Coverage around the globe…
Is someone going to come clean about being the person who was blaring the Rick Astley song during the awards? I thought it was Baron goofing around, but I was wrong.
Those of you on The ZS Forum have probably already seen the posts I’ve been doing recently, highlighting some of my favorite work submitted at the Bitfilm Festival this year. I don’t typically post a lot about entries in the machinima category, mainly because you are likely more familiar with those anyway. I will say there are some really excellent machinima entries this year, some which you’ve probably never heard of and need to see, so go look at ‘em and vote.
Here are some films which caught my attention in either the FX Mix (read: Anymation) or Real Time (read: Demoscene) categories which you might enjoy. Note that I’m linking to forum posts for them because in all cases the link to the Bitfilm entry is included there, and in some cases a link to a higher resolution version is also available:
See any others over there that you really liked? Tell us about them at the forum or by a comment here. Thanks!
What a stellar lineup! Voting starts today at the Bitfilm Festival site.
Nominees:
This is a bit anticlimactic, after having just learned that Tom Jantol’s Wizard of OS: The Fish Incident is an official selection in the I’ve Seen Films International Short Film Festival (yes, that is Rutger Hauer, who is on the jury along with Ridley Scott!) — CONGRATULATIONS, TOM!! — … but I’ve got a bit of an announcement myself.
Male Restroom Etiquette has been selected to be part of the Animation WebJam ‘08, hosted by Jerry and Orrin Zucker (of the Emmy Award-Winning It’s Jerrytime). The internet animation festival will begin its tour of big screens at Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA. From there, the fest will be making stops in the hometowns of many of the creators of its films. I’m hoping it will work out to where that can include my own neighborhood. More info is available at animationwebjam.com.
Some wonderful opportunities for showcasing your work as a filmmaker (of any kind) have emerged in 2008, many of them built in some way upon the “mash-up” concept. Sense a trend here?
The Ivy Film Festival has been around for seven years, but this year is the first where they’re accepting machinima submissions. Harrison Heller, long time supporter of Ivy, has worked hard to make this happen, and was able to get it done via a partner effort with Machinima.com. Entrants must be in high school, college, or graduate school. I see nothing to indicate that international participation is not encouraged. From their site:
The new Ivy Film Festival Machinima Competition, sponsored in partnership with Machinima.com, provides student machinima filmmakers the opportunity to compete against their peers for the Audience Choice Award, chosen by popular vote, and the Jury Prize, chosen by the votes of a panel of Machinima and New Media experts. The judging panel includes Hugh Hancock (machinima pioneer), Paul Marino (Director of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences), Jason Choi (Mackie Award Winner 2007), Carl Goodman (Deputy Director of the Museum of the Moving Image), and Mark Tribe (Professor of Modern Culture & Media at Brown University). The two winning films will be screened at the Ivy Film Festival. This particular competition is accepting submissions from high school, college, and graduate students. International submissions are encouraged. Submission deadline is March 16, 2008.
More info available here: http://www.machinima.com/ivyfilmfestival
