently as a fun day for work, and Walter took this video:

ASIFA-Atlanta Animation Draw 4 (silent!)

Version with soundtrack coming soon!

Society for Animation Studies / ASIFA-Atlanta "Georiga Animation on my Mind", July 10th, 2009: Introduction

Ian Nathanson was kind enough to film my introduction to the Society for Animation Studies Conference 2009 / ASIFA-Atlanta screening "Georiga Animation on my Mind", which was at the High Museum of Art on July 10th, 2009.

Here it is; many thanks to Harvey Deneroff who asked me to curate this show!

Animation Draw lengths on a graph

I just finished shooting Animation Draw 4 (it just needs some music!), and I wondered how much longer it was in comparison to the previous ones.

So I put the lengths (in seconds) into Google Spreadsheets and made this little graph!

It'll be interesting to see how Animation Draw 5 goes, which is August 22nd at WonderRoot, 2pm-7pm (that's this Saturday).

Animation Attack! 2009

Animation Attack! 2009 schedule available now!

Article Mentioning "Sita Sings the Blues" in Montezuma

Last November, I helped out with the Montezuma International Film Festival. Montezuma, Costa Rica is incredibly beautiful and relaxing, although if you're running a festival you have to keep in mind where you are and take time to enjoy yourself- my tendency was to worry and work too much! I did fall asleep on the beach once, though, and had a blast hula-hooping...

Anyway, one way I contributed was getting ahold of Sita Sings the Blues for the festival, and it was quite popular! Consequently, we ended up showing it a few extra times. The lady who owns and runs a health-food restaurant there, Organico, particularly loved the film.

At the time, Nina Paley hadn't given the film away yet- she only had festival rights, so it was even more special to see. Explaining the copyright situation after one of the screenings, an older lady immediately offered to donate to Nina's cause!

A very sweet writer named Brit interviewed Eric and me and wrote this lovely article about "Sita Sings the Blues" and the Montezuma International Film Festival:

Montezuma Alights, Curtain Calls and All.

Brit said "see you next year!" as we parted, but I'm already using all my vacation time on animation festivals (Annecy and Xiamen), so I don't know if I'll make it...

But it was fun to unearth that article, I'd forgotten about it!

Mail Trends

This is my email volume over the years, generated by mail-trends.

ASIFA-Atlanta "Gather Atlanta" video

ASIFA-Atlanta "Roll Yer Own" 2009 Program

ASIFA-Atlanta Animation Draw 1

Next Animation Draw: June 20th, 2pm, at WonderRoot! No experience necessary- I'll bring paper and light tables, come and draw!

Late Night Chess at Majestic

I met some awesome dudes at Majestic who were playing chess- we got to talking and they pulled up fluidtoons.com on an iPhone. I snapped this picture which I love!

Chickenheads, by the way, is now on IMDB, also!

ASIFA-Atlanta "Roll Yer Own" awards and "Blowin' Smoke"

The latest mass-email to ASIFA-Atlanta folks:

Hello animation fan!

Thanks so much to everyone who came to Roll Yer Own!! Especially those who were generous enough to donate a buck or two, we truly appreciate it!!

ASIFA-Atlanta "Roll Yer Own" 2009 Awards:

The "Best of Show" award went to "Stubbe Peter" by Kristin Jarvis.

The "Audience Choice" award went to "Cornpopalypse" by Maurice VandenBergh II.

Winners receive a free year's membership to ASIFA-Atlanta.

This was the first year we did awards; here's how they were picked: the night before "Roll Yer Own" we held a pre-screening and debated about which film to give the "Best in Show" award to, and we picked Kristin's. For the "Audience Choice" award, we received 70 votes (thank you voters!); "Cornpopalypse" won with fourteen votes, and "Gypsy Crepes" came in second with nine votes. "As Seen on TV" was third with six votes.

Thanks to all filmmakers for submitting, and thanks to those who helped, particularly John Cason for the beautiful flyer, Karl Sigler for the DVD authoring, Cameron Stuart for everything, Takuro Masuda for working the door, and Bryan Fordney, Fatimah Abdullah, and Joel Rose for being on the award committee.

Our next big event is "Blowin' Smoke", showcase of locally-produced commercial animation, June 28th at 8pm at Five Spot, free:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brett_w_thompson/3573748383/

We are seeking volunteers to help with Gather Atlanta on June 6th. Please email me if you're interested.

Upcoming animation-related events (also on the calendar on our blog, asifa-atlanta.blogspot.com):

Gather Atlanta at Eyedrum on June 6th, 5pm
Art community gathering, www.gatheratlanta.com

Animation Workshop at Manuel's Tavern on Sunday, June 14th at 7pm
Monthly workshop; see http://atl-animators.org

Animation Draw at WonderRoot on June 20th, 2pm
Collaborative animation; paper and light-tables provided, no experience necessary, come and draw! Example resulting film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShJo_RBF4I

Blowin' Smoke at Five Spot on June 28th, 8pm, free
Free showcase of commercial animation made by local studios!

