Ottawa Day #5

Last Day in Ottawa my jetlag had finally caught up with me, just in time for me to leave the next day. First thing in the morning we all met at the Masterclass with Michael Dudok De Wit, maker of the great animated shorts Monk and the Fish and Father & Daughter. Saw many of his commercials too...very interesting guy with lots of inspiring things to say.

Spent the rest of the day at the booth; I had an interesting talk with Amid Amidi about animation and the decline of art education in schools. As we chatted, we tried to figure out why so many animators of the 30s and 40s seemed to be born with such immense talent and exceptional ability rarely seen today amongst people the same age as they were when they started, in that their art had form, light, shape, etc. One theory I feel is that their generation most likely got most of their entertainment from theater, which deals with observing things in 3D space with real lighting and staging. Nowadays, getting our entertainment from flat screens, that sense is gone. This could be why there is this shift towards very flat drawings coming out of high schools. Anyway, something should be done about it. I ended up showing my leica reel to both Amid and Jerry that day...they both liked it.

Next year at the booth we need more stuff, and food! Definitely a learning experience seeing what other schools do, so I'm very glad we were there. More people from the east coast need to understand that Vancouver is a happy place and it's OK to move here.

Upon saying good-bye to Steve, networking with studios and shutting down the booth, we took everything back to Meeka's and had another awesome dinner in the Byward market, complete with them sweet potato fries...holy crap are those good. Is this another mysterious East/Mid-West food that's not available out here, like fried clams? (mmmm, fried clams....) Why else have I never heard of them? Must....find...

I went to the closing ceremonies and saw who won awards, and sat through the winning films. Some great stuff. Afterwards went to the closing party for a little while and got my picture with John Canemaker. He's a very warm, friendly person...he seemed very moved when I told him I could relate to the themes in his film. I feel very blessed to have interacted with these people who are keeping the animation industry and artform flourishing so much.

Overall it was a fantastic trip...my last night was topped off perfectly with a huge thunderstorm and torrential downpour outside the window. That was really nice, and dearly missed. I'm hoping this can become an annual trip, as it's really good for the school to be a part of it and get our name out there, and contribute something to the industry in this way. Ottawa is an amazing city too...can't wait to go again, and definitely take Jay there sometime too.

Back to reality....