Rising by Lionel Juglair of Groupe Mikros Image (computer-animated short film—Electronic Theater)
Each year, art and technology, innovation and craft converge at the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival (CAF), featuring animations from various genres—full-length and short films, music videos, real-time projects, visualizations/simulations, and more.
“We are proud to have presented an eclectic array of pieces, ranging from the visually stunning animated shorts and VFX breakdowns to gorgeous and informative scientific visualizations,” says The Creative-Cartel’s Josh Grow, who returned once again as the CAF chair for the second consecutive year at SIGGRAPH 2012. “Our jury reviewed hundreds of entries from all over the world and created a selection of works with the highest level of originality, craft, storytelling, and technology.” For the past several conferences, SIGGRAPH has opted for a more film-festival-like atmosphere. While the 2012 CAF still embraced those elements, the organizers brought back the classic Animation Theater to the program. Now called the Daytime Selects, these reels consisted of “amazing content that we just couldn’t fit into the two hours of the Electronic Theater,” notes Grow. More than 600 pieces were submitted for consideration to this year’s festival. Of those, nearly half were from students. A jury of industry professionals then selected 29 projects for the evening Electronic Theater program. More than 60 projects (divided into three reels) were part of the Daytime Selects, as were three additional reels of content (animation, entertainment, and art) from the Japan Media Arts Festival.
“The content gets better and better. This year’s show was particularly difficult to put together due to all the amazing content we received from every stretch of the industry,” says Grow. “The CAF is the best of the best from all over the world,” Grow continues. “And it’s the one place to see all the greatest minds in our industry come together and celebrate their hard work and achievements.”
A selection of images from this year’s Computer Animation Festival (courtesy of ACM SIGGRAPH 2012) appears on these two pages. –Karen Moltenbrey
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| The Colors of Evil by Alex Glawion, Phillp Simon, and Alyse Miller of Ringling School of Art + Design (student project—Animation Theater) |
Release Your Imagination by Stuart Bailey and Alexis Van de Haeghe of RealtimeUK (computer-animated short film—Electronic Theater) |
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| Great Expectations Title Sequence by Nic Benns of Momoco(animated feature film—Animation Theater) |
Bon Iver We Are Music by Dan Marsh and Ryan Knowles of The Moving Picture Company (television commercial—Animation Theater) |
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| Divine Intervention by Yen-Chi Tseng of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (student project—Animation Theater) |
Encounter by SeeHun Jeon of the School of Visual Arts (student project—Animation Theater) |
Fertilization by Thomas Brown of Nucleus Medical Media (visualization/simulation—Electronic Theater)