ASIFA Hosts Student Animation Fest

ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animator Educator’s Forum is hosting its first Student Animation Film Festival at Woodbury University in Burbank, Calif. on Oct. 18. Kicking off at 10 a.m., the fest will feature short film submissions from students enrolled in professional academic programs throughout the U.S., including NYU Tisch School of the Arts, UCLA, USC, Woodbury University, Loyola Marymount University, CSU Fullerton, Bay and The Art Institute of California-Orange County.

The festival will see winners crowned in the categories Best Visual Storytelling, Best Character and Best Technical Achievement. Other kudos will include a Judges’ Choice award and The Emile Cohl Award for the Best Animated Short. The awards show and screening of winners will be held at 6 p.m in the Fletcher Jones Foundation Auditorium.

Judges for the competition include El Tigre creator and exec producer Jorge R. Gutierrez, King of the Hill director and storyboard supervisor Robin Brigstocke, Pixar storyman Floyd Norman, Over the Hedge director Tim Johnson and CG commercial pioneer and Mattel creative director Aki Umemoto.

In addition to the competition portion of the event, a free demo reel and portfolio review will be offered to the public. Students and artists alike are encouraged to bring demo reels in DVD format and/or an organized collection of flat artwork to be critiqued by some of the competition judges and other industry professionals.

Sponsors include DigiCel FlipBook, Creative Talent Network, VISUCATE (Autodesk Authorized Education Value Added Reseller) and Woodbury University. Prizes include software packages such as Digi Cel’s FlipBook and Autodesk’s Maya, 3ds Max, Combustion and Motion Builder, in addition to prize money.

ASIFA, a French acronym for “Association Internationale du Film D’Animation” was founded by a group of animators in 1957 and chartered by UNESCO in 1960. ASIFA encourages the art of animation and furthers international understanding and goodwill through the medium. Today there are about thirty chapters of ASIFA all over the globe.

Woodbury University is located on 7500 Glenoaks Blvd. in Burbank, Calif. For more information about the event, go to http://asifa-hollywood.org/, or contact Larry Loc at larryloc@agni-animation.com.