International Animation Day honors the birth of animation. On October 28, 1892, Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique in Paris showed the first public performance of projected moving images. Association Internationale du Film d’Animation (ASIFA) created International Animation Day in 2002. This is the poster for this year's celebration. It says 60 years because this year also celebrates the 60th anniversary of the creation of ASIFA.
The ASIFA website says that, "ANIMATION is an extraordinary and powerful medium of art, cultural expression and communication. And, as a visual storytelling medium, animation can communicate across cultures without verbal language. It truly is a means for cultural connection."
It's kind of been animation week for me. For robotics, we are submitting essays for a competition about STEM careers. I chose to write about computer animators. We needed to write about someone in that occupation who is an inspiration. I chose the founder of Pixar, Edwin Catmull.
Mr. Leong said I should try and write to him and ask him questions. I sent out emails to a bunch of places that might be able to send him my email. A journalist who wrote a book with him wrote back to me saying she forwarded my email but I didn't hear back.
As a back up, I started emailing other computer animators. Mrs. Mitsuda also emailed someone who is a relative of someone who works in the school office. This person works for DreamWorks and worked on Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. We got a response from this person. And I got a response from a professor at the California Institute for the Arts. I also got a response from a senior vice president at Autodesk, which is the company that makes an animation software called Maya that all the professionals use.
I also managed to track down a question and answer session that Edwin Catmull was going to be doing on Zoom. My mom submitted my questions for me while I was trying watch the session and be in my Hawaiiana class at the same time. He answered my question first!!!
Updated: October 31, 2020
Here's a link to the essay that was submitted.
Comments