Red Stick Festival Hosts Student Workshop for Animation Collaboration 2008
Students from Baton Rouge area schools will attend a two-day workshop at the Shaw Center for the Arts on Wednesday, March 19 and Thursday, March 20, to prepare animated short films for the Red Stick International Animation Festival’s annual Animation Collaboration for a Cause.
The Red Stick festival, which showcases the latest trends and techniques in digital art, animation and video game development, will take place April 16-19 in downtown Baton Rouge.
The festival is sponsored by CCT in partnership with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President’s Office, Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and Louisiana Economic Development.
An annual highlight of the festival is Animation Collaboration for a Cause, in which artists work closely with school-age children from Louisiana, helping them create animation about their experiences with various social issues.
Animation Collaboration takes place at Red Stick through a partnership with AnimAction, a company that focuses on youth expression through animation.
AnimAction President Clifford Cohen is in Baton Rouge this week for the workshop, which is sponsored by the U.S. State Department through the New York-based International Education and Resource Network (i-EARN.) AnimAction helped create the Animation Collaboration and each year shows the films to international audiences after the students produce them for Red Stick.
The inaugural Animation Collaboration during the 2006 festival focused on Hurricane Katrina, and the 2007 Animation Collaboration highlighted organ donation and transplant awareness. The films from these collaborations were screened as far away as Japan, and still can be seen online on several youth media websites.
For the 2008 Red Stick festival, Animation Collaboration will partner with iEARN to create films about natural disaster preparedness. Louisiana students will collaborate with youth in Pakistan and Uzbekistan, who have traveled to Baton Rouge to participate in the workshop.
“This year, we take collaboration to a new level, introducing Baton Rouge students to youth in other countries who have faced natural disasters just like they have. The collaboration challenges these students to consider new ways to educate others about preparing for a natural disaster. All of these kids have had exposure to either hurricanes, earthquakes or floods- they’ve seen a lot in their young lives, and are already experts,” said Red Stick Festival Director Stacey Simmons.
Students will attend the workshop with their teachers from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. both days.
During the workshop, students will create films in collaborative groups. Red Stick will screen their work as part of the festival on Friday, April 18 at 9 a.m. in the Manship Theatre, and the teachers and students will discuss the production process.
Media are invited to attend the Animation Collaboration for a Cause workshop. For more information on this year’s collaboration or on Red Stick International Animation Festival, please call CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469.
CCT in the News:
Lagniappe's '08 Fair and Festival Guide
3-14-2008/The Times Picayune -- Lagniappe
Red Stick International Animation Festival April 16-19, Baton Rouge, Shaw Center for the Arts, Louisiana Arts & Science Museum, Old State Capitol. Workshops, lectures and public screenings of classic animated films and films from the festival competition. (225) 389-7182.
http://blog.nola.com/mariamontoya/2008/03/lagniappes_08_fair_and_festiva.html
Pats on the Back:
• The numerical relativity group’s application for Tera Grid computing time was successful, and with the complete request granted. This amounts to 5.2 million SU's on seven different machines and includes 1 millionhours on Abe/Queen Bee.
• Ed Seidel has been named the Discipline Researcher Representative for the Internet2 Board of Trustees.
• Susanne Brenner will give an invited talk at SONAD 2008(Southern Ontario Numerical Analysis Day), on Friday, May 9, 2008 at York University, Toronto, Canada. SONAD is a traditional one-day conference in the broad areas of numerical analysis and scientific computing at Ontario universities, Canada. The meeting normally invites one international expert on numerical analysis and scientific computing from the USA.
• The LSU Computer Science department sent three teams from LSU to attend the Bearing Point Hattiesburg Global Development Center Third Annual Programming Contest sponsored by Bearing Point, Inc, where they competed against teams from University of Southern Mississippi, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of South Alabama and University of New Orleans. The competitors on two of the teams were CCT undergraduate students. Team 1, which finished first, consisted of: Ian Wesley-Smith, Razvan Carbunescu and Michael Miceli. All three students are CCT research students and this team finished first overall with four problems solved in four hours. Team 2 consisted of: Riley Andrews, Chris Miceli and Rodrigo Farnham. Chris Miceli is a CCT research student and this team was fourth overall with four problems solved. Team 3 consisted of: Jason Kincl, Adrian Guillory and Matthew Gavin. Jason and Matthew are CCT students working in HPC and the IT group respectively. This team came in 11th overall with two problems solved. All three teams were coached by Isaac Traxler and Josh Abadie of HPC.
• The College of Basic Sciences celebrated the 35th annual Dean Arthur R. Choppin Honors Convocation on Thursday, March 13. Several CCT faculty and students were honored for their hard work there, including:
- Thomas Sterling was honored with an award for graduate teaching
- Bijay Karki was honored for research activities for junior faculty
- Anshul Tandon, who works with Thomas Sterling and Maciek Brodowicz in the ParalleX group, received the Greg Hussey College Achievement Award
- Razvan Carbunescu, who works with Mayank Tyagi and Yaakoub El-Khamra, on the CFD Toolkit in Cactus, received the Award of Excellence
- Kevin Kolz, who works with Gabrielle Allen, Steve Beck, and Shalini Venkataram on visualization and virtual worlds, was honored with a Research Award
- Alex Nagelberg, who works with Gabrielle Allen and Hartmut Kaiser on GIS and Triana, was also honored with a Research Award
- Carrie Butler, who works with Ravi Paruchuri and Andrew Russell in CCT support, had a 4.0 GPA throughout her years at LSU.
Upcoming Lectures:
• Philipp Schwaha, Technische Universität Wien, Institute For Microelectronics will give a Visions for Quantitative Biology lecture on Tuesday, March 18 at 3 p.m. in Johnston 338.
• Richard M. Karp, University of California at Berkeley, will deliver an IT Eminent Lecture on Monday, March 24 at 1:30 p.m. in Coates Hall Room 143.
• IMPORTANT: Anyone organizing a lecture should first check with Karen Jones for available dates to avoid having multiple lectures on the same day. Also, coordinate with your Focus Area lead so that CCT can get the best attendance possible. There may be open slots in a standard lecture series that needs to be filled.
Please Note:
• The University is closed this Friday, March 21, in observance of Good Friday.
• LSU Purchasing has posted an important memorandum outlining FY08 deadlines for the submittal of requisitions, PRO purchasing transactions and University Stores purchases. These deadlines should be followed as much as possible to ensure timely processing of your requests. Please view it online at www.fas.lsu.edu/purchasing (Purchasing Memoranda and What’s New web pages).
• ALL CCT Meetings for the spring are scheduled as follows: March 26, April 23, May 21, June 18 and July 16. All meetings are held at 3 p.m. in 338 Johnston Hall. Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to attend.
• The Red Stick International Animation Festival will take place from April 16-19 in downtown Baton Rouge.
• The Red Stick International Animation festival is currently looking for preliminary judges for the festival. If you wish to be on this year's jury, go to http://www.redstickfestival.org/judging/register. If you were on the jury last year, your login is still valid. Contact Steve Beck at sdbeck@cct.lsu.edu if you have any questions.
• If you have any news for the CCT Weekly, please e-mail PR Manager Kristen Sunde directly at ksunde@cct.lsu.edu.
Upcoming Grant Deadlines:
Note: Please see the CCT deadline Web site, as many NSF deadlines are listed here http://www.cct.lsu.edu/about/grants/deadlines/events.php
Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP)
March 18, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.
At Least $50,000 available
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08520/nsf08520.htm
George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Research (NEESR)
March 18, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.
At Least $750,000 available
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08519/nsf08519.htm
Publish Date:
03-18-2008
