Friday, 29 January 2010

Festivals...

As part of my PPD I have been looking at festivals and competitions. Provided the Band don't object, and the work is done for the deadlines, then I may submit the Music video I'm making.

http://www.redstickfestival.org/entries.asp
No entry fee and students can submit work to more than one category in the competition. student submissions are accepted through to June 1st 2010.
Animations must be no longer than 9 minutes, must have been created in the past 2 years, and submitted in DVD or DV (NTSC) format.
There are a number of categories, the ones that will interest me if I am to submit the Music Video are:
*Animated Short Film (with my own sounds put to the video)
*Music Video
Other categories include: Scientific Visualization, Animation for commercials, Animation for games, Animation for Young Audiences, Experimental Animation/ Visual Music and Storyboards.

http://festival.pictoplasma.com/animation-submissions
Pictoplasma are calling for submissions but the deadline is the 1st of February. This might be something to consider for next year as Pictoplasma is Character Design orientated and I think this would suit me. work mustbe submitted as an uncompressed Quicktime in full PAL or NTSC Broadcast format on Data-DVD (or onBeta SP in PAL)

http://www.stokeyourfires.com/
deadline for this years competition is 15th Jan 2010, but this is an annual festival so could be considered for next year. categories include Best animated short, best student animation, best fine art/ experimental animation, best animated commercial.

http://www.aurora.org.uk/?lid=1927
the 2009 festival, rather than taking submissions, worked on a first come first served basis and you could book a slot for your film to be shown. This would be a great way to get my work seen if i was quick enough to book a slot (there were only 8 slots last year), although doesn't have quite the same acclaim as having your work chosen from submissions to be shown. However, work can be submitted as a completed piece or a work in progress, and the 10 minutes slot can be used to screen a 10 minute animation, or used to screen a shorter piece and then open up to discussion which would be a great way to get feedback on my work so this is something i would consider doing.

http://www.bangshortfilmfestival.com/
a non-competitive festival of short films which takes place 3 times a year in nottingham, mixing people from all parts of the industry and with no genre restrictions. They have a specific part of the festival which is solely animated features, the maximum length of a feature is 14 minutes and it should be submitted on DVD (PAL). The fact that this festival runs three times a year means there are more opportunities to enter if I was to miss one of the deadlines. 

http://www.liaf.org.uk/2009/entries.html
the deadline for this years entries was january the 19th, but this is something i could enter next year. It provides a lot of opportunity for your work to be seen if it is selected and some works from the festival are also shown on uk tours and worldwide festivals. the only guidelines for submission seem to be the format, there doesn't appear to be a restriction on the length of the animation or the genre. 

As well as maybe submitting the music video I may try to create a short animation using the Granny model I made, as it seems a waste not to use her as a lot of time and effort went into building her.

Tuesday, 5 January 2010


I finally had time to build a snowman on new years day :D I was out all day with my "little" brother. He's not quite as cute as the last one we made though :( but he did have mitten-like hands, carved using a wallpaper scraper! although you can't see them on the photo. I'm happy to report that he's still alive, and has only lost one button so far! :)