When this year’s Red Stick Animation Festival kicks off April 16-19 downtown, it will focus on animating for television and will contain a market component organizers have been eyeing for a few years.
That market component is this year’s pitch contest, in which hopefuls who register before Friday will have up to eight minutes to pitch an idea for an animated television show to judges from the industry.
The idea is two-fold: The contest will allow participants to see what it’s like to submit a proposal to an experienced television professional and spend up to eight minutes pitching their idea. But it is also a baby step for the festival, now in its fourth year, into the arena of marketing. The judges, as well as several other guests, are acquisitions professionals in the business of buying ideas and have the authority to buy an idea on the spot.
“From the very beginning with the festival we wanted to have a market component because that’s how you get on the international map,” said festival director Stacey Simmons. “Cannes, Sundance … those are successful because they’re markets.”
The festival had a pitch contest last year, though it was a bit more of a dress rehearsal for this one.
“We were trying to get the idea into people’s minds, to get the public used to the idea of having a pitch component and see if people would engage with that,” she said, adding it was a success, with competitors competent and prepared.
She said that about half of the contestants are hand-picked from around Baton Rouge and the other half are coming in from other U.S. cities and around the world. All will have a chance to meet the kinds of professionals they may one day be in front of again.
“The goal is to really expose people from this area or who come to the festival to those acquisitions people,” she said.
Simmons said 25 people have signed up for the pitch contest so far.
Full details are available at http://redstickfestival.org/main/menu/pitch.
As for the overall festival, Simmons said registration is up so far by roughly a third over the same time last year, though most of the registrations tend to come in closer to the event. Last year there were about 4,000 attendees.
Most of the registrants are local and regional, though cities such as Orlando, Fla., Savannah, Ga., and Atlanta, and the states of New York and California are turning up on registration forms. There are also 12 from India, four from Lebanon and six from France.
While last year’s festival focused on video and computer game development, this year predominantly deals with animating for television.
Simmons said Raquel Benitez, president of Comet Entertainment, attended the festival last year and was impressed enough to help put together the pitch contest and premiere the film Santa Versus Claus, which will be released for television later this year.
Registration for the 2008 Red Stick International Animation Festival is at http://www.redstickfestival.org, as is a full schedule of events.
A Red Pass is free and provides access to all festival film screenings and family events, which take place in multiple downtown locations and include more than 200 films from 27 countries. It also provides access to one lecture, by a visual effects supervisor and an anatomical consultant about the making of Pixar’s Oscar-winning film, “Ratatouille.”
Family events include a performance of “Spontaneous Fantasia” at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, the “Enchanted Evening, Red Stick Princess Ball” in the Old State Capitol and Cartoon-a-Palooza, where children come to the Old State Capitol for a free breakfast and Saturday morning cartoons.
A Gold Pass gets participants into those events as well as all lectures and workshops.
Gold Pass holders can attend the workshops for $20 each, with a $10 each discount rate for students. Workshops feature professionals in animation, video game development and other digital media industries, who teach tips for breaking into the industry.
Gold Passes are $50 for the general public, $20 for students and $25 for faculty and staff. Students in groups of five or more can get a pass for $10.
Some of the speakers in the lecture section include Tom Martinek from Industrial Light and Magic, who will speak on making Michael Bay’s “Transformers”; Eric Shaw, writer for “SpongeBob SquarePants”; Hans Rijpkema of Academy Award-winning Rhythm & Hues Studios; and others.
Workshops include:
- “MEL Scripting a Character Rig in Maya,” for game developers and digital artists.
- “Introduction to Animation Techniques,” in which participants will create a commercial for the festival’s 2009 appearance, shooting footage around downtown Baton Rouge and creating their own animated content in a single day.
- “Animation Writing 101,” with Eric Shaw teaching proper story structure, character arc, dialogue structure, timing, uses of visual gags, comedic values and more.
- “How to Blow Stuff Up without Getting Arrested,” in which visual effects supervisor and author Pete Draper of Lightworx will discuss how to create explosions using 3D Studio Max.
- “Writers Roundtable with Barbara Slade,” where participants can learn how to develop a script idea.
- “Creature Comforts: Character Development” will guide participants in creating compelling, believable characters.
- “Portfolio Review” with Tony West and Dan Lund, who worked together at Disney Studios.
- “Creating Animation for Planetaria.”
The majority of Red Stick activities will take place at the Shaw Center for the Arts, the Manship Theatre, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum and the Old State Capitol.
Publish Date:
04-02-2008
