AIB Animation: The Ottawa Trip (OIAF)

We heard that last years AIB trip to the 2008 Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) was a definite good time. The AIB blog recently had a chance to ask Tim Finn a few questions about the event, animation scene, and a night in jail (well, a hostel that was converted from a jail- close enough!)... read for yourself and enjoy:

 
What animation festival did you attend in Ottawa?

In September we attended the 2008 Ottawa International Animation Festival.  OIAF has been running for more more than 30 years, and is the second-biggest animation festival in the world after Annecy in France (which sort of grew out of Cannes).  We're really fortunate to have such an event relatively close.  It's not like we're flying to Los Angeles or Croatia.

The festival is five full days of screenings and retrospectives. It's an event where the business, education, and the artform converge. You can walk up to a filmmaker and ask "How did you do that?" or simply say "I really like your film." Cartoon Network sponsors the big picnic, and the company's Development VP is handing out business cards.  There are Q&As and demos where you can learn how techniques work. And yet it's all in a relaxed atmosphere. The biggest stress for me is not skipping lunch because there's so much to do. To be fair, though, I'm sure seniors have an added stress of bringing portfolios or business cards and worrying about how to turn this into a networking opportunity.

Ottawa just a bit outside of Boston, How is the animation scene there?

Ottawa has a surprising animation scene.  It's not a major hub like Los Angeles or New York, but Spumco was there -- that's John Kricfalusi's company, responsible for "Ren and Stimpy."  There are also a few independent animators there -- in fact, one retrospective at OIAF '07 was films made in the city itself, including "Neighbors," a stellar 1952 Norman McLaren short that won an Oscar and that hopefully all my students are familiar with.  Algonquin College of Art and Applied Technology is there, and the city is also close to the National Film Board of Canada's animation studio in Montreal.

How did the students respond to the event?, any memorable highlights you would like to share?

The students responded well.  A trip like this works on several levels.  We share a bus with Museum School, and this year we also took some MassArt alums.  In that way we're expanding the student view of animation in Boston.  This coming year Harvard's animation students are taking a bus as well.  For some of our students this is their first trip out of the country.  There's no culture shock, since the English-speaking part of Canada is about as similar as one could hope for.  (Though I think some culture shock is good, so I encourage everyone to travel far and wide.)  Students stay at a hostel, probably another first.  Did I mention the hostel is a converted jail?

Then there's the festival content itself -- films old and new, foreign and domestic, made by a studio or an individual.  Some are funny, some are sad.  It's a reminder that animation, seen in America as kids' stuff, is a technique, not a genre. 

A highlight for me was getting a DVD compilation for Filmtecknarna, a studio in Sweden.  I saw a life-changing short in college called "Revolver," but I'd never seen it on DVD until a year ago.  But that disc was only available from one Swedish website.  I was nervous about typing my credit card into fields I couldn't understand, so I approached Jonas Odell, one of the directors, who was a jury member at this year's festival.  Not only did he have a copy of the disc, he gave it to me.  I didn't have anything to trade, so as a "thanks" I'm going to mail him a DVD of my own.

In terms of student highlights, I heard Mark Mullaney makes some mean pancakes.  You probably meant films, though.  If memory serves, Justin King was wowed by the Richard Williams Q&A.  Williams, best known for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," is a humble guy, but has actually earned that "living legend" status that gets tossed around.

What other animation festivals do you recommend checking out?

Other animation festivals?  That depends on one's ability to travel.  We're fortunate being in Boston.  Theatres like the Brattle, the Coolidge, and the Somerville run traveling festivals like The Best of Ottawa, the Animation Show of Shows, and The Animation Show.  And institutions like the MFA and Harvard bring visiting filmmakers in for screenings and Q&As several times a year.  This might be a good time to plug the Coolidge Awards in May.  The Quay Brothers will be at the Coolidge Theatre for two days. They work in England, and don't ever travel, so this is a big deal.

In terms of site-specific festivals, it depends on how far one can travel and when one has time off.  Annecy in France is the big one.  It's so big you cannot do everything.  It takes over the city in a way that would surprise us Americans who are used to animation being the ugly stepchild of film.  I've heard good things about the Animation Block Party and ASIFA-East, both in New York City.

And then there are film festivals which don't necessary push animation, but show it.  Locally, there's the Independent Film Festival of Boston.  IFFB isn't on students' radar since it's the last week of April, concurrent with finals, but I spent a happy weekend bouncing between the Brattle and the Somerville Theatre last year, soaking up movies that will never reach "regular" theatres.

Some students are hesitant to submit works to festivals or other events. Do you have any advice on where to start when trying to get animations out to a new audiences?

Unfortunately domestic festivals tend to have entry fees, and though international ones often don't (because of corporate sponsorship or governement funding), shipping can be pricey.  It's a little like a job interview.  Know the company beforehand so you don't go in cold.  Your film may not fit the character of a certain festival, but may be a great match for another.  Start with the big festivals, and look for some smaller, younger ones that may not have the largest applicant pool.  The paperwork is easier now that more festivals want you to apply online through withoutabox.com. 

Ultimately, a festival is just a selection of opinions.  Five people in a room watch 200 or 2000 films, and then pick some.  Don't get discouraged if you're rejected.  Quality will out, as they say.  If you have a great film, it will get into some festivals.  And once you're in one or two, people see your work, and sometimes an organizer of a different festival is in the audience where your film screens.

Are there any animation(s) that we should look forward to seeing?

I've got a few favorites from the last year of the festival circuit.  "Waltz With Bashir" is an animated feature film from Israel.  It looks and feels like a documentary, and all the events are historically accurate, but it's not technically a documentary.  In it a filmmaker starts to remember his role as a soldier in the 1982 Lebannon War.  It's animated in Flash in a realistic style, with saturated colors and photo-referenced backgrounds.  It was up for an Oscar, and didn't win, but did play in Boston for a few months, so there were plenty of chances to see it.  The art director has had a residency at Brown or RISD (or both?), actually, for the last few months. 

For shorts I really enjoyed "The Control Master," a cut-out film using what look like images from 1950s magazines and comic books, by a British animator named Run Wrake.  From Boston there was a great film by Kara Nasdor-Jones of MassArt called "I Slept With Cookie Monster," about a relationship that didn't go well.  A narrated film with what looked like oil patels on paper, but I could be mistaken.

When's the next AIB Animation road trip?

The next AIB road trip is in October when we head back to Ottawa.

Keep your eyes peeled for a gallery of snapshots from the Animation trip to OIAF on the AIB Flickr page, to be updated soon! Let us know how OIAF 2009 turns out. For more information regarding the next AIB road trip, email Tim Finn (inanimate.com) of the AIB Animation Department. Thanks Tim!