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Christophe Vacher

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Christophe Vacher, I am currently doing the VFX Art direction and color design for the TV series “Transformers Prime”.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Well, everything I did outside animation was actually parallel activities. Although I never was interested in being an actor at all, I had the opportunity to be an extra on different indie movies and commercials here in Hollywood.  Nothing too crazy, really, but I think the most fun I had was the day I was hired as a stunt man on the History Channel show “Deadliest Warrior” (because of my martial arts background). We rehearsed stunts for 2 days and had a blast, but at the last minute, the producers and director changed the story, and instead of being a French commando freeing hostages from Somali pirates, I became a French tourist on a yacht being assaulted by Somali pirates en route to measure themselves to a Colombian drug Cartel. Bummer… 😀  Still got paid and had lots of fun doing it, though!
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I think my favorite project to this day remains having been the art director of the movie “9” (produced by Tim Burton), for which I was nominated for an Annie Award.  The “Transformers Prime” TV show I am art directing now is pretty cool to, and I won an Continue reading

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Viewster Launches Largest Online Animation Festival

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VOFF5 launches with fully-curated animation edition and a new jury made up of leading industry talent

Zurich – March 12, 2015 – Viewster (http://www.viewster.com/), the only online video service with its own global film festival, is launching the latest edition of the Viewster Online Film Fest #VOFF5: Animated Worlds (12 – 26 March), with films that bring to life some of the finest animated worlds – from far-off galaxies to worlds within our heads (the trailer can be viewed here). The festival has been fully curated and has a new jury of leading industry talent, who have been recognised by the likes of BAFTA and the Emmys.

#VOFF5 is the world’s largest online showcase of animation content, with the hand-picked festival selection covering the best global talent, from students to award-winners. There are over 140 short films from 37 countries, all of which have been selected on the merits of production quality and for their imaginative scope. The films comprise of various animation methods across 2D, 3D, CGI, Stop-Motion and Cel Animation. Each film in #VOFF5: Animated Worlds is listed in the festival catalogue, available to view online http://festival.viewster.com.

The festival winners will get a share of the $50,000 USD prize fund, making #VOFF5 the biggest prize fund in the world to reward purely animation talent. The final films will be chosen by the jury from the shortlist, following the public voting period when fans will watch, discuss, share and vote for their favourite entries.
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The new jury for #VOFF5 consists of:

  • Prolific voice-actor Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto and Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, numerous video game credits such as The Prince from The Prince of Persia series)
  • Athena Yvette Portillo (Lucas Film producer of Star Wars Rebels and line producer on Clone Wars)
  • Samantha Youssef (Toronto International Film Festival award-winner for La Fuga Grande and character animator and director, with credits for Disney, Ubisoft and Filmax International)
  • Two-time Emmy winning animator Christophe Vacher (credits include work on Transformers: Prime,Despicable Me, 9, Enchanted, Fantasia / 2000, Hercules and Beauty and the Beast)
  • BAFTA-nominated animator Michael Schlingmann (credits include work on Corpse Bride,Paranorman, Alice in Wonderland)

Kai Henniges, CEO, Viewster, said: “#VOFF5 cements our festival’s position as a global fandom destination, where fanboys and fangirls can connect with each other and interact with the filmmakers around the content. The films in this edition of the festival are truly impressive and are a testament to the amazing talent out there, and the imaginative variety of styles and subjects in animation. Viewster is a global first-stop for fresh Anime content, and our catalogue has a wealth of complementary content across sci-fi and fantasy, so #VOFF5: Animated Worlds will play directly into our audience’s tastes.”

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The fifth edition of #VOFF hosts a number of award-winning creations and talent, including:

  • Posthuman (USA) – Screamfest ‘Best Animated Short’-winner starring the voice of Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica)
  • The Silence Beneath the Bark (France) – Oscar nominated short which was also nominated for the Annecy Cristal and won the best animated short at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
  • ARK (Poland) – SIGGRAPH ‘Best of Show’-winner which was also accepted into official selection at Cannes, from director Grzegorz Jokajtys (animation/digital arts credits include Star Trek, Iron Man 2,Captain America: Winter Soldier, Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth)
  • Golem (Germany) – Won Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival and Audience Award at the Creative Arts Film Festival, and is from director Tobias Wiesner (animation/digital arts credits include Game of Thrones, The Hobbit trilogy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Hugo). The soundtrack is from renowned film composer Cliff Martinez (Drive, Solaris, Only God Forgives, Spring Breakers)
  • Way Home (South Korea) – directed by Oscar-nominated Erik Oh (Brave, Monsters University and the upcoming Pixar films Inside Out and Finding Dory, Oscar-nominated for his latest film The Dam Keeper)
  • The Gift (Chile) – crowd-funded film screened at over 90 festivals and has received numerous animation awards

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About Viewster

Viewster (www.viewster.com) is a worldwide online video service connecting passionate audiences. We are the first stop destination for anime lovers, featuring an ever-growing line up of the latest shows directly from Japan. Our wider catalogue brings the best of specialist shows and movies, with more than ten thousand titles across anime, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy. Viewster is free, supported by advertising and available to stream on desktop, mobile and smart TV apps.

The Viewster Online Film Fest brings millions of visitors together with the creators. Each festival we feature the best up and coming filmmakers and invite our online community to help select the finalists. But we don’t stop there. We believe so much in fan culture, that we have created a global platform for fans to interact with each other, and we invite anime enthusiasts to join our translation community to create subtitles on a professional level. Meet with us – both online and at international conventions throughout the year.

Viewster, and its network of partner sites, serves an 18-24 year old audience of more than 20 million unique users per month across the U.S., U.K., Germany and Australia alone – the ideal advertising platform for all brands looking to bring cool stuff to awesome people.

All entries and voting: http://www.viewster.com
Official Trailer: https://vimeo.com/121808400

For more information, please visit: http://corp.viewster.com.
Find Viewster on www.viewster.com, in iTunes or Google Play

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Craig Elliott

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Craig Elliott, I am a visual development artist and character designer, as well as an illustrator and fine artist
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I only had one job, as a paperboy, before I got a job at Disney. Not a very exiting or crazy job, unless you consider a glass perrier bottle blowing up and cutting my hands up with flying glass exciting… or being unable to carry the papers some Sundays and sitting crying on the driveway at 3 am alone! There was the occasional dog that chased me for several blocks, making me have to come back later on to do the deliveries in that area. That always made customers mad, and they would call to complain about late papers. What can you do? I didn’t want to get eaten alive! These occurrences seem less common in animation for some reason…
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I think Treasure Planet, and Enchanted are some of my favorites. There is something about any project that is a joy though. The challenge of turning a story into a visual is always rewarding no matter what the final outcome, or even if my work is used in the film. I always enjoy shows that require a greater amount of imagination- Treasure Planet definitely qualified in that sense. The movie wasn’t set in a specific place that is real, so anything goes! My mind and energy really get pumping in a situation like that. On Enchanted, Kevin Lima (the Director) asked us to come up with a Disney forest world, but with a twist. It was that twist that had us trying all sorts of creative things to help Kevin find what would satisfy his vision. I think it was my friend Christophe Vacher that thought to suggest we try using the Art Nouveau movement as a springboard. We all took off, working from that starting point. I put together a 30- something page style guide with Art Nouveau cues throughout, and even had a chance to speak with Alphonse Mucha’s Great Granddaughter on the phone at length as part of my research!
How did you become interested in animation?
I think I always was attracted to animation because of it’s limitless possibilities for Continue reading