Author Archives: brewmasters

“Chief Serenbe” by Evan Curtis

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Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival continues today with the third film in our line-up: Chief Serenbe by Evan Curtis from the Savannah College of Art and Design. This stop motion short really stood out to us as we were watching the entries. The film isn’t conventionally narrative, but engages the viewer by taking us into the world of a drifter. It is a surprisingly emotional piece of work and manages to create a distinctive sense of time and place. Curtis’s cinematic approach and use of depth of field makes us forget the star of the film is just a small toy.

To comment on the film or read ‘making of’ notes from the filmaker, click HERE.

Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival is made possible through the generous support of Titmouse and JibJab.

“Defective Detective” by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis

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Defective Detective is the week two film in our Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. It’s directed by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis from Ringling College of Art and Design. To comment on the film, read their production notes, or watch their Student Academy Award acceptance speech, click HERE.

Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival is made possible through the generous support of Titmouse and JibJab.

“Overcast” by James Lancett and Sean Weston

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Overcast

Welcome to the launch of the second annual Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. Over the next ten weeks, we’ll be debuting these ten remarkable student animated shorts.

We’re pleased to kick things off this week with Overcast, a film created by James Lancett and Sean Weston at Kingston University. We chose the film for its elegantly simple visual concept, heartfelt character-driven storytelling, and striking marriage of animation and live-action backgrounds. Click HERE to comment on the film or read more about how it was made.

Before we begin, we’d also like to extend our thanks to JibJab and Titmouse whose generous support makes this year’s festival possible.

Selections for Cartoon Brew’s 2nd Student Animation Festival

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Ten films from five countries have been chosen as the official selections in Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival. This year’s selections contain a remarkable and inspiring range of styles, techniques and ideas, while showcasing an ambitious group of young filmmakers who are unafraid to push the boundaries of the animation medium.

Before we announce the films, we want to thank every filmmaker who submitted their work. We launched the festival last year with the goal of drawing more attention to today’s emerging animation filmmakers. Without support from students, we couldn’t make this happen, and we’re delighted to report that there were nearly 30% more entries this year with 157 student submissions.

Every filmmaker whose work is screened will receive $300. For this, we must thank the generosity of our two major festival sponsors, Titmouse and JibJab. Both of these companies have demonstrated support for young talent throughout the years, and they have done so again by offering their sponsorship to this festival.

Titmouse and JibJab

Another feature of this year’s festival is that the films will be screened in live venues, at Trickster in July, and at The Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. We’ll keep you posted on those screenings.

Once again, a hearty congratulations to this year’s selections in our Student Animation Festival. Beginning Monday, June 20, we will be debuting one new short a week for ten weeks. Let the show begin:


Playing for Keeeps
Directed by Dylan Hayes
Year of Production: 2011
School: Rhode Island School of Design
Country: USA


The Fisherman
Directed by Ferg Brennan
Year of Production: 2011
School: IADT Dun Laoghaire
Country: Ireland


The Impossible Moon
Directed by Meinardas Valkevicius
Year of Production: 2010
School:Vilniaus DailÄ—s Akademija
Country: Lithuania


Peter and the Space Between
Directed by Sitji Chou
Year of Production: 2011
School: Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Country: Canada


Chief Serenbe
Directed by Evan Curtis
Year of Production: 2010
School: Savannah College of Art and Design
Country: USA


Defective Detective
Directed by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis
Year of Production: 2011
School: Ringling College of Art and Design
Country: USA


Overcast
Directed by James Lancett and Sean Weston
Year of Production: 2011
School: Kingston University
Country: UK


Story of a Nice Girl
Directed by Jean Yi
Year of Production: 2011
School: Maryland Institute College of Art
Country: USA


Blenderstein
Directed by Zach Bellissimo
Year of Production: 2011
School: School of Visual Arts
Country: USA


Sheared
Directed by Nikolas Ilic
Year of Production: 2011
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Thank You to our Student Festival Sponsors

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We are proud to announce the two major sponsors of our upcoming Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival: Titmouse and Jibjab. This is how they describe themselves, in their own words:

Titmouse, Inc. is a family of like-minded, action-oriented artists & creators dedicated to all that is bad ass. We blur the boundary between working hard and playing hard as these two concepts become one in the service of doing what we truly love — making cool shit — be in animation, toys, t-shirts, games, talk shows or dildos. Our mission is to push bad-assery into the world via any means possible. We will champion originality, quality, and creative honesty in all of our endeavors. Our dream is to share the works of our collective voice with the fans we wish to entertain the most — ourselves.

