Going to China!

Tomorrow morning I head to China for the ASIFA General Assembly. While there, we'll have the assembly and an in-person board meeting, and most of us will also give presentations to the Jilin Animation Institute. Mine will be on stop motion technologies here in Portland, with a focus on Laika's use of rapid prototyping technology in Coraline and Paranorman.
To be honest, I'm not sure what to expect, but it will be interesting, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to the trip.

I've been corresponding a bit with Malcolm Turner, of the Melbourne International Animation Festival. Apparently we've both been been asking for a while why there is so much great animation here in Portland, and the perennial answer ("because it rains so much") is highly unsatisfying. As Malcolm says, "it rains in lotsa places that produce truly dire animation".
I shared with him my pet theory, which goes a bit like this:
Basically I think that Portland has long been home to people who don't care much about conventional measures of success or status; people who are seeking wealth and fame tend to go somewhere else. Portlanders talk a lot about "quality of life", and "quality of life" seems to be code for "I don't want to work too much" - it goes with low cost of living, ease of access of public transportation, and a diversity of non-work activities. Because people don't work too much, they cultivate weird hobbies; unicycling and juggling and knitting and animation. Portlanders are expected to have side-projects; we welcome strange habits and (and this is important) are very tolerant of failure
So I think that atmosphere cultivates the culture that has become peculiarly "Portland" - we not only have an abundance of animation and film and music, but craft shows and pedicabs and artisinal beers and specialty foods and so forth. We aren't so supportive of the Arts-with-a-capital-A, but celebrate and support Crafts of all kinds, and our animators present themselves as craftspeople, as experimenters and tinkerers, as people in pursuit of the interesting.
He likes my theory, and maybe it will be more fleshed out and substantial in time for his Portland-specific feature in next years' festival.

Next week is the Best of the Northwest Animation Festival, but I won't be in town to catch it. If you are, it looks like a strong program.

And I'm working on bringing a program of the Polish School of Animation to Portland next year, partnering with the Northwest Film Center. It may be the US premiere of the program, which would be exciting.

I'm rereading if on a winter's night a traveler, by Calvino, and some Robert Frost poetry. Life is good.

Commercials rock!

I've been freelancing for the past several months as a post-production producer at Respond2 here in Portland. The first several projects I worked on were infomercials - they are 28 minutes long, and extremely time consuming. For the past week or so, I've been working on short commercials; 60 and 30 seconds, and they are really fun so far. It's a pleasant change of pace, and I'm looking forward to some of them airing.

There have been just a slew of ASIFA events - the one I'm most recently proud of is that I moderated an animation panel as part of the Northwest Filmmakers' Festival. It's the first time I've ever moderated a panel, and I think everyone had a good time. The conversation was geared much more heavily toward process than I anticipated - all the animations we were discussing were handmade and intricate, so the process gave us a lot of fodder for conversation. I especially liked that our panelists seem to click with each other, and hope that they stay in contact.

(By the way, the films in question were: Old Time Film, Meta Aberratio, and Laszlo Lassu. Fascinating work, all of them.)

Next month, ASIFA is also partially sponsoring the Rose City Animation Showcase. I've been to the previous two years, and it's a fun event.

I'm reading some Nietzsche and dabbling in learning French in my free time, and still writing for the Oregon Creative Industries blog, although not as much as I'd like - I just don't have the time to do a good job of it. I was also invited to participate in the Creative Economy Council: we have our second meeting in a couple weeks, and I'm very interested in what we can do together. It's a real pleasure to be at the table with that group of people- creative, involved, competent leaders all of them, and I feel privileged to be there.

On a larger note, what a crazy year it's been. I'm just now starting to catch my breath and wrap my head around everything that has happened. Most unexpectedly, a lot of the ambitious goals I named in my annual report have come to pass. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Animation Festival news

I met with Brian from the ASIFA chapter today, and he really wants to move forward with the festival for this fall. He wants it to be an ASIFA event and focus on the capabilities of Northwest chapter members, and I think we're just going to take the bit in our teeth and do it. I'm really pleased.

loss of momentum

So, somehow over the snow days and the holidays, a kind of inertia set in and I'm struggling to get out of it.

Correction, I'm not trying that hard to struggle out of it, because I am enjoying pulling inward a bit right now.

Rest assured, soon I'll arise and attack this animation festival and get my teeth into Bobbsey and forge ahead on Women in Animation and so on. Drinking and Drawing is next week and that will probably get me going.

So, because I'm not really acting on those things right now, and I'm deep in Don Quixote (which is really long and strange), I just don't have that much to blog about.

I'm still mentally wrestling a bit with issues of creativity and connection, but I don't feel like I have anything new to share. I'd still like to chat about it with anyone who wants to. :-)

PDX Animation Festival news

So, a few things are coming together, and I think this thing is really going to happen. Kate and I are going to try to start a local chapter of Women in Animation, and I think they'd be happy to act as the fiscal agent for the whole enterprise (assuming we make a chapter and the chapter wants to sponsor the event).

Also, a friend was talking with someone from the mayor's office at The Auteur after party (which I missed), and apparently she's interested and wants to hear from me. Sweet!

I wish we had a name for it, so I could tag these posts. I haven't talked with Marten about it, but I had been leaning toward Resolution Festival. It turns out that a bunch of New Years events in other cities are named that. It's too bad, because I think it would be a great name.

Comfortable with Uncertainty

A really good book, actually. I wish I had more time with it.

Everything in our lives has the power to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken is up to us.

Marten is really serious about putting together an animation festival. I'm on board, but frankly intimidated by the idea. Help!