Society for Animation Studies Screening at High Museum of Art on July 10th, 8pm, free
Free ASIFA-Atlanta showcase of local animation for the SAS conference; http://blog.scad.edu/sasc/schedule/

Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation at Plaza, June 26th to July 2nd

Figure Drawing every Thursday 8-10pm at Westwood College, $5

Thanks so much!

-Brett W. Thompson, President of ASIFA-Atlanta

I liked the bowling picture so much I think I may start to post more pictures.

The one above is typical hilarity at Bradley's. He gave me that jean vest to wear, which actually has Betty Boop on the back. Notice the ThoughtMarker shirt, too!

Thank you Jeremy Abernathy!

Oh my!!

I blushed so much when I read this! I'm overwhelmed:

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/culturesurfing/2009/05/20/feminismanimation-mixer-on-thursday/

A billion thanks to Jeremey Abernathy of Ghostmap Microwave for the kind words!!! He was also one of the participating artists in ASIFA-Atlanta's first Animaiton Draw.

Also: don't forgot about ASIFA-Atlanta's "Roll Yer Own" showcase of independent animation at the Five Spot, May 31st, 8:30pm, free! We got a ton of great submissions to show!

Bowling

I hadn't gone bowling in forever; a few of us went recently, and it was a blast, haha! It's a ridiculous game isn't it? Cameron snapped this picture of me which I love:

ASIFA-Atlanta "Roll Yer Own" 2009

ASIFA-Atlanta Presents
"Roll Yer Own"
Independent Local Animation

May 31st 8:30pm
Five Spot
No Cover

Submit at www.asifa-atlanta.com

(beautiful flyer design by John Cason)

ASIFA-Atlanta Google Groups

Recently I moved two of the big ASIFA-Atlanta email lists over to Google Groups! Thanks to Jason Welte of Kintovision for suggesting we use Google Groups a while back! It's making things significantly easier (we have a bunch of email addresses).

Please subscribe if you're interested; this first list is our general ASIFA-Atlanta and animation-related news email list, which currently gets about one or two emails from me per month, mostly promoting our animation screenings and related events.


Subscribe to ASIFA-Atlanta Announcement Email List

Email:

The second list here is for the ASIFA-Atlanta figure drawing class, currently happening every Thursday night from 8pm-10pm at Westwood College. It's five bucks and is a great way to meet fellow artists and animators (I've made several good friends there over the years, e.g. Jert). It gets one or two emails per week. Joe Peery still runs the figure drawing class, yay!



Subscribe to ASIFA-Atlanta Figure Drawing Email List

Email:

ASIFA-Atlanta Animation Draw 1

Charles Judson from Atlanta Film Festival encouraged us to try this out, and we did- it was a blast!

We set up four light tables and piles of paper and makers at the Independent on April 18th as part of the Atlanta Film Festival.

Here's the result:



We're going to have another one on May 16th at WonderRoot at 3pm!! Come and draw!

Update: Cameron did a soundtrack for me! Updated the video! :)

International Pillow Fight Day

Photo by jack_babalon


Photo by Mike Germon

ASIFA-Atlanta Report of Activities

ASIFA-International puts together a magazine that goes to all our members all over the world. Each chapter usually sends a report of what they've been up to for each issue. Many thanks to Ray Kosarin for the editing!

Here's our latest update:

ASIFA-Atlanta continues to be very active, thanks to the dedication of our volunteers and board. Recently we've been working more with other organizations, such as Society for Animation Studies, whose conference will be held in July at Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus as well as at the High Museum of Art. Harvey Deneroff, professor at SCAD-Atlanta and one of the founders of SAS, asked us to present a program of excellent local animation, which we are working on now.

ASIFA-Atlanta is also working with the Center for Puppetry Arts--we helped spread the word about a night of stop-motion films, curated by Alan Louis, which included shorts such as Harvie Krumpet and was very well attended.. ASIFA-Atlanta members received a discount on admission, and ASIFA-Atlanta screening coordinator Karl Sigler compiled the DVD that was shown.

Our most recent event was a special fund-raising screening of the beautiful and increasingly famous film, Sita Sings the Blues. We were absolutely delighted to show this film, for which we booked the larger of two screens available in Atlanta's historic Plaza theater. ASIFA-Atlanta president Brett W. Thompson gave a short introduction, which was followed by the trailer for Monster Road, the documentary on Bruce Bickford scheduled for a subsequent screening at the Center for Puppetry Arts. The Center has arranged for director Brett Ingram to attend and do a Q&A afterward!