JibJab is an online entertainment studio dedicated to making things that make people laugh. You can create personalized ‘Starring You‘ videos on our website, send ecards to friends on special occasions, or watch the Original satirical videos that first put us on the map. Our insanely audacious goal is to help more people share more laughs than any other company in the history of the world. With over 100 million people from 189 countries sharing hundreds of millions of videos and pictures on JibJab in the past 12 months, we’re well on our way to doing it.

Our festival selections for 2011 will be announced next Monday, June 13. In addition to their exclusive Internet premiere on Cartoon Brew, each selection will be shown in real-world venues, with screenings via our participating sponsors: during Trickster in July, and at The Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. Again, “Thank you” to all our amazing sponsors!

DEADLINE EXTENSION: CBTV Student Animation Fest

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We’ve extended the deadline for student film entries in Cartoon Brew’s 2nd annual Student Animation Festival through this Sunday, June 5. We’ve already topped the number of entries from our first year, but we’re greedy: we want to see more of your films! For entry details, GO HERE.

We also can’t let this moment pass without mentioning some awesome news about one of last year’s films in the festival, Kyu-bum Lee‘s Death Buy Lemonade. His short went viral last weekend and has garnered an additional 85,000 page views in the last six days. Congrats, Kyu!

Cartoon Brew’s 2nd Annual Student Animation Festival

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Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival

Cartoon Brew is pleased to announce a call for entries for our second annual Student Film Festival. We launched the Student Film Festival last year and the response exceeded our wildest expectations with over 120 entries from around the world.

Our mission for the festival is simple: to share and promote student-produced animated shorts of the highest caliber…the most original, the most thought-provoking, the ones that make us laugh hardest and engage us emotionally. We know that students are producing some of the most exciting work in the animation art form today and we want to show this work to our broad community of industry artists and animation aficionados. This year, not only will our festival selections debut on the Cartoon Brew home page, we’ve also arranged real world screenings of the films at the new TRICKSTER festival in San Diego and at The Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles.

Here’s all the info you need:

RULES

1. It has to be animated. (Obviously.)
2. It has to be a student film. (Even more obvious.)
3. Must have been completed after March 1, 2010.
4. Must be an online premiere. (Films that are accessible online to the public will not be considered.)
5. Submissions due by Tuesday, May 31, 2011

SUBMIT
To submit, send an email to studentfest (at) cartoonbrew (dot) com with the following info:

• Your name, school and country
• Film title and synopsis
• Private link and password (ex: Password-Protected Vimeo link, Private or Unlisted YouTube link, or a website download link).

WHAT HAPPENS IF I’M SELECTED
Up to 10 films will be selected for the festival. We will announce the festival selections in early June. Screenings will begin on Cartoon Brew later in June. Every film that is selected to screen as part of the Cartoon Brew Student Film Festival will be paid a screening fee of $300(US). We don’t take any exclusivity over your film. In other words, you are still free to submit to festivals, sell it to distributors, and post it anywhere on-line after its debut in our festival.

ONE FINAL NOTE
Many students are erroneously informed in school that posting their film on-line ruins their festival chances. We’ve explored the issue before by speaking with festival directors and recommend reading this. None of the major animation festivals enforce such a rule today. However, some non-animation festivals, like Sundance, ask that a film be taken off-line during the course of their festival (although we know for a fact that they have not enforced the rule in the past). As far as we know, the only awards organization that strictly demands films remain off-line is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, so if you’re trying to qualify for a Student Academy Award, you don’t want to post your film on-line.

Cartoon Brew TV’s Student Festival is Coming!

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Quick reminder: We’re getting ready to accept submissions for the second annual Cartoon Brew TV Student Animation Festival. If you’re finishing up a student film this year, we hope you’ll consider submitting it to our festival. All student films that have been completed after May 1, 2010 and haven’t been posted on-line yet are eligible. Full details coming soon!