Austin Animation AOK

	Austin, Texas has long been known as an epicenter of good music, good bar-b-que, and good beer. Most folks even set aside their preconceptions about the lone star state when they set foot here in the capitol city. We're lucky enough to have Barton Springs to swim in, great Mexican food to eat, and a large creative community lurking around every corner. So it should come as no surprise that over the last ten or twenty years the city has emerged as one of the most active independent film hotspots in the country. In addition to the well known Slackers and Mariachis we've been turning out, Austin has been busy creating award winning animation of every kind from video games to installation art.
Having gone to college out here (at St. John's College), I feel pretty connected to Santa Fe (another great city, with even better New Mexican food). So I was very excited when the festival asked me to showcase some of my own work along with a collection of shorts by other talented Austin animators. The program runs the gambit from well-known industry regulars to student work and covers many of us that fall somewhere in-between. The line-up includes two new works from Bob Sabiston, who rotoscoped Richard Linklater's Waking Life as well as writing the software to do it. The Perfect Human: Cartoon is an excerpt from Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions, and Yard is an impressionistic portrait of the summer solstice here in Austin. There will also be films from a couple other Waking Life alums. Tim Wilkerson's Suddenly it Rained turns Austin into Egypt, and the team of Jason Archer and Paul Beck, who have recently done music videos for Molotov and David Byrne, will be presenting a music video and some politics.
The more traditional character animation will be represented by Lance Myers, who currently animates video games for Acclaim, and has a varied past working for Warner Brothers feature films, various CD-Roms, and a Riddlin Kids video. Two of his own films The Astronomer and Subsidized Fate will be in the showcase. Powerhouse Animation (most recently famous for making the J-Lo saves Ben Affleck video game) will be providing Fast Food Blues and a smokin' commercial, Festershields. Also expect Jeff Freeman's black and white hand drawn Re-Entry and Francesca Talenti's short collection of animated poems by Austin authors, The Life Jacket, I Exist, and On Writing Hat Poems, all three originally produced for PBS.
Speaking of video games, the recent winners of Best Picture, Best Independent Picture, and Best Writing at the 2003 Machinima Festival in NYC, will be showing three episodes from their incredibly popular series Red vs. Blue (this is animation using the actual video game Halo to create a narrative piece…a whole new genre in animated filmmaking). We've got stop motion too. Viva La Guerra, Episode Two: Viva The Somme is a ten-minute excerpt from Paul Hanley's action figure war epic especially cut for the festival that recently won several awards at CinemaTexas. Abstract animator Gabel Karsten is presenting her silent film Monotype Movement (animated entirely with prints), and an excerpt from Ablution, Eric Patrick's award winning stop motion animation, will be shown. A recent transplant to Austin, Seamus Hames, animated the atmospheric cut-out piece Lullaby for M. There will even be a short collection of student animations from the University of Texas, with work by Colleen Corcoron, Andrew Logan, Liz Phang, David Montoya, and Angela Fuhrken.
	Of course, I am showing a few my own films as well. I will be including a time lapse film (set to music by Howe Gelb) I co-directed with Santa Fe native Melanie West, Pontiac Slipstream; two sneak peak episodes from my upcoming feature Trip To Roswell, The French Scene and The Eskimo Scene; my first animation, Monkey vs. Robot; and a brand new short, Ten Is My Favorite Number.
Finally, for any of you who might have wondered about the title, I'll let you in on reference. Back in the 90's sometime Lisa Simpson lost an essay contest about the USA. The winning essay that defeated her was "USA:AOK". For the decade that followed that episode I have titled many a paper or thesis AOK…I guess it just goes to show the power of a cartoon. I hope you enjoy our towns animated offering.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMPLETE LINE-UP!

info@swervepictures.com