Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

John and I are finally back from this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival, and boy, did we have a blast! The festival was a success and it was great to finally meet Robot Johnny in the (robotic) flesh. Great guy. (I’m just saying this because, after all, this is his site.) The festival’s winners have been announced and you can check them all out HERE. Among the winners, the ones that stood out for me were:

Brilliant animation done in a great gestural style is what Joanna Quinn is known for and she didn’t disappoint in her most recent short film, Dreams and Desires: Family Ties. In fact, it won the Grand Prize for Best Independent Animation in Ottawa. Great rotoscope-like shots at a wedding gone terribly wrong, it was almost too perfect. Great film, but I felt that another was more deserving. (More on that later on.) You might be familiar with some of Joanna’s commercial work, which is all amazingly animated, like her films, with pencil on paper.

The Grand Prize for Best Student Animation was Stephan Mueller’s Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker. A pleasant surprise with its combination of 2D and CG elements, along with its gritty, funky, washed-out 70’s film aesthetic, the character designs were slightly sophomoric, but I didn’t seem to mind that minor flaw once the story was under way. The film took a great turn midway through the story and I found it still entertaining after seeing it twice. You can watch a trailer for the film HERE.

In the Independent Short Animation Competition:

I absolutely loved Obom’s Here and There, a personal account of the filmmaker’s childhood as she and her brother were scuttled back and forth between Canada and France. Told in a simple manner with an equally simple drawing style, Obom’s very funny and quirky film received a very warm response from the audience during the end credits. I’m glad it won something: Best Narrative Short Animation under 35 minutes.

Georges Schwizgebel’s Jeu won for Best Experimental / Abstract Animation under 35 minutes, and it was worth it. I have a hard time sitting through most experimental/abstract films, but Schwizgebel’s films are an exception to the rule. His film from 2004, L’homme sans ombre, was a tough act to follow, but with Jeu, he was able to continue his unique architectural style of looped kinetic animation successfully. I know that sounds weird, but that’s the best I could do to describe his work.

A couple of former Drawn! mentions won awards:

We mentioned the hilarious and well-animated Le Building last year. Directed by the multiple director team of: Marco Nguyen, Pierre Perifel, Xavier Ramonede, Olivier Staphylas & Rémi Zaarour, it won for Best Undergraduate Animation in the Student Animation Competition—way to go, guys!

I swear, each time I see that black and red mask grace the frame and then suddenly hear that ear-popping drum beat, I get all giddy. Joel Trussell’s incredible War Photographer (previously mentioned here) won the Best Music Video catagory in the Commissioned Animation Competition. And let me tell you, it’s something to behold on the big screen. Somehow Joel is able to mix vikings, nordic lore, heavy metal roadies, shogun warriors, Transformers, marching bands, with DJ-sampled beats from “Spinning Wheel” by Three Dog Night Blood, Sweat & Tears — all together in one color-saturated, Flash-animated visual treat for the eyes. By the end of it, many whoooo!’s were heard from the audience. You know you’ve made it when you can get whoooo’s from the people.

So, what film did I think should’ve won the Grand Prize for Best Independent Animation? My favorite was Jonas Odell’s visually stunning Never Like the First Time! (Adrig som första gÃ¥ngen!), produced at FilmTecknarna. The film consists of four first-person accounts, each telling a vastly different story of losing one’s virginity. Candid and provocative, the stories range from matter-of-fact, to horror, to tenderness. It proves that everyone’s first time is a story unto itself. Along with four completely different stories, each was animated with completely different visual styles — 2D combined with 3D environments, rotoscoping, vintage illustrations and imagery used in a collage-like manner, among other techinques. (My favorite look was from the first story, but of course, I couldn’t find any images to post. Typical.)

My only beef with the film (and it’s a minor one) is I wish the producers used yellow subtitles, instead of the burned-in white letters that were so difficult to read. But hey, I’m not gonna complain. It was a fantastic film that should’ve won some sort of award. Be sure to see it when you can. (You can catch a small clip of it HERE, courtesy of AWN.com. Read OIAF’s Festival Director Chris Robinson’s article on the film HERE.) Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Jonas directed Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” video.

There’s more to talk about, so I’ll just stop for now. John will post on some great stuff that he saw at the fest, including some panels and workshops he attended.