KAFI Educators Conference:
Thoughts from our Creative Director

Ellen Besen shares her views on this years theme: Animation in the Global Marketplace. and extends the deadline for Call-For-Papers to December 7th.

First there is the industrial interpretation of this theme with its connections to outsourcing - a phenomenon which hit animation more than 20 years ago as production, particularly in TV series work, went overseas leaving pre and post production in North America. This led to the emergence of a new pre-production line to accommodate the need to communicate great amounts of detailed information to animation crews thousands of miles away... and also lead, very notably, a great dearth of opportunity for North Americans animators to actually animate... this has been alleviated, at least temporarily, by the commercial adoption of digital approaches both 2 and 3D.

The other industrial aspect involves productions which are done all over the world- features funded by 2 countries each providing some of the creative team, with work also sent to teams in other countries. For example, this might mean animation on a Canadian-French co-production parceled out to several studios, some in North America, some in Europe etc.

It's important to keep in mind that neither of these developments are particularly new. They have been around for more than a decade though recently aided and affected by digital technology.

But the global marketplace can also mean the crossing of cultural boundaries - the advent of anime in North America could be an example of this.

And it could also refer to the growing phenomenon of web based animation produced by both amateurs and professionals which potentially taps an instant worldwide audience...certainly many younger people watch way more media on their computer than they do on TV. This has both cultural and industrial implications about the expectations of audiences in the near future.

This leads to questions about the waning of cultural differences - certainly there still are distinct differences in the animation produced by different countries. But is this giving way to a world culture and if so, what are the positive and negative implications of that? How does it affect personal expression? How will it affect the production of commercial animation?

The Educators Conference is a very unique and exciting event that brings educators and industry together to explore these kinds of questions, theories and/or challenges. KAFI welcomes your presentation submission and hopes you will become part of the experience on May 17, 2007. The Call-For-Papers deadline has been extended to December 7th. Check out our website for submission details and the Call-For-Papers on-line form. Please contact us if you have questions.