A few additional pics of Ottawa

Parliament Hill

Art Gallery

Double decker bus from picnic

Judges for the pumpkin carving contest (David Silverman, director of Simpson's movie, is on the right)

Pumpkins!

Day 4

Ronnie Del Carmen

Peter Sohn

Henry Selick

Wow, last night was Henry Selick discussing his career and creating 'Coraline'. A very animated and funny guy. He has been doing stop motion a very long time. I throughly enjoyed listening to him and was very inspired by his passion for this artform.

This morning I finally took in some animated short films. I bumped into Clive, the Australian composer and we had coffee and then took in the screening. Some very good animation, some experimental. The overall tone of the films were very personal and at times depressing. I would have liked to laugh more. It seems everyone wants to use this as some kind of cathartic therapy or something. Again, very interesting styles, but too personal and dark for my liking. I hope to catch one more screening at 9pm, but with a 6am wake up call, that might not happen.

I visited the Arts court where Disney, Studio B, Nelvana and such were looking at portfolios. Some other animation schools also had booths there, so I took some information and chatted them up.

Eric Goldberg from Disney (he created the Genie from Aladdin and is working on Princess and the Frog) sat with me on the bus to the Museum. Very lovable looking old guy, just taking the bus and enjoying the festival like the rest of us. A few fan girls were bugging him and wanted to show their Genie watch. He really laughed at that.

This afternoon was Peter Sohn from Pixar, the director of 'Partly Cloudy'. Amazing, amazing presentation. He had us laughing and marveling at this work so much. He pretty much storyboarded his whole presentation for us (see above picture as an example) and went through the entire process of making the film from the 'seed' of an idea, the pitch process, story, character and technical development right down to the rendering challenges. Very interesting and he showed tons of drawings and shared a huge amount of development work. I wish the students could have seen this one. Afterwards he signed posters and I got one made out to the students at school.

Tonight is Ronnie Del Carmen, the story supervisor on 'Up'. That again will be a packed house and I will need to get there early.

Ronnie was great. He talked all about the story process of 'Up'. He shared tons of artwork, storyboards, anecdotes and photos about their research trip to South America. We also got a special advanced screening of the new short that will appear on the 'Up' DVD in November. It's called 'Dug's Secret Mission' (I believe). Very funny, but what else would you expect.

I feel very privelaged to have heard these artists from Pixar talk about their processes. Hugely insightful and inspiring. They have it all figured out.

And that my friends will wrap up my festival itinerary. It has been amazing! Great weather, great people, tons of info and animation geekery alike.

Day 3

TAC is over, now I can start enjoying more of the festival things. I get to sleep in until 8am and then have some breakfast before I head over to 'Big Jump Productions'. They are about as far out as Mercury, so I make sure I have time for the cab ride. Big Jump was started about two years ago by brothers Rick and Cory Morrison and has risen from the ashes of Funbag. Cory is great and really took time to show me around and answer my questions. They are doing some gorgeous work using Flash, which thankfully doesn't look like Flash. They have a really talented group who can draw, design and animate. It's not a big studio, but they are growing and have a strong slate of work coming. They are currently hiring right now as well.

I've discovered that due to the Ontario tax credit, which is what allows the animation studios to survive, is that the studio's in the province are limited to only hiring within the province. They hope to see that change, but as for now they cannot afford to hire an artist without that tax break.

Next it was off to Strathcona park for the Animator's picnic (as seen in the photos), in which I took a whole wack of photos. There was tons of free booze and food. It's mainly outdoors and chilly, but a perfect sunny day with lots of beautiful fall scenery. Lots of networking again and catching up with people. I met up with Anne Denman, head recruiter of Studio B and hope to set something up back home with her. I also got to catch up with Robyn Budd, who was our DisneyToronto director on 'Peter Pan 2-Return to Neverland'. He is a very talented and widely respected director. I got to talk with two guys who sold their idea to Teletoon a few weeks back and have another show idea that is looking promising. They are very cool guys and are really getting an edcuation about giving birth to an idea and handing it over to others to produce and develop.

That brings you up to date. I'm going to get another swim in and then head over to the Museum of Civilzation to hear Henry Selick talk about 'Coraline'. That is going to be packed so I should head early. It starts at 6:30.

Later everyone!

Day 2 - TAC conference

Up again at 6:30 and I boot it over the Chateau for the breakfast. Today's keynote speaker is David Silverman, legendary in the Simpson's circles and director of 'The Simpsons Movie', co-director of 'Monsters Inc.' and co-director on 'El-Dorado'. He is quite funny and really livens things up with some very funny Simpson's clips and tons of anecodotes regarding the creation of the show, how it's written, etc... Not as inspiring and humble as Josh Selig, but a cool guy with a ton of experience. Heck he helped start the Simpson's!

Now I book it over to Mecury Filmworks, way out in some industry park. They have a brand new studio which is pretty slick looking. Amber, their head recruiter, tours me around and answers my questions about their recruitment methods, pipeline, all of that stuff. I bump into Clint Eland, founder and owner of Mercury. I remember Clint from my days at Studio 'B' as they contributed some CG to our 2D shows. Mecury is going to be crazy busy in the spring and they are hiring heavily right now. They are doing 4 shows for Teletoon, Disney and such. I saw way too much to write about. I will be sharing in the class.

