Film Festival 09 - SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 Highlights
SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 Highlights
International Showcase, 68m
Asia Panorama, 61m
Established in the USA more than 30 years ago, SIGGRAPH (short for
Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) saw
the wave of CG animation approaching long before most of us even
saw a ripple. SIGGRAPH is now one of the world's largest and most
important gatherings for the digerati. The annual SIGGRAPH
conference is a gathering post for innovators, creative
researchers, producers, proactive artists, energetic executives and
adventurous engineers. SIGGRAPH's premiere event is its Computer
Animation Festival (CAF) which showcases the very best CG animated
works whether they are short films, ads, music videos or
experimental software demos.
In the lead-up to SIGGRAPH Asia 2008, held in Singapore, I was
invited to Seoul to sit on a week-long jury that would consider
nearly 1000 entries and select the works to appear in the SIGGRAPH
Asia 2008 CAF. From this privileged vantage point I've put together
this comprehensive double collection of the top contenders along
with a few favourites of mine, notably the amazing Wizard of OS:
The Fish Incident, which missed the jury consensus.
Wonderfully diverse, the International Showcase features some
remarkable narrative films such as Monsieur Cok and This Way Up by
the indefatigable Smith & Foulkes working out of the London
studio Nexus. There is also an array of audaciously conceived and
realised ads and music videos.
Unsurprisingly, SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 attracted many Asian entries
providing the perfect opportunity for us to devote an entire
programme specifically to animation from the region. Films such as
Fly Out Blue, The Evil Twin and Kudan (a Japanese mythical half
man, half cow creature) bring to the screen uniquely Asian
sensibilities that blend perfectly with a breathtaking grasp of the
possibilities the technology offers. You will also see incredible
examples of the way graphic design and animation are morphing into
a single artform, an area in which Asian animators are
disproportionately well represented.
