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!