Watch some stuff!

If you'd like to see some of the animations done on the "Familymation Day" and at the Drinking & Drawing night, please have a look on the Facebook page!http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brookings-SD/SoDak-Animation-Festival/110019504885

2009 SoDak Fest Concludes!

Reid Thompson of Troika was here.  Some Golden Cowbells were awarded.  Aspiring animators yong and younger were enlightened.  Please visit the site again soon for more announcements and see some examples of what folks made while they were here!  Thanks everyone!

Cowbell Winners and Sponsor!

SoDak Schedule is online!

The full listing of films and events is posted online now at www.sodakanimation.com!  You can even download the program ahead of time to make some choices.  For those in the area and planning on attending, get here and stay here, as the two nights and one morning will go quickly!  Door prizes will be awarded to audience members who stick it out-trinkets such as cool baubles from the South Dakota Art Museum and gift cards from Cottonwood Bistro.  This is no ordinary showing of films.  So spread the word.  For crying out loud, it's free for all with a valid SDSU id (even for those snooty university faculty and staff types) and only five bucks for each screening.  You will not see most of these shorts anywhere else-even on Youtube -they're that awesome.

In a nutshell:
Thursday 6pm PAC - Daktronics/Keyframe Showcase - FREE
Thursday 7pm PAC - Reid Thompson, of Troika, Keynote Address - FREE
Thursday @9:30pm - Drinking&Drawing at Cottonwood Bistro

Friday 6pm PAC - Sita Sings the Blues, Feature Animation - $5/Free with SDSU ID
Friday 7:30pm PAC - Short and Student Animation Screenings - $5/Free with SDSU ID
Awards Presentation after the screening!

Saturday 10am, South Daktoa Art Museum - "Familymation Day" - FREE, registration for your kids online

See you there.

Thine Festival Approacheth!

There's just a few more short weeks until 2 and 1/2 evenings/mornings of animation related hoopla ensues that is this year's SoDak Animation Festival.  There's a decent, though concentrated li neup of indie shorts - some fun stuff from MAKE studios of Minneapolis (semi-local?), the good ol' stock of NYC indie animations and some international entries that were a welcome surpise to get  thanks to Chris B. for calling on those folks.  Sita Sings the Blues, a groundbreaking feature-length animation by independent animator Nina Paley screens on Friday the 9th at 6 at the PAC.  And be there on Friday eve after the shows for the awards presentation, where one lucky SDSU student will be awarded a cash prize and a most coveted Golden Cowbell!

Check out the website for a rough schedule to date - more coming soon as we hammer down playlists.  Tell yourselves and your pals to plan on coming.  Free for SDSU students, faculty and staff and door prizes will be awarded including cool stuff from the art museum and gift cards from The Cottonwood Bistro.  So for crying out loud, go there and stay there!  Thanks for reading.

Troika to appear at SoDak!

Now it's official. Reid Thompson, creative director at Troika Design Group in Hollywood, CA will be the keynote speaker at this year's SoDak Animation Festival. Troika Design Group specializes in major network rebranding for broadcast and some pretty amazing motion graphics and animation. A must-see for students of animation, design, film and anyone interested in cool stuff on tv and how it gets made. Check out Troika's gloriousness at www.troika.tv.

Thompson will speak on the evening of October 8 at SDSU's Studio Theatre at the Performing Arts Center. More details to come at www.sodakanimation.com.

Summer Animation Complete

With much success, the hearty band of 10 students survived the intense 4-week course. As a teacher, I was hesitant to spend so much time focusing on "not animating yet" the first week, but as the projects developed, I was reassured that emphasizing the basic foundations - DRAWING, drawing , drawing- does indeed help - a lot! For future students, this'll be reincorporated into the regular semester. Who wouldn't want to go to the zoo to draw for a day for class??

Here's a highlight reel from some of the projects from the summer courses. The reel includes work from three levels - some of the student had never animated before, but will be sure to continue doing so in the future.

ANIMATION BOOT CAMP!

It's called Boot Camp for a reason. If they don't suffer irreparable damage during, they'll be stronger and better trained animators. Only 20 four hour sessions to learn and explore much of those 12 Principles of Animation. Stacked classes allow for basic students to look over the shoulders of those who've been there already - and the advanced folks can appreciate the foundations - and some choose to continue to draw on paper-which still looks great and it's refreshing as a teacher to hear from those who prefer paper and don't like the look of Flash -although 2D vector animation is the staple of my freelance work. It doesn't look like much to walk past the animation lab, but there is a lot of effort and concentration going on-maybe more so than during the full semesters. It'll be interesting to see the final projects and compare them to those made with 10 times the calendar space. "No pain , no gain" sometimes works for animation too - except for low back pain. Don't forget to get up and move around every now and then.


The "lab" - a former dining hall now reeks of concentration instead of rhubarb and potatoes. Summer animation classes keep the room busy and the old G5s whirring.

Kristin Hill works out the mechanics of a super fast run cycle and tumble.

Nick Sabol puts some frames on the pencil tester. The abacus in the Trusty G4 still works!
Dave Narang gets a kick out of his character in between watching YouTube prank videos.What's this? Stop-motion. How refreshingly analog. No one's done this for class here for thirty years. Trisha Naig and Autumn DeBoer roll out the fun for a festival signal film.