Drawn Animation Festival

The epic screening of the 2D animation festival is fast approaching! If you live anywhere in the NY/New Jersey area, I heartily suggest you make plans to come to this once in a lifetime magnificent event.

It's the brain child of my Scribble Junkies partner Pat Smith, and I think it's a grand idea! We're all turning into digital robots watching Pixar and Dreamworks films. We believe that good drawing and draftsmanship should be celebrated and shown. We've scowered the globe looking for animated shorts that display excellence in drawing skills and storytelling.

The brand new cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Nighthawk Cinema, has chosen our program to be one of the first on their premiere schedule. The cool thing about this cinema is that you can eat and drink while you watch these gems – and it's been my philosophy that great animation is ALWAYS enhanced by a little alcoholic spirits.

I lecture at a lot of animation and art schools and it seems they are dumping their life drawing programs for computer skills programs. Basically the schools are turning out computer nerds who can't draw.

I remember a story told to me by the great graphic novelist Geoff Darrow. He was in Australia working on the designs for The Matrix. The Wachowski brothers weren't happy with a certain sequence and they asked Geoff to create a new storyboard. Well, as Geoff tells it, he was very busy, so he asked one of his high-priced digital artists to sketch out a new page of storyboard. The guy looked at Mr. Darrow and said, “But I can't draw!”

So tell all your friends and hustle on down to the Nighthawk Cinema on Sunday, August 14 (7pm – cocktail reception – 8:30 – films begin!) and come see Pat and I, plus a number of other animation artists at the first annual 2D Animation Festival!