Following the trailer, we showed a special video introduction that Nina Paley very generously recorded for us! She explained some background about the film, including its copyright issues, and announced how it has been released under Creative Commons, which means anyone can copy, publish, show, or remix the film. She also gave shout-outs to ASIFA-Atlanta's volunteer projectionist Bryan Fordney, Karl Sigler, and president Brett W. Thompson, as well as the ASIFA-Atlanta Board and door volunteers. Many thanks to Nina Paley for all her help, and to the Plaza for being so accomodating!

Exactly a week after Sita Sings the Blues, "PSST! 3" showed at the Plaza, coordinated by participant and Atlanta local Calvin Florian. "PSST! 3" is a diverse, creative series of collaborative short films made by many participants over the last year, and AISFA-Atlanta promoted this excellent event.

ASIFA-Atlanta's plans for the rest of 2009 include "Roll Yer Own", our annual showcase of local independent animated film; "Blowin' Smoke", the commerical counterpart to "Roll Yer Own"; "Animation Attack!", part of the Atlanta Underground Film Festival; and of course International Animation Day, which we always love. We are also very proud to be participating in the SAS conference.

As usual, we are continuing our recurring events, which include Joe Peery's weekly figure drawing class at Westwood College and the monthly Animators' Workshop at Manuel's Tavern, run by Karl Sigler.

Brett W. Thompson

Animation tomorrow at Plaza: PSST! 3

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, March 18th), at 7:30pm, PSST! 3 will be showing at Plaza! (1049 Ponce De Leon Ave).

We have local participant Calvin Florian to thank for bringing it to Atlanta.

Check out the trailer to see what it's all about; the variety of styles is awesome:

http://vimeo.com/3021486

More info below; hope to see you there!

PSST!3 is a collaborative film project of 17 films made by 51 teams of Designers, Directors, Animators and Composers.

The mission of PSST is to produce original short films through the collaboration of Designers, Directors, and Animators. Each film is comprised of three sections produced by three different teams: the beginning, middle & end. This process is the whole idea behind PSST! – a technique derived from the Dadaist game of Exquisite Corpse and the children's game Telephone and applied to the arts of motion graphics, animation and film-making.

PSST! is curated and organized by Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design
Work. This event is being organized by participant and Atlanta local Calvin
Florian.

For more information on the event contact: Calvin Florian at
calvin.florian@turner.com or by phone 404.840.8438

Thanks,

-Brett W. Thompson, President of ASIFA-Atlanta

ASIFA-Atlanta's first mention in Creative Loafing

I've always wanted our events to be mentioned in Creative Loafing.

Thanks to Jeremy Abernathy of Ghostmap Microwave, my dream came true!

Creative Loafing Post about "Sita Sings the Blues"

Jeremy thoroughly researched the film- the post is very informative.

Last night's screening was awesome and probably one of our smoothest-running. I think we're getting the hang of things, having done this a few times now. The Plaza was tremendously helpful (please support them, they are really, really good guys there) and our volunteers did great (Alena, Bryan, Fatimah, and Sandee)!! Big huge thanks to everyone who came out!

I might write more about the experience in the future (possibly a five-minute guide to how to put on a film event?), but I was so excited about the Creative Loafing post I had to mention that immediately.

"Sita Sings the Blues" in Atlanta!

ASIFA-Atlanta presents "Sita Sings the Blues"

7:30 PM
March 11th, 2009
$8 for ASIFA-Atlanta members
$10 for everyone else

Plaza Theatre
1049 Ponce de Leon

www.asifa-atlanta.com for tickets

Lots of great animation to see in Atlanta!

Hi animation fan!

ASIFA-Atlanta is proud to announce that we've just booked the Plaza for March 11th, at 7:30pm, to show the award-winning animated feature, "Sita Sings the Blues"!

Please take a look at a clip here:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/brewtv/sita.html

We are still working out the details, but ASIFA-Atlanta members will receive a discount on tickets, and we'll need a couple volunteers. Please spread the word about this film if you can- the screening will be a fundraiser for Nina Paley, the filmmaker, who has gone into debt to make the film and battle copyright issues with it (see www.ninapaley.com for more).

Then, on March 28th at 8pm, the Center for Puppetry Arts will be showing "Monster Road", the fascinating documentary about famous animator Bruce Bickford! The director, Brett Ingram, will do a Q&A afterwards. Don't miss it!

Details here:

http://www.puppet.org/edu/monsterfilm.shtml

Tomorrow (Friday), "Coraline" opens in theaters nationwide! Based on a story by Neil Gaiman and directed by Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas"), it's sure to be good.

Movie times for "Coraline":

http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=30307&sort=3&date=1&mid=fca776a747bbba0

Award-winning "Waltz with Bashir" is currently playing at Midtown Art Cinema! It's an animated documentary (very unique!) about director Ari Folman's experience as an Israeli soldier; I'm really excited that it's playing in Atlanta because I've been dying to see it for a while. It should be showing at least until Febuary 12th.

