GLAS Animation Festival takes place March 21-24, 2019 in the historic city of Berkeley, California, just a quick ride away from San Francisco.

In March 2016 we launched the first annual GLAS Animation Festival in Berkeley, California. GLAS takes place over four days across Downtown Berkeley at various prestigious cultural institutions including theaters, galleries, media centers, and educational institutions.

GLAS exhibits films from local and international artists and filmmakers across the animation spectrum, creating a community and space for industry veterans, historians, animation enthusiasts, and emerging talent from diverse backgrounds to come together, share, learn, and appreciate the animated art form in a critical context. We started GLAS to showcase the most exciting animation being made around the world and expand the scope of how animation is understood as an artistic medium in the United States.

At the heart of the festival is the international competition, which showcases five curated programs of the most exceptional contemporary animated short films. These programs are the highlight of the festival as they demonstrate most fully the expressive abilities of animation as a medium. Created oftentimes by an individual artist or small team, these films push the boundaries of film itself through a singular vision not possible in any other medium.  

We also host retrospectives, special-curated programs, workshops, panel discussions, performances, and installations. We invite a diverse range of national and international guest speakers and presenters from various sections of the filmmaking community to come share their works, their knowledge, their expertise, and to facilitate discussion. The speakers and presenters we invite represent a multitude of aspects of the animation community including industry veterans, notable independent animators, curators, performance artists, and installation artists.  

Film festivals do not simply show films, but create communities, bringing filmmakers to the festival, sharing knowledge, uniting the international filmmaking community, inspiring aspiring filmmakers, and sharing works with the general public. It’s our belief that this work should be accessible to as many people as possible, and that cultivating and promoting independent animation in the United States will expand the culture of American animation, film, and art, for many generations to come. We also just think if more people are given the opportunity to see these films, they’ll really love them!

For more information, check out their website here.

As of March 7th, submissions are now open for the 2019 Rookie Awards.

Student applicants will have the chance to showcase their work before a prestigious panel comprised of over 60 influential industry experts and compete for prizes, scholarships, internships, and jobs.

Founded in 2009, the Rookies is an international annual awards and mentorship platform sponsored by the multinational software company, Autodesk. The Rookies has grown into one of the most recognized school rankings with almost 3,000 entrants worldwide last year.

The Academy of Art University had 14 students up for 20 individual awards in 2018, including Scholarship Finalists and Internship Finalists, from the Schools of Animation & Visual Effects, Architecture, Illustration, Game Development, and Visual Development, according to the Rookies website. A current Game Development student at the Academy of Art University, LiGang Zheng, also won the prestigious “Rookie of the Year” award in the Digital Illustration bracket, topping 25 category finalists from other schools around the world.

Moreover, the Academy of Art University topped the 2018 Rookies rankings in two categories:
• 1st in America and 2nd in the world for the Best Digital Illustration School
• 4th in the world for the Best 3D Motion Graphics School

They are accepting submissions now through May 31, 2019.
Rookies website: https://www.therookies.co/
Submission portal: https://www.therookies.co/contests/groups/rookie-awards-2019

Check out the link below for “How To” videos to help you sign up for ONLINE workshops!

https://my.academyart.edu/resources/academy-resource-center/training-tutoring/workshops-online

Date: Sat, Apr 6 | 10:30am–12:30pm

Cost: $65 non-members | $55 members
Note: This workshop is for students ages 13 & up

Location: Walt Disney Family Museum

Characters in the cartoons of the 1930s featured a distinctive aesthetic, often with pie-cut eyes and rubber hose limbs. Several of Walt Disney’s early projects played with the whimsical nature of the era’s animation style, showcased in short films such as those starring Mickey Mouse and those in the Silly Symphonies series (1929–39). When creating the game Cuphead (2017), Studio MDHR drew inspiration from these 1930s Disney cartoons as well as Fleischer Studios creations, which not only harnessed the iconic style but also pushed its limits. In Gallery 3, see examples of Disney shorts and then come learn about the stylistic quirks of animation from this era in our unique workshop taught by Studio MDHR and Cuphead lead animator, Hanna Abi-Hanna, to create your own 1930s-style hand-drawn looping animation. 

Hanna Abi-Hanna is an Annie Award-winning character animator based in Oakland, California. Originally from Lebanon, he moved to San Francisco in 2004 to pursue an MFA in traditional animation from the Academy of Art University, and has since worked independently with clients across film, television, and video games.

He has contributed his work to a variety of animation studios including Titmouse, Duncan Studio, Disney, and Ghostbot. In 2014, he joined the team at Studio MDHR as a Lead Animator on the 1930s-inspired video game, Cuphead. Most recently, he worked on the hand-drawn animated sequences in Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns (2018). He is currently back with Studio MDHR working on additional content for Cuphead and other studio projects. 

For ticket info, click here.

From Cartoon Brew: Click here for the article and video.

In anticipation of that release, Jean-Denis Haas, a senior lead animator at Industrial Light & Magic as well as an instructor at Animation Mentor, released a terrific video yesterday where he talks about his appreciation of the film’s animation using clips that have already been posted online:

Haas’ half-hour breakdown helps to explain what sets apart the performances in Spider-Verse from other animated films. Much of the praise for the film thus far has centered around the film’s boundary-pushing visual style, but after you watch this video, you’ll most definitely have a new appreciation for the animation performances as well.

There are two areas in particular that Haas focuses his analysis. The first is the interaction of the characters with props and clothing. In Spider-Verse, props and clothing are not just cg elements placed into scenes and onto characters, but they play a role in the storytelling. How Miles takes off his backpack or how he puts his hands into his hoodie are specific creative decisions that add layers of complexity and nuance to his performance, and help to create the feeling of a lived-in world, which is extremely difficult to pull off in cg.

The second key observation by Haas centers on the framing of action. One of the old-fashioned holdovers from the classic days of animation is that all acting needs to be clearly staged and visible to the audience. But that’s not how the real world works though and it’s not how acting works. The Spider-Verse filmmakers understood this and attempted to create a more cinematic approach to framing and staging where not every gesture and movement is played to the audience.

An example of this highlighted by Haas is when Miles steps out of his dad’s car, and closes the door of the car with his foot. It’s something I never even noticed when I saw the film, and that’s because you never actually see his foot closing the door. While the foot is offscreen, the shifting weight of Miles’ body and the closing door make it clear what’s happening.

That type of attention to detail, having Miles do things as a teenager would without drawing blatant attention to the behavior, almost never happens in animation. And even if audiences don’t pick up on every moment, the overall effect was certainly felt by audiences.

ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Educators Forum’s annual scholarship program is now accepting applications. This is an international opportunity, assisting students in completing their education in accredited college-level animation programs, applications are accepted from students entering their year or above and from graduate students. Awards range from $2,500 to $5,000 and may be applied to tuition, books supplies, animation equipment, formal academic research and senior or graduate thesis production.

2019 Submissions begin on February 15 and end at 11:59 PM PST on May 1. To apply, go to http://schohttp://scholarships.animationeducatorsforum.org/ larships.animationeducatorsforum.org/

For more details, please visit the AEF scholarships page: http://animationeducatorsforum.org/asifa-hollywoods-animation-educators-forum-scholarships/

Wednesday, February 27th @ 4:00pm Pacific Time
To participate, register here: https://live4.academyart.edu/anmdirthsp19/event/registration.html
Can’t attend? You can request a recording here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D6N88Y5
If you have any issues accessing the online meeting room, please contact the Online Help Desk:
Email: online@academyart.edu Phone: 415.618.3545 or 1.888.431.ARTS