I get back in time for a quick lunch and head over to the Arts Court building for a workshop on writing for Preschool and Comedy Animation. This is being led by my friend Ian Cortlett, who looks like he survived the previous night. I could only stay for half as I had to get back to the TAC conference for another panel. This one is 'Tried, Tested and True!'. It involves Frank Caruso -VP of King Features Syndicate (the newspaper comics), Pam Slavin - VP of Cookie Jar and David Wiebe - YTV, Corus Ent. It was interesting, but not much to share on this one.

Next was a coffee break, a quick meeting with Lauren Talledo of Kidscreen magazine and then another panel at 3:30.

This next one was cool, because it involved 3 shows that were being pitched to this amazing panel of judges from Nickolodeon, YTV, Cartoon Network and Teletoon. Major broadcasters. These lucky groups were chosen to pitch their show idea in front of the entire TAC conference attendees and the panel gives them feedback on the spot. Quite informative. I was nervous and sweating just watching them. I won't comment right now on all three, but one of them was about animated singing boxes that has real potential. I am not kidding. It was funny!

Hey, I finally get some exercise in. I go for a swim and relax for an hour. I'm now off to a workshop at the Arts Court building called 'Intro to Animation Acting drill'. It was fast paced and very participatory. It was a lot of fun and I definitely picked up some things. Jackie Vallance does her workshops all over North America and she had a ton of energy and enthusiasm. Exhausting just watching her for 2 hours. I barely got any photos in focus because of how much she moved.

Now it is a late dinner (9:30) and I'm off to bed. No parties for me tonight.

Day 1 - TAC conference

Alrighty, up at 6:30am to get to the TAC (The Animation Conference), a two day info session packed with panels, pitch sessions, schmoozing, networking, eating and drinking. Got to the Chateau Laurier at 7:30 for the free breakfast buffet (huge spread) and settled in. I don't know anyone yet, so I just pick a table to sit at for the day. I meet 4 guys from Edmonton, in town to pitch a show idea. They're young and full of energy. Very keen on having a good time and learning this business.

Josh Selig kicks things off as that days keynote speaker. He's from 'Little Airplane Studios' and has won a ton of emmys for his work in the early days of Sesame Street. A legend and very inspiring to hear. He hammers on about orginality and has a great anecdote about meeting Dom Deluise as a kid and learning that 'everything matters' when it comes to presentation and entertaining.

Next is a boring and short pitch about a product called 'Cel Action 2D'. Not much was shown and it was too short to make a strong impression.

Next was another panel on Market Analysis. Man there are some heavyweights here from the world of television animation production. Ron Estey - VP of C.O.R.E Digital, Kevin Gillis - CEO of Skywriter Media (a new but busy venture) and Tom Gillis - President of Fresh TV. Lot's of interesting takes on how the industry is making through this economic downturn and how they are going to take advantage of the internet. Nobody has a good solution for that yet and as it stands it is a free for all as the CTRC does not regulate it yet. They talked about surviving with more co-production, improving quality and becoming more cost effective.

Next was a panel on Branding and boy is there big bucks in this. Some guys have figured out how to make money off the internet by doing viral marketing and ads for big companies and brands such as McDonalds and Kraft. Guys like Marble Media and Fuel Industries are tapping into this big time. Some good debates about the selling out nature of developing cartoons to sell stuff and having them built around products.

Alright it's 3:30 and back to the hotel for nappy time until happy hour.

Happy Hour for the TAC members at this really cool bar called Foundations. Free booze and tons of food. A great party and I meet all kinds of people from Bangladesh, Singapore, Australia. This is truly an international event. It took an Aussie composer to introduce me to someone else from Kelowna. He composes for animation and live action and then someone from Saskatchewan mentions knowing Jordan Gaucher who is trying to start a studio in Kelowna. So that sets up some meetings in the near future. I run into tons of old collegues from Atomic Cartoons, Loogaroo, Mercury, etc...

Now it's off to a restaurant called the 'Highlander' for some Scottish grub and music. I have dinner with Rob Davies - VP of Atomic Cartoons (Atomic Betty), Ian Cortlett (creator and writer of Being Ian and Yvon of the Yukon) and Rick Morrison (co-founder of Funbag and now head of Big Jump Productions). We try some Scottish pints and listen to a scottish guy do cover tunes of the Tragically Hip. Interesting! Man oh man, I haven't laughed this much in ages. Stories you won't believe. Next it's off to the Brassierie for the closing party. This is being hosted by Atomic and such and it's open to all passholders. Wow, free drinks and the place is a zoo. I sneak out around midnight but I heard it raged until 3am. This is day one. I hope I can survive. I am definitely taking it easier on day 2.

arrived in Ottawa

Chateau Laurier - TAC conference

I'm here for the 2009 International Animation Festival. I picked up my pass tonight and got a great swag bag. It should be a lot of fun. Many updates to come!