Here is the film's official website:

http://waltzwithbashir.com/

And an article about it at AWN:

http://mag.awn.com/?article_no=3865

Also at Midtown Art Cinema, on Febuary 20th, the "Oscar-nomated Animated Shorts" will be shown! Films include Lavatory - Lovestory (Russia), Oktapodi (France), Le Maison en Petits Cubes (Pieces of Love, Vol. 1) (Japan), Smith & Foulkes' This Way Up (UK) and Pixar's Presto (USA), plus a bonus selection of highly acclaimed recent shorts.

This Sunday there is an Animators' Workshop at Manuel's Tavern, at 7pm, in the Eagle's Nest. See http://www.atl-animators.org to keep up with the workshop.

Also, as usual, we have our weekly figure-drawing class at Westwood College! It's every Thursday from 8-10pm and is $5.

Take care!

-Brett W. Thompson, President of ASIFA-Atlanta
brett@fluidtoons.com

"27 for CK"

ASIFA-Atlanta 2008 Report of Activities

I just sent the following to the ASIFA International board. Their plan is to post it on asifa.net.

We've had a busy year!!

ASIFA-Atlanta 2008 Report of Activities

ASIFA-Atlanta had a fantastic 2008, featuring animators from our local chapter and throughout the world, including those who participated in ASIFA's International Animation Day.

We started the year in February with our first-ever screening on film (16mm), "To Hell With Hitler", a selection of WWII-era American propaganda cartoons, curated by C. Martin Croker. The screening took place at Atlanta's historical Plaza cinema.

In April, ASIFA-Atlanta helped to promote Atlanta Film Festival's "Animation Extravaganza" night, and ASIFA-Atlanta President Brett W. Thompson did an introduction and Q&A.

In May, we held our annual "Roll Yer Own" event, which showcases locally-produced independent animation. This year featured a wide range of techniques--for instance Moviekiss: The Lite Brite Video, animated with a Lite Brite toy; Knight vs Knight, animated on a TI-86 graphing calculator; and Bee Bog, animated traditionally and composited with AfterEffects. The event was very well attended and successful; the filmmakers were invited on stage afterwards for a Q&A.

In July, for our annual event "Blowin' Smoke," Atlanta animation studios showcased their best commercial work and generously took time to talk to eager animators seeking advice and employment. Participating studios included Primal Screen, Radical Axis, Turner Studios, and 70/30.

"Animation Attack!", part of the Atlanta Underground Film Festival, was perhaps our biggest event and occurred in August. We showed an animated feature, John's Arm: Armageddon, and two blocks of world-class animated shorts at Atlanta's historic Plaza Theatre. Films included Aaron Augenblick's Golden Age, Mathieu Labaye's Orgesticulanismus, Max Margulies and Naoko Masuda's God of Tears, and Tim Rauch's film Germans in the Woods.

ASIFA-Atlanta was very proud to celebrate International Animation Day on October 28th at the High Museum of Art's Hill Auditorium. It is one of our favorite events and makes us grateful to be a part of the worldwide animation community- we were happy to be able to exchange films with ten countries. About 400 people came to the two showings, and the positive feedback we received from the audience was overwhelming and wonderful. Thanks to Juliette Crochu for coordinating IAD this year.

In November, ASIFA-Atlanta brought Don Hertzfeldt to Atlanta as part of his tour for his latest film, I am so proud of you. Our screening coordinator Karl Sigler introduced the program and did a great Q&A with Don.

Finally, to finish 2008, in December ASIFA-Atlanta put together an art show, the theme of which was the Golden Age of Comics/Cartoons. Thirty-seven artists created sixty-five pieces of art which were on display in the Eyedrum's gallery space for over a month. The opening night for the art show was very well attended (Eyedrum's parking lot filled up) and featured music from local bands Omelet, The Falcon Lords, The Back Pockets, and Floating Coats.

For 2009, ASIFA-Atlanta is proud to have partnered with Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts to help their new film series, curated by Alan Louis. The series will include an evening of stop motion films as well as a screening of "Monster Road", the documentary about Bruce Bickford.

ASIFA-Atlanta will continue to have exciting events in 2009, as well as continue our recurring events, which include a weekly figure drawing class (run by Joe Peery) and the monthly Animators' Workshop, run by our screening coordinator Karl Sigler.

-Brett W. Thompson, President of ASIFA-Atlanta

Obituary: Brett W. Thompson (not me)

I'm still very much alive :)

But somebody with my name remarkably similar to mine isn't, anymore, sadly:

http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/1143883/Obituary-Brett-W-Thompson.html

Thank you Google Alerts!

Also: Saturday, January 17th, come to An Evening of Stop-Motion Animation at the Center for Puppetry Arts at 8pm!