Talk to the Snail

So our good friend Rita Street tricked me into participating in an event she and her Radar Cartons pal, John Hardman, put together with the New Zealand government. Basically, a bunch of Kiwi creators and studio reps fly to L.A. to meet, greet, and pitch mighty development executives (like me) from benevolent cartoon companies (like Frederator). Held throughout the day at a Burbank hotel, the event saw all the usual suspects from the suit side – Disney, Starz, Cartoon Network, Nelvana, Cookie Jar, and so forth were all represented (Nickelodeon sat out because the projects weren’t from the U.S.).

Anyhoo, the New Zealand folks I met with were very nice, had great ideas, and were soldiering on despite having pitched the same ideas up to ten times in the course of a few hours. I offered all the usual wisdom and advice (“Maybe a cartoon about a development executive who eats pretzels?”), ate [Read more…]

Well, a BIG congratulations going out to filmmaker Nicole Mitchell. Her hand-drawn CalArts film, “Zoologic”, has won the gold (that’s the top prize) in the animation category in this year’s Student Academy Awards. It’s an honor well-deserved. You can see a clip of Nicole and her film by scrolling down a bit after clicking here. Nicole is now added to the list of Student Academy Award-winners that includes Pete Docter, Kathy Zielinski, Paul Demyer, Mark Kirkland, Vanessa Schwartz, Joe Murray, Trey Parker, Shane Acker, and (two-time winner) John Lasseter.

Again, hats off to a job well done, Nicole.

– Eric

(Sorry this is so late. Even though I blogged about her nomination in May, I was thinking the Awards were to be held this past weekend. When I looked this morning to see what went down, it turns out the awards were June 7.)