In 1999, Jakub Pistecky’s three-and-a-half-minute short, Little Milos, won the International Student Animation Festival of Ottawa’s (SAFO) ASIFA-Canada prize for best Canadian film. Two years later, Pistecki is ensconced in what he calls the ‘grungy’ California studios of Industrial Light & Magic.

‘It feels like a place where you can get dirty,’ Pistecki says on a break from working on the creature animation for the next Star Wars episode, Attack of the Clones. The plum job came after an ILM recruiter, who attends the biannual student animation festival, saw Pistecki’s fairy tale-like short at a European film festival. The company had become aware of his work when, in his third year at Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, Pistecki won the most promising student award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 1998.

It’s the kind of career trajectory many of the animation students who attend SAFO dream about. Along with the encouragement and inspiration of seeing their peers’ work, the festival, this year running Oct. 18-21, offers invaluable networking opportunities with industry players from around the world.

Launched in 1997, SAFO is held every two years, alternating with and running under the auspices of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, which kicked off in 1976. The separate student festival was created in response to students’ work getting lost in the larger venue, says Kelly Neall, the festival’s managing director, who along with artistic director Chris Robinson and assistant director Tina Paas manage the event.

Since SAFO’s inauguration, the animation industry has changed. In 1997, with the success of animated television series and feature films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid, employers were hiring students before they graduated. The first years of the festival were more of a recruitment fair.

‘Several years ago there was a feeding frenzy, with studios sucking up every student they could find,’ Neall says. ‘Now it has calmed down; companies come to the festival to see the best of what’s out there.’

Hiring has not stopped, however. ‘Studios are still hiring. Nelvana, for example, picks up at least 20 Sheridan students every year,’ says Ellen Besen, a filmmaker and co-ordinator of the animation filmmaking program at Sheridan College in Oakville, ON. Besen has been with the Ottawa festival as a programmer, board member, or speaker, since its inception.

The National Film Board as well is holding an open house to coincide with the festival.

Over the years, the OIAF and SAFO have both adjusted their focus in response to shifts in the industry. In the mid-’80s, the industry was ‘interested in the middle slice of animation with content being more conservative. Since then, the programmers have become more interested in experimental work and also more commercial work. What has happened is that a broader range of independent filmmakers can mingle with a broader range of industry,’ Besen explains.

As Neall puts it, ‘Our goal is to carve out a place where industry can recharge its batteries and provide students creative fuel by showing them cutting-edge stuff from around the world.’

One of the main showcase forums is the international competition program. This year, more than 800 films vied for 80 competition spots, with 120 being 3D, 50 being puppetry animation, another 60 to 70 using some computer manipulation, and the rest being hand-drawn. Undergraduate students account for the majority of the films submitted, with almost 400 entries. Fifty of the hopefuls were children and 255 graduate students. Three international panoramas and one Canadian panorama screen films outside of competition.

Two of the films in competition that particularly caught the eye of festival assistant director Tina Paas are Via Wire, from Canadian Cliff Kafai Mok (about identity on the Internet) and Novelty, from Leigh Hodgkinson of the U.K. (about a girl and her relationship with her slippers). ‘I was quite surprised at the content of the submissions,’ Paas says. ‘The films are very mature and the execution is really excellent.’ Both shorts are adult in content; Via Wire is a hand-drawn film colored in Photoshop, while Novelty uses a mix of live action, stop motion and hand-drawn animation.

School showcases focus on institutions like Sheridan and the Vancouver Film School and target high-school students thinking about a career in animation. A competition for best animation school brings representative work from London’s Royal College of Art, Emily Carr, KASK and the Atelier de la Production de la Cambre, both in Belgium. ‘For schools that are picked it really gives them a boost when they recruit students,’ Neall says.

Teletoon will also announce the winners of its Animation Scholarship Award Competition at SAFO. Categories include entrance scholarships, most promising student scholarships, continuing education scholarships and the mature student scholarship. First prizes are worth $4,000, with second prize giving students $2,500 and third prize awarding $1,000 in each category. Scholarship winners have on-air recognition of their work, potentially including the broadcast of their shorts.

‘We steer students in the right direction [at SAFO],’ says Pascale Guillote, director of communications for Teletoon. ‘We are seen as an information tool for the animation industry as a whole. Our production department can direct efforts toward a production house in Canada. Or we can tell them what the process is that they need to go through if they are interested in selling their shorts to us.’

For Teletoon, attending the festival is yet another way, along with going to open-house days at various colleges, to stay on top of new directions in the industry. ‘It is absolutely essential for us to keep up with new trends,’ Guillote says.

Independent animators are particularly well served by this year’s SAFO programming, with one workshop instructing animators how to work independently by stretching the resources at their disposal. Nick Cross, who has worked on such series as Nelvana’s Franklin, has shown two of his films at SAFO and the OIAF. Tea for Two, his 1999 SAFO entry, was picked up by level13.net, an Internet company that streams animated films over the Net, while his der Unterseefraulei screened at the main festival a year later.

Students with an idea for a show or a series can also meet with broadcasters. An Ontario Media Development Corporation-sponsored session allows students to pitch ideas to networks and producers in 15-minute private sessions. The Cartoon Network, Teletoon and Ottawa’s Amberwood Productions are some of the participants this year.

Fran and Will Krause’s cartoon, Mister Smile, was noticed by The Cartoon Network at the 1999 SAFO. The project from the brothers (Will writes, Fran draws) led to an invitation to enter a competition for a series on the network. The result was Utica Zoo, which will screen in competition at this year’s SAFO. While the project did not lead to a series, the broadcaster has requested another pilot.

For established and emerging animation companies, the fest is a marketplace where they can get feedback on new products and attract not just future employees, but also future customers. Much of the business is conducted at the Animarket Trade Fair. ‘We are a little different from other fairs because we are not locked away in a room off site. The trade fair is on site so people can go by participants’ booth several times a day,’ Nealle says.

‘Having students at the festival not only allows us to showcase our products but also means we can go there and collect information on what students want,’ says John Munro, president of Chromacolour, which sponsors the Best Use of Colour award ($500 in cash or product) at the festival. The Calgary-based company has made refinements to its product as a result of suggestions made by festival attendees.

‘We created a header strip for paper that you use as a reinforcement,’ says Munro. ‘And we were told that it would be great if you could write and make notes on it. So we added rag paper to the header.’

For Sheridan’s Besen, this exchange of information is the most important part of the animation festival. At SAFO, in particular, students will be meeting life-long colleagues. ‘Industry and independents feed each other, especially now that so many people straddle the line between commercial and independent work,’ says Besen. ‘It brings together schools of different philosophies and lets students and teachers interact. In 10 or 20 years, they’ll all be in different places and they can still work on projects together.’

-www.awn.com/ottawa

-www.level13.net

-www.chromacolour.com