FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12 May 2009
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Brian Ban
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SIGGRAPH 2009 Announces
Computer Animation Festival Award Nominees
(Chicago, IL) - SIGGRAPH announces the selection
of award nominees for the SIGGRAPH 2009 Computer Animation Festival
to be held in New Orleans this August. Nominees were chosen from
770 submissions from around the globe, presented by both
professional studios and students alike. In all, more than 140
films will be shown during the Computer Animation Festival. The
award winners will be announced during the conference.
"We were thrilled with level of quality and
technical expertise that was prevalent throughout the hundreds of
submissions," stated Carlye Archibeque, Computer Animation Festival
Executive Producer from LightStage, LLC. "The Computer Animation
Festival continues to show the power that the latest advances in
computer graphics technologies have to amuse and entertain. As
always the jury looked not only for amazing graphic content, but
also good story telling, whether it was a film about a boy and his
spaceship, or a film about new studies in Alzheimer's
research."
Since 1999, the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation
Festival has been an official qualifying festival for the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "Best Animated Short Film"
Academy Award®. The film "Oktapodi" became an Academy nominee in
the Best Animated Short category after winning Best in Show at last
year's Festival. For the second consecutive year, the Festival's
screenings, panels and production sessions will be open to the
public, allowing general audiences to get a glimpse behind the
making of computer generated effects, visualizations and animations
that is rarely available.
The nominees for this year's Computer Animation
Festival Awards are as follows:
Best in Show Nominees
Engel zu Fust (Angel Afoot)
Studio Soi GmbH & Co
Germany
Narrative Animation - Waltraud, an angel, has fallen from the sky.
Her wings have shrunk and she can no longer fly. She takes up with
a troop of circus performers who help remind her how an angel gets
her wings back.
French Roast
The Pumpkin Factory / Bibo Films
France
Narrative Animation - In a fancy Parisian cafe of the sixties, an
uptight businessman is about to pay the check when he finds out
that he's lost his wallet. To save time he decides to order more
coffee. With no dialogue, the story is told through character
animation, music, and sound. Staging is made of a single frontal
master shot with a big mirror in the background to create the
equivalent of a reverse shot.
Silhouettes of Jazz
Dominik K�ser, Martin-Sebastian Senn, Mario Deuss, Mark
Pauly, Niloy J. Mitra
Switzerland
Experimental Animation - This animated short outlines the history
of traditional jazz music in a virtual walkthrough of a shadow art
museum. Improvisation, a key ingredient of jazz music, is mirrored
in the ambiguity of a shadow sculpture (many different 3D shapes
can cast the same 2D shadow). The movie highlights five different
milestones in the evolution of jazz: the early songs of field
workers, ragtime, New Orleans jazz, swing, and bebop. Each era is
represented by a single 3D sculpture that casts multiple shadow
images simultaneously.
Jury Award Nominees
Dix
The Mill
United States
Live Action with CG Effects - A dark, harrowing short film showing
the complexities of psychological and obsessive behavior. An
intricate part of the film was how the creators chopped up their
main actor. They had to find solutions for every shot in order to
achieve the best results. Some of the shots are 2D visual effects
while others needed a 3D model animated on top of the actor and
then cut revealing the actor's flesh and blood.
Love Child
Digital Media Design Education Center
Taiwan
Animation Visualization - A visual capture of character creation
software making digital construction of a new born infant
"character" that is both visually and politically stunning.
Anima
Supinfocom Valenciennes
France
Animation Visualization - This animation, which verges on
experimental, uses animals and their forms as its center piece. An
elephant is seen escaping the city, but it seems the city itself is
made of animals or the shapes of animals. The graphics and lighting
in this film make it immensely compelling.
Student Prize Nominees
Dim Sum
Ringling College of Art and Design
United States
Narrative Animation - This amusing animation takes place in San
Francisco, home of the largest and most prominent Chinatown outside
of Asia. The setting is a bustling Chinese restaurant named Dim Sum
where Ping, a waiter, accidentally drops a tea cup which shatters
on the floor. Pong, the infamous owner of Dim Sum, finds out and he
is one second away from firing Ping. How far will Ping go to keep
his job?
Incident at Tower 37
Hampshire College
United States
Narrative Animation - A man guards a water tower and comes across
some little creatures who are trying to break into it. The short
piece explores issues surrounding ownership, use, and exhaustion of
natural resources. The film is a result of an undergraduate
animation curriculum built upon newly developed open-source
production management and support tools.
Project: Alpha
The Animation Workshop
Denmark
Narrative Animation - The race to space is on. As nations compete,
we follow the progress of a single chimpanzee that's been recruited
into the Space Program. His results might prove influential for the
better of all mankind.
WTF (Well Told Fable) Prize Nominees
friends?
Sveinbj�rn J. Tryggvason
Iceland
Narrative Animation - A very short film that highlights that
"shorts" can be short, but still contain a whole lot of story. To
better convey the concept of simplicity, simple primitive shapes
are used as the base for the design of nearly everything in the
film.
Unbelievable Four
Sukwon Shin
United States
Music Visualization - In this satirical take on a music video, a
desperate search for salvation takes place as hundreds of evil
spaceships are approaching earth. Finally the "Unbelievable 4" get
the call. A superhero team (composed of George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld) receives the urgent
message that the earth is under attack and they have five minutes
to launch a rocket for a preemptive strike. Over the course of the
story, the caricaturized leaders' over-heroic personalities slowly
merge with the personalities of rock stars.
Fernet 1,882 "Mini Cab
Company"
Pickle Visual Effects & Animation
Argentina
Visual Effects Driven Commercial - The space-aged TV commercial
stars the owners and staff of a real mini-cab company, Renta Car,
located in Cordoba, Argentina - the city that leads the country in
alcohol consumption. The ultimate goal of the ad: attract 1,882
more customers. Agency Madre tapped the employees and owner of a
real mini cab company to star in this visual effects spot, all in
the name of helping them get 1,882 customers. The Renta Car staff
also display some fine acting chops, giving the spot a touch of
heart.
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About SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH 2009 will bring an anticipated 20,000 computer graphics
and interactive technology professionals from six continents to New
Orleans, Louisiana, USA for the industry's most respected technical
and creative programs focusing on research, science, art,
animation, music, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web
from Monday, 3 August through Friday, 7 August 2009 at the Ernest
N. Morial Convention Center. SIGGRAPH 2009 includes a three-day
exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and
interactive marketplace from 4-6 August 2009. More than 200
international exhibiting companies are expected. More details are
available at www.siggraph.org/s2009.
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world's largest
educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators,
researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources
and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the computing
profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion
of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence.
ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing
opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and
professional networking.
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