The Pigeon: Impossible Blog

One of the coolest things about finishing an animated short, is that there’s really not a whole lot of animators on the festival circuit. Sometimes it feels like we’re all parents of kids on the same football team. We meet up at a festival halfway around the world, hang out for a few days, and then head home until the next “away game.” Before you know it, we’ve seen each other’s films almost as many times as we’ve seen our own.

So, its always exciting when one of us releases a film online and we can finally show it to the people who might not have been able to catch it at a festival. The most recent one is Rodrigo Blass’ beautiful CG short “Alma.” Everything about this is just plain awesome. The story, animation, lighting, tone, pacing, sound… it’s no wonder he’s picked up so many awards and every time I see it I find something new to love about it. According to his website, he’s just releasing this for a short time so don’t wait to pass it along.

http://almashortfilm.com/

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

With all the PI stuff going on lately, I’ve been a bit behind posting some of the other great things going on in the animation world. Two awesome films have just had their online release.

The first is Chris Jones’ “The Passenger.” I’ve been following this film for years and bought the DVD which I highly recommend.

The next is French Roast which won the top prize at SIGGRAPH this year and has played in almost every festival that PI has been in. Check out the quicktime here.

At the Savannah Film Festival, Joaquin Baldwin recorded a quick chat with me about how we got started in animation. If you’re wanting to get into animation and don’t know where to begin, hopefully this might answer some questions. (Sorry for the audio, we just grabbed his camera and recorded this before heading to the airport.)

And just in case you didn’t catch the post I did a while back, Joaquin’s film “Sebastian’s Voodoo” has been tearing it up on the festival circuit and he’s part of the clique of animators we’ve been travelling the festival circuit with. His short is fantastic and he’s an awesome guy to boot!

We just released the final version of Pigeon: Impossible. Just go to www.pigeonimpossible.com to watch it, and please help spread the word. Thanks to everyone for all of the support you’ve given throughout this 5-year journey!

Well, I’m on my way back from the Savannah Film Festival. It was definitely one of the coolest festivals I’ve been to, incredibly hospitable, fantastic audiences, but the highlight was definitely getting a few days to geek out with all the other animators who were there. My friend Joaquin Baldwin won the student animation award and Pigeon: Impossible took home the prize for best animation award!

I also just found out that PI has picked up two more awards: The Best In Show at ArtFutura in Spain, and the Best Short at Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival! This has been a fantastic way to send the film out into the world for its big online release later today. Stay tuned!

Things have been starting to get hectic on the festival circuit, but I’m having a lot of fun and its great to get to share the movie with a live audience. Its amazing how quickly the pain of making a movie fades away and you start getting excited about the next one.

Here’s a few more upcoming festivals:
Austin Film Festival (Oct 24th @5:15pm & Oct. 28th @7:30pm)
Tucson Film and Music Festival (Oct. 10th @1:30pm)
SIGGRAPH Asia (Electronic Theater – Dec. 16th-19th, Yokohama Japan)

Also, if anyone is in Austin, be sure to come out tomorrow (Friday Sept. 25th @4pm) for the local Austin premiere at Fantastic Fest!

I just found out that PI won the Mopti Award at this year’s KLIK! Animation Festival in Amsterdam! This is a really unique program that KLIK! puts on. In addition to supporting the Mopti Foundation which provides relief by digging wells in Mali, every year the festival curates a program of short films which they screen in the city of Mopti and the audience and local dignitaries vote for their favorite.

I never imagined that PI would find such a worldwide audience. Apparently the nearest cinema is over 200km away so that easily claims the top prize for “the screening I most wish I could have gone to.” Below are a few pics that I pulled off the blog of Willem Snapper who started the Mopti Foundation. You can find the full entry here. (in Dutch)

I just got back to Austin from the DC Shorts fest and am happy to announce that Pigeon: Impossible won the Audience Choice Award in the Family Film Category! We also got tons of great local press and will screen again as part of the “Best of the Fest” showcase. I have to say this was one of the most fun and well-run festivals I’ve been to. The volunteers were fantastic and everyone went out of their way to make sure the filmmakers were taken care of. That’s a really tough thing to do when you’ve got 100 shorts in the program. Thanks to Jon Gann and everyone who helped put on a great fest!

In between screenings we did get to see some friends in Alexandria and do a bit of sightseeing. I’ll try to upload some pics once wordpress stops being dumb.

Here’s another fantastic short that has just been released online after an extensive festival run. I had the pleasure of meeting Mike and screening with him at LA Shorts in July.

I went to school for saxophone performance so it was great to see Kenny finally get his comeuppance…

Fantastic Fest (Sept 24-Oct 1 Austin,Texas)

Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival (Sept 25-27 Birmingham, Alabama)