The Animation Pimp

Since I took over the festival in 1995, I’ve heard the moanings and groanings of animators. That’s par for the course, but the one bit of bitching that I’ve lost all patience with comes from a few veteran animators. These people have had previous success at the OIAF and other festivals. One even won an Oscar once upon a time.

Rightly, these vets have noted that their films have not been in competition in Ottawa since I took over. Ok. Fair Enough. It happens. Secondly, they seem to believe that I have it in for them. Now this is when I get angry. Now, okay, I could understand that argument IF your films were walloping the competitions at other prominent (I say ‘prominent’ not to elevate the OIAF, but cause some animators like to brag about their esteemed place at the Golden Squirrel Festival in North East Alaska.) animation festivals, then yeah, maybe you’d have a point. However, these guys and gals ARENT fairing any better at the other festivals. So..if that’s the case, why the fuck am I getting pissed on? Seems to me your pee spray should be splashing Zagreb, Annecy, Hiroshima etc…

Also, these animators seem totally oblivious to the changes in the animation industry/community. They did have well-earned success once upon a time; a time when there were few animation festivals and not all that many animation films. When I started with the OIAF in 1991, we received approx. 750 entries for Ottawa 92 and that was for a 2 year period. This year we received 2200 submissions over an ANNUAL period. The competition has become very very steep. It has become increasingly difficult to get your film into a competition. Simple as that. I think it’s a good thing too.

Some might also argued that technology has changed the playing field. Not sure I buy that in terms of film quality. I don’t think the competition films are any better or worse than they were back in 1992.

Ultimately this bitter reaction is a guise for genuine disappointment. That’s okay. I get it in the writing world all the time. It ain’t fun. But, to refurbish this sadness into aggressive anger towards me (or any other festival director) is self-centred and well, kinda, psychotic. To think that I have some list (literal or figurative) of animators who I refuse to show at the festival really is psychotic, paranoid thinking (course, what artist doesnt suffer from mental illness or addiction issues?) –especially when you’re work is not being hailed anywhere else.

Now..okay..let’s say we can’t do anything about this attitude. Well, at least CONFRONT ME about it. Tell me how you feel and perhaps I can explain/reassure that this is NOT the case. Here’s what’s happened instead:
1. In one case, one of these animators attended Ottawa this year. They smiled to my face, enjoyed a free meal on the festival…and then turned around and bitched and ranted to anyone who would listened about how they don’t like the festival. I later wrote that person and asked them to express themselves directly to me (or other OIAF staff) in the future. They never answered.
2. During Ottawa 08, I was accosted by a very drunk vet animator. He cornered me, ranting and raging about picnic buses, about the Salon Des Refuses programming, about the picnic buses, more about the buses and on and on it went till it became VERY uncomfortable and on the verge of physical violence.

Later I saw someone who is familiar with this vet (are they like forgotten war vets?) and I was told that the real reason behind his bizarre ‘attack’ was that he was bitter that his films had never been accepted since I took over the festival (I should also point out that for the first three OIAF festivals during my ‘reign’ we had a selection committee!)

3. A few days ago in far away Moscow, one of my OIAF colleagues was cornered by a vet animator who again bitched about the fact that they’ve never been invited to Ottawa since I took over. This isnt the first time this has happened to my traveling colleagues.

I would respect these people so much more if they just made their complaints to my face so that I could at least try to assuage the intensity of their anger.

Finally, one wonders why these people refuse to look at themselves. If you’re not getting into the OIAF but winning awards world wide then sure, I can understand why you would think that I’m a meanie…but if you’re not getting your films into (m)any festivals, maybe you need to take a good long hard luck at yourselves? Isnt possible that perhaps your film just isnt very good?
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As a bit of an appendix/afterword/epilogue, let me again make very fucking clear to some of you dopes (ie. Anonymous sucker-punch bloggers) I am not the dictator of the OIAF. Yes, I have final say on all programming decisions, but it’s a far more cooperative process than people seem to realize. I will watch all the submissions. I make three piles: a small group of ABSOLUTE ‘yes’ films that I will not be talked out of showing, a BIG ASS pile of films that will not be shown, a pretty big purgatory pile of films that I need other opinions about. The purgatory pile then goes onto a handful of colleagues who watch the films and send me notes. It’s absolutely essential to the process to get these new views….especially coming from younger, passionate colleagues with different perspectives. Yes, in some cases I overrule their votes, but for the most part I rely a lot on their input. It’s far more democratic than some of you lunkheads believe (’course it’s easier to just create a fantasy world to justify your selfish anger than to actually visit the real world) and yet not as bland, compromising, detached and diplomatic as so many selection committees are (films are made with passion. they should be judged with passion).

