Updated: Oct 18
3 weeks ago was the Ottawa Animation Festival that is International! I guess I'm kinda late to write about it but I still feel it's worth writing about so here come the JUICIEST details from my boots on the ground reporting from the (second) BIGGEST ANIMATION FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD!
That's the poster
So yah, I've been to this festival before. Crazily, the 3rd animation I ever did (Freak Heat Waves - Toxic Talk Show) got into this fest back in 2018. I didn't even know what the festival was or that it was a big deal, I just went cause it's 2 hours from Montreal and I love highways. Back then I was even in the "International Commissioned" category and I'd come to learn over the next few years, after I'd failed to only be included in the less thrilling, "Canadian Panorama" category, that that was also a pretty cool thing to be a part of. I remember I thought it was funny I got into a commissioned category considering the budget for that video was $500. Haha, good memory. But the big difference with the commissioned category was you get a FREE hotel! Meanwhile the "Canadian Panorama" meant you had to rent a room at the Horse Breath Motel across the river. At the Horse Breath Motel the beige decor runeth deep and the room is but a novelty sized ashtray. And also at the Horse Breath Motel when you're tossing around at 3am on the beige mattress you decide that in the morning you will find a rideshare home and skip the coming days networking opportunities.
Speaking of networking, I finally kinda learned how to do it! What you gotta do is find drinks and hopefully there are free ones. If there aren't free ones you gotta go to a liquor store and get drinks there and you have to drink them very fast so that you get all jacked up real quick. Then you run into the place with all the people who's names you'd like to know and you go up to them with your hand stretched out and you say "nice____" you have to fill in the blank here and it's usually "nice shirt" but it can also be "nice hat" "nice shoes" or even just "nice to meet you!". Weirdly everyone responds pretty okay to all this stuff cause apparently they're all doing the same embarrassing thing. I used to go to music festivals and the last thing you wanna do there is try and make friends with other bands in a networking style. That's what sell-outs and wannabes do and the only people who do it make very bad music. In animation world it's all good. You can be a big dork cause there's actually almost no "cool" people in this world so being a big dork is just kinda cool! Once I learned this and became more comfortable, I completely let my guard down and went from Dr. Cool to Mr. Moustachio!! The most random guy at the party, for sure. Mr. Moustachio had a cool style voice similar to Mickey Mouse, but higher and more nasaly aka funnier and also he had an imaginary kitten under his trenchoat called Mrs. Dog that he pretended to talk to in barks! People were very impressed! Mr. Moustachio shot lasers out of a hole in his top hat!!!
So yah I networked like crazy and I met all these people for the first time in my animating "career" and they will NEVER forget my name for sure. The first crew I met were a bunch of NYC animators who turned out to be my best friends for the rest of the visit. They went by the names India, Ash, Kristi and Rome. We met when Rome used the ultimate networking line, "Nice shirt" on me. Later I asked India if I should go up to a man named Chris who everyone was trying to talk to and she said "yes". I was so into the networking I wanted to try for a big dawg! So I went up to the man named Chris, who happened to have made an award winning animation with this guy I kinda know called Cole and I said to Chris "Hey, I know Cole" and he was like OH, cool and then he said, "Let's take a pic together and send it to Cole". That's when I got worried that Cole maybe didn't know who I was really and I was gonna come off as a phony. So the next day I was doing a fancy animators INTERVIEW in front of an audience. I thought there'd be like 5 people but the place was full. There was like 50!! When I saw all the people my stomach turned cause I was hungover and it was like 9am...so yeah, I felt I had to go the bathroom really bad. I thought about running out at one point before my turn cause I was afraid I'd # 2 in my 501's but then they called my name up to talk and so I gave a high-5 to the interviewing guy (who also has the name Chris) and after 3 minutes I didn't have to anymore. Asking Chris asked 6-10 questions and then the audience asked another 3-5. One of the questions came from the star animator I met through NETWORKING the night before, Mr. Chris, and he (just like Asking Chris) asked a question. It was something about my old band "SLAM DUNK" and I said "How the hell you know about my old band??" and he said something like "Cole has told me v good things about you..." So NOW everyone in the audience is like, okay, so the star Mr. Chris is DOWN with this new guy and so now I'm feeling like I'm # 1 and I'd totally forgotten about # 2!!
Later, Mr. Chris invited me and my new best friends Ash and Kristi of the city NYC, to a fine HIGH TEA. The HIGH TEA was to be hosted by the mad hatter of the ball, Sir Nigel. Sir Nigel was apparently the director of a one Kung Fu Panda and a Shrek, and also wore many expensive bits of clothing. We couldn't believe we were included in this decadent HIGH TEA taking place at the Fairmont Château Laurier on Parliament Hill! So we went there and behaved very politely, which I find hard to do, but after some time I could tell Sir Nigel and his Off-White hat were not too opposed to some tomfoolery! I impressed the Sir by putting entire tiny cakes in my mouth and I think this made everyone feel more relaxed. At one point, Kristi of NYC was trying to seem sophisticated by putting her pinky in the air while sipping tea but she launched her pinky too early and wound up hitting a very tiny silver milk jug. Milk spilled all over the table and more ice was broken yet. We laughed not too uncomfortably. Sir Nigel told us tales from the great Hollywood sets and said names such as "Leonard Dicaprio" and "Bad Bunny" and "Will Smith". I told him stories about my film-making adventures in Canada's underground indie rock scene. Names such as "Mark Grundy" and "Scott Grundy" came out of my mouth while clotted cream and scones went into his. When the HIGH TEA finished Sir Nigel showed appreciation by giving us stickers of a cartoon version of himself. This helped to never forget his vibe.
Later that night we were invited to the EXCLUSIVE after-party in the festivals offices! I sang karaoke on the little sound system cause I was really trying to make sure they don't forget me. I think they will remember me as a loud man, which probably won't get me any work in the biz but maybe one of them runs a carnival that needs new carnies? For karaoke I sang How Bizzare, In The Summertime and Rawhide. By the time I did Rawhide my voice was so raw and I simply could not hide it. By 3am I got to bed but was so jacked up from the day. I thought of all my new friends, both real and pretend for the sake of niceties. Some friendships rendered true, others lost in an animatic of what could have been. As I waited the next morning for my rideshare home I reached into my pocket only to find the sticker gifted to me by the mad hatter Sir Nigel. I had a lot of time to think so I wondered if he'd follow me back on social media app. In the coming weeks it became evident that it was all perhaps a dream sequence as no follow followed. But I doth not hold a grudge for a dream is still worth sequencing if not for the dream of life. And with that in mind I recall the festival as fondly as my finest fortunes. For its dangling lanyards, its divine miniature sandwiches, and if just for a moment, its palpable stank of hope wherein a struggle is lifted and replaced with life anew, as Shreks # 2.
Oh yeah, so my video played, people clapped and the theatre was full to the brim! WEEE!!!
