Ottawa Overview

One interesting outcome from watching 100+ short animated films in three days is having the most amazing mash-up dreams where my lil’ brain regurgitates what I’ve seen. Way more fun and a hell of a bit safer than dropping acid. There’s lots of good coverage on a number of blogs including Cartoon Brew and a nice day to day account by Sharon Katz on AWN. There’s no way I could go over everything I loved but here’s four high-points:

One big standout was Keita Kurosaka’s Midori-Ko, I came to the screening with an open mind and was blown away the visceral drawing style and vegetable-cyber world created by Kurosaka.

Among other thrills was spending time with Montreal based scratch film/direct animation virtuoso Steven Woloshen. Steve’s film Playtime was showing and is full of joy and a total celebration of movement and color. One of the high points of my visit was sitting down for coffee and comparing techniques. I can’t wait to try some ideas from his new book Recipes for Reconstruction, chock full of interesting handmade film recipes.

Last year, one of my favorite films at Ottawa was “Black Dog’s Progress” by Stephen Irwin, a UK based animator. His new film ” Horse Glue” raises the bar a zillion notches with what looked  like animation spun through a video blender, re-filmed, scratched and then recombined with 3D elements. Here’s the teaser trailer:

With so much to see, the International Showcase series at the festival is often overlooked . My absolute favorite was in Showcase Two, the film Munjiai ( Dust Kid ) by Yumi Jung of South Korea. I loved the simplicity of line and subject matter. A woman goes about her morning and encounters a tiny “Dust Kid”.

I return from Ottawa every year, charged up and ready to create new work. This year was definitely no exception!