MTV Wants Animators For Reality Show | Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation

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MTV Wants Animators For Reality Show

June 4, 2008 8:11 am

Engine Room

Animation contests are not a popular subject around the Brew, but this one sounds intriguing enough to mention. MTV is currently recruiting animators, designers and filmmakers from around the world to participate in a show called Engine Room, in which four teams (Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America) compete for a chance to win $400,000 in cash plus lots of tech gear from Hewlett-Packard. The contest was described to me by an MTV producer as “a design/animation-based reality show.” The show is casting through the end of June, and will be filmed for four weeks beginning in mid-July.

Here’s a bit more description from the materials he sent me:

Each team will be made up of four members with one or more of the following talents: graphics and web design, animation, filmmaking, and sound mixing. Each team member will need to make sure they’re making the most of their unique talents if their designs are going to stand up to criticism from our panel of experts.

The Engine Room is a unique opportunity for talented creatives to compete in a high pressure, highly creative environment – and the prize will give the winners a massive head start in their professional lives.

As sponsors of the show, Hewlett Packard are there to ensure that the stars are working on top of the best hardware they’ve got to offer, with a selection of cutting edge design packages.

MTV channels will be screening Engine Room on-air and online across the world this autumn, but this is so much more than a reality show. This is the perfect opportunity for young talent to shine.

I’d mistakenly posted earlier that they’re only looking for Europeans, but there are slots open for all regions. To submit a portfolio or for additional details, visit MTVEngineRoom.com or email engineroom [at] mtvne.com.

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13 comments posted in TV

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06/4/08 8:39am	Katie Cropper says:
	I’m not going to lie Amid. I will probably watch this.
06/4/08 9:33am	Bran Dougherty-Johnson says:
	I wonder who will get voted off first?
06/4/08 10:21am	Pete Hamilton says:
	the least exploitable get axed first.
06/4/08 10:50am	Jessica says:
	i’ve had this idea for years!!!! it was all a matter of time. this will pack a lot of that coveted “reality tv drama”.
06/4/08 12:10pm	BWARG! says:
	INTERESTING, I’d do it. Wonder how it will pan out.
06/4/08 3:57pm	Keith Paynter says:
	Great. “On The Lot” for animators. Something most people unfortunately won’t care about. Worst case scenario: it survives its run, but nobody cares. Best case scenario (yes): It will end like The One: Making a Music Star and will be cancelled mid-run, with no final result.
06/4/08 4:04pm	Jorge Garrido says:
	David Gemmill and Ryan Khatam should sign up for this: 1. They’re handsome, young, and hip enough for teenage girls to think they’re “cool” 2. They have strong personalities and controversial opinions that could carry a show. They’re more interesting than Lauren Conrad by far, and that’s just from blog posts. I am sure Ryan Khatam would start many (more) a fight. 3. They’re insanely talented and could kick most flash animator’s asses, they combine indie DYI ethic with professional talent and aesthetics (in that they do full animation and can draw really well) 4. They have a history with MTV, doing the animation for the Nick movie “Shredderman Rules”
06/4/08 5:15pm	Newt Nebulous says:
	A surly old coot with a challenged bladder would make an even better host but John McCain is busy.
06/4/08 11:14pm	Pop-eyed says:
	Sound like a good idea! Good animation studios are a bunch of guys quietly working like crazy to finish their work. At the 15 minute mark somebody gets up to take a pee. Every week something different mid-show could happen! Maybe getting a coffee one week and putting a beaded cushion on the chair the next! Otherwise artists quietly scratching or clicking away - riveting!
06/5/08 12:17am	H Park says:
	“Reality” stranger than fiction. I fantasized about this and MTV decide to make one. I understand that Reality TV market is saturated, but man…
06/5/08 3:49pm	Tim Rauch says:
	I’m with Pop-eyed. I was watching Project Runway with friends and joked that most boring possible reality show would focus on animators. Don’t know about you guys, but I spend hours in my boxers hunched over a drawing table with eraser bits and graphite piling up on the floor. Oh, and I’m kind of an emotionally stable nerd. Not that exciting to watch.
06/5/08 4:05pm	Sarah says:
	Is it going to be like “the Real Life” but with animators? That would be both amusing and sad at the same time. Just think of all the unrealistic drama and BS that the animators will have to go through, frantically trying to finish an animated short before the deadline. And since its MTV we’re going to see a whole Benetton ad of animators. You know, make it REAL! Hmm…Now I gotta watch it.
06/8/08 11:34am	Wallace Wolcott says:
	If this were 1900 Thomas Edison would be filming contestants vying for the prize of steady work in one of America’s many anthracite coal mines. We have advanced as a society. Animation doesn’t cause black lung.

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