O' CANADA! ...again!!!

Q: What could be better than spending a week in Canada with nothing better to do than watching cartoons?
A: Getting to do it again!

Last year Greg Saunders and i were surprised to have our cartoon "Brother, Can You Spare a Job?" selected for the Ottawa International Animation Festival '04.

My music video for The Muffs' "Don't Pick On Me" was selected for the Music Video category for the OIAF '05- YAY!!!

Here's the list of animated music videos I'm up against:

Die Toten Hosen ‘Walkampf’ / Andreas Hykade / Studio Film Bilder / Germany
Mad Action ‘Smile’ / Jonas Odell / Filmtecknarna / Sweden
The Muffs ‘Don’t Pick On Me’ / Tom Neely / I Will Destroy You Cartoons / USA
Phoenix Foundation ‘Hitchcock’ / Reuben Sutherland / Joyrider Films / United Kingdom
Rheostatics ‘The Tarleks’ / Justin Stephenson / Trace Pictures, OZ Media Group / Canada
Xploding Plastix ‘Joy Comes in the Morning’ / Scott Friedman & Joe Ledbetter / Exhibit A / USA

It's a competition (and i won't lie- it'd be cool to come home with an award), but I'm just really excited to go watch a lot of cartoons. There's so much great animation going on in this world, but no one ever sees most of it outside of festivals. Last year i blogged about all the great stuff i saw at OIAF'04. Great films that really should reach a much larger audience, but probably never will.

This year, I'm looking forward to new films by John Canemaker and Henry Selick and special programs about Gary Panter's work on Pee Wee's Playhouse... but those are just the guys i've heard of- I know I'll see a whole lot more amazing stuff while i'm there. I can't wait.

for more info check out the OIAF'05 site