The end.

new book review

New Lit Pimp column here

well, had to be one of the smoothest festivals I’ve been involved with. Aside from the bridge closure that mucked up the shuttle buses a bit and a couple of relatively minor projection issues, things went off without a hitch.

Oh…except that Kelly forgot to gas up the car so I had to make a pit stop and missed the 9pm Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The good news being that they replayed it at 10pm.

All is well. Congrats to all the filmmakers. Thanks to all the attendees.

Reality returns.

Last year, my Love and Theft cd got destroyed in Kelly’s car accident the day before the OIAF. This time I took the cd out of the car. Better still, Bob’s Christmas record comes out today. Who’d a thunk it? The OIAF and a Dylan Xmas the same week.

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For once I have nothing to say opening night. It just doesnt feel right this year.
All I think about right now is my late friend Barry Doyle. We’d always meet just before the festival. It was like sitting in the dressing room with your trainer before you headed out to fight. B would always fill me with confidence.

He was involved in a festival too a few years back. The B man was a great writer/thinker. He didn’t know squat about animation but when I approached him to write a few articles on some animators I had no doubt that he could handle it well. And he did. He wrote texts on Co Hoedeman, Georges Schwizgebel and Janie Geiser. They were deeper and better written than some texts by more experienced animation writers.

Mostly I think of opening night Ottawa 06. I was sitting at the opening party. Someone approaches me and says that there’s someone outside asking for me. I go out and there’s Barry. “Hey Buddy,” he says. “Here,” He hands me a ticket to the Toronto-Ottawa hockey game —-that just ended. “I bought you a ticket then remembered that the festival was on.”

“You drove all the way across fuckin’ town to give me a ticket to a game that just ended!”

“Well I just wanted to see you and make sure things were goin okay.”
maybe it seems to most readers like a minor, strange moment, but it was those moments that summed Barry up for me, those moments that made him a brother to me. He was unexpected. He’d just show up out of the blue, buzz into your life to remind you that he loved you.

The programming this year seems to reflect this loss. Competition 1, as you will see, takes you on a little journey from the beginning to the end and, maybe, beyond. Priit Parn’s feature film Life without Gabriella Ferri, for all it’s absurdity and game playing, is, for me, a film about grief, loss and new found love and hope. Then there’s the incredible Up, a film that celebrates love, the importance of grieving, remembering and finding new friendships and experiences.

Festivals are like that for me. Yes, it’s the films, their stories and the voices of their creators that bring us together, but more than that the festival is about friendships and experiences. That’s what we remember about them. We remember the parties, the flirts, fucks, bars, drinks, picnics, puking, hangovers, laughs, embarasments, loves and friends.

That’s it. That’s all. That’s enough.

Here

Due out late summer/fall 2010

japanese_hires.jpg

While visiting Japan, animation writer Chris Robinson gets lost. As he drifts through Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto he happens upon a number of mysterious figures including Bob Dylan, Haruki Murakami, Sumo wrestlers, Big Bird and, by good chance, many famous Japanese animators - living and dead. Each of these characters takes Robinson into a deep, dark, mysterious world of Japanese animation that doesn’t include Godzilla, Akira, Anime, Manga or Hasao Miyazaki.

cover illustration from Koji Yamamura’s Kafka’s A Country Doctor.

cover design by Theodore Ushev

The Faculty of Design of Lucerne School of Art and Design is hosting the first Lucerne International Animation Academy from December 8 to 11, 2009.

The goal of this Symposium is to encourage a theoretical debate about current and historical questions of animation as an independent form of the ‹Moving Pictures Production› in Switzerland.

LIAA mainly addresses researchers, lecturers and students in the field of media (animation, film, special effects, fine art). It is a unique international platform with more than 30 acclaimed lecturers from practice and theory, offering great opportunities for the audience to get involved in the discussions.

LIAA’s star-studded line-up of speakers includes Brothers Quay, Yuri Norstein, Igor Kovalyov, Priit Parn, Georges Schwizgebel, Jerzy Kucia, Gil Alkabetz, Normand Roger and many more

for more details: http://www.liaa.hslu.ch

Review of Ottawa writer Bill Brown’s new collection of short stories.

latest Lit Pimp